Random Thoughts

Cerebus (1997) #220-231 by Dave Sim & Gerhard

OK, Rick’s Story.

Guys ended with Rick (Jaka’s ex husband) showing up randomly at Cerebus’ tavern, and Rick’s Story continues on from that. And yes, Rick’s appearance there seems to be “at random”, i.e., guided by god, as is usually the case in Cerebus. Sim’s not very good at manoeuvring his characters around in manner that makes much sense — it all happens because it happens.

Rick comes off as being yet another version of Sim — this time the funny storytelling one…

… that drinks way too much, has lots of female fans (Rick is a writer, of course)…

… and has mystical visions all of the time. Sounds very much like Sim himself, eh?

The dialogue with Alan Moore comes to an end (without any acrimony, which is pretty unusual for these things involving Sim), and Sim lets Moore get the last word. (Except for nothing that he thinks the Christian gospels are “regrettable Judaic corruptions”.)

Rick talks a lot, and he gets on Cerebus’ nerves, and…

… Cerebus has his little revenge by beating him in some game or other. It’s all kinda amiable? That is, Rick’s Story does have conflict, but it’s all kept on a lower level than we’ve seen before in Cerebus.

Rick is having visions constantly, apparently.

And he (amusingly) interprets everything as divine actions. Cerebus tells him (once again) that his arm isn’t broken, but this time he believes him, and thinks that Cerebus has healed him. If Rick is a Sim stand-in, Sim is being rather critical of himself? Gently poking fun of himself?

Sim receives a letter praising him, and he talks about the thought process that went into having Gerhard ink the lettering of a sign at the tavern and how nice it is that somebody noticed it. I did notice it, too — the sign was obviously written by Cerebus, and I just thought that it was a bit out of character for Cerebus to make the effort to write a sign like that, but then again — Cerebus’ character is malleable.

This reminds me of a thing I was thinking about the other day while reading some Cerebus discussion about Cerebus in a comment section. One person was wondering whether Sim’s early seemingly positive female characters had always been meant to be horrible people (as Sim would insist later), or whether Sim just changed his mind. And I’m honestly not sure. Things like this (with the sign) shows that Sim puts thought into things that are difficult to actually pick up on as a reader. So if you have a woman making a nice sandwich, the reader thinks “she’s making a nice sandwich”. While Sim may have been thinking “I’m depicting her with a knife, cutting bread, clearly emasculating men, and in particular with regards to the meanings attributed to bread in the Bible, so what I’m really depicting here is how Feminism is usurping Christianity, see?” *insert nice drawing of nice woman making a sandwich here*

Or he just made up that stuff later, and he was just drawing a nice woman making a nice sandwich. Hard to say.

And:

Even Joanne thinks that Rick might be Dave.

Sim can still bring the funny. Here we have Cerebus trying to suavely wash a window so that Rick and Joanne won’t think he’s spying on them (but he forgot to bring a rag).

Sim was up for “Best Letterer” at many, many Eisner awards.

Hm… these snaps are coming off too yellow. I mean, the newsprint has yellowed, but not this much. Lemme futz with the white balance a bit…

OK, that’s too blue — the pages aren’t this white — but let’s go with this anyway.

And… hoo boy. I hate reading cod King James’s Bible.

Joanne is the largest mystery in Guys/Rick’s Story — what is her deal, anyway? Is the a Cirinist spy?

Rick has had another revelation: Tarim’s real name is “God”.

Sim starts a four part essay: “Mama’s boys”. And it’s pretty interesting, actually! His analysis of the dynamics of being chosen last for sportsball, and how that ties up into super hero comics worship sounds cogent.

I’m never sure whether Sim is trying to make Joanne’s many, many hairdos as ridiculous as possible, or whether Sim just isn’t very good at doing hairdos.

As is usually the case in Cerebus, when things finally happen, they’re a bit on the “well that was abrupt” side: Rick doesn’t give Cerebus a chance to explain anything, but just casts a spell (!?) on him, and then leaves.

And then Dave shows up! What are the odds!

And he is telling Cerebus to leave, because we’re all tired of the tavern by now.

So how does that happen? Yes! Jaka! And as is Sim’s wont, she also seems to drop in — at random, without any planning — at Cerebus’ tavern. See? It’s much easier to make a story if you don’t have to have it make sense — Dave wanted Cerebus to get out of the tavern, so he sent Jaka there. (Or perhaps God did; you never know with Sim.)

And… Dave has turned wine into Coors. Nice touch!

Sim leans really hard into romance movie tropes for the meeting, and I have to admit that it works. These couple issues with Jaka at the end here are really, really cute. Almost makes up for the rather tedious King James bits.

And of course, to heighten the drama, Bear finally comes back. Cerebus had been waiting for him for months? years? And finally when he does, he has to choose between Bear and Jaka.

The choice really is no choice.

So that’s Rick’s Story — one of the shortest Cerebus books. It’s a pretty snappy read, too — the text bits are limited. But is it good? Like Sim, I felt we’d spent too much time at the tavern, but Rick’s Story isn’t as boring as Guys was.

David Groenewegen writes in The Comics Journal #263, page 121:

The strength of agendas are illustrated
in the stories told about Cerebus during
the story. Many are just single lines about
various perceptions of Cerebus the charac-
ter. Others are more substantial because
they show something being written about
Cerebus, while demonstrating him doing
something quite different. This happens
to a certain extent in Going Home, where
E Stop Kennedy interprets all of Cerebus’
actions in ways quite opposed to what hc
is actually doing, but is more visible in
Rick’s Story, in which Rick bases a bible on
Cerebus for no apparently logical reason
(although some ofit seems to be hero wor-
ship, and some revenge for Cerebus’ love
Of Jaka).
This can be read as a critique Of bibles
in general — that they are written by
humans, whose thoughts and prejudices
influence what they are writing, and
which create something quite different to
that which actually occurred.
Interestingly, Rick’s bible actually creates
an environment in which Cerebus can
become a messiah-like figure, despite the
fact chat much of it seems to be a particu-
larly nasty joke at his expense. So it serves
the purposes of moving the story along,
showing the power of words, while simul-
taneously inviting the reader, yet again, to
question what they are told and read.

Bart Beaty writes in The Comics Journal #263, page 118:

Rick’s story
This is When I thought that I should
give it all up. I couldn’t soldier on. I could-
read it any more. If Jakd$ Story was the
pinnacle, this was my personal nadir. I
may never read these issues again, and I
sometimes wonder if I’ll ever read the
series again. Why put myself through it
all? To relive my sense of youthful wonder?
Don’t they have drugs for that?

I get the feeling that people didn’t really like Rick’s Story:

Who else never expected to see Rick again? I’d have to think that most people thought he was gone for good after the events in Jaka’s Story. Honestly, it might have been for the best if he had stayed gone, because this ends up being the most forgettable of all the books so far.

Oh, Sim wanted to point out that he isn’t Rick?

Sim prefaces the book by saying he isn’t Rick and was unsure if this was true or not when began reading this. Because Rick, like Sims, has gotten into this religious interpretation of the things that happen in his life that are annoying to misogynist. But the key difference is that Rick lets go of the bar eventually whereas Sims is still so charmed with his barfly life he consecrated two books to his drinking days.

Heh:

Except that while researching Rick’s Story by reading the Bible and the Koran, Sim realised what he was reading was, in his eyes, the Actual Truth, and was born again to a syncretic and highly individual religion which we’ll all learn more about in later books. But this, obviously, coloured what he’s doing in Rick’s Story – it’s no longer a lifelong atheist parodying religious texts, but a devout new believer in those texts parodying them.

Well, that’s an unusual take:

Melmoth is almost unreadable, but that is ok as you can skip it and go straight to Flight. The next few are hit and miss, with Rick’s Story being the last good book. Best just to stop there.

Is this Dave Sim?

Jeff – That essay was definitely written a) to try and find a positive spin on my mother and b) before my mother retired and both she and my Dad went seriously, alcoholically, “wonky” which made what few positive things I had said about my mother in the essay REALLY REALLY pointless.

The account says “Unknown”… This is in response to the final part of “Mama’s Boys”, which was a pretty weird one: It was all about how perfect his mother was. It didn’t seem to have anything much to do with the previous parts, and it turns out that they had a pretty strained relationship — and both parents were alcoholics? (This is if “Unknown” is Sim, which seems to be the case from the responses, but I dunno.)

Right:

This is the volume that changed Dave’s life fairly drastically. As I recall, he had mostly put his partying days behind him, but was still what he would call an athiest and fornicator. Rick’s Story was originally meant to be a parody of the bible, and indeed, it still is, especially in the context of the ridiculous origins of religion (I wonder if Jesus was also 3 feet tall and gray). In doing research for the text sections of the book, Dave was reading the bible itself to understand its tone, and in doing so, came away with the belief that the bible really is the word of god. His personal religion has since come to combine Judaism and Islam, but at the time he was apparently rocked pretty hard by Christianity, and that set him on the path that he’s on now—a pretty religiously dedicated fellow who prays multiple times a day and fasts on (I think) Sundays.

And I note that this is the final blog post from this guy’s Cerebus Re-Read — about a decade ago, there was a spate of blogs about people re-reading Cerebus, and most of them stopped way before reaching the end. That almost happened with this blog series, too, I guess. :-/

OK, only four more blog posts to go for me, and I’m home free.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Cerebus (1995) #201-219 by Dave Sim & Gerhard

In this blog series, we’ve kinda sorta reached new territory for me. As a teenager, I read the first 50 issues many times — let’s say er seven times. And then I read the issues up to about #80 a handful of times. And now I’ve read the issues between #80 and #200 three times in total. (I did a re-read of all the issues up until #200 in 1995, because I bought the Mothers & Daughters issues in non-sequential order on account of me being a poor student.)

But #201 to #300 — I’ve only read these issues once, as they were published. And some I didn’t so much read as skim, as I’d already grown pretty tired of it all. So I haven’t looked at these issues in 20-30 years, and I remember virtually nothing of what happens in them, except… er… I think the Three Stooges show up at one point? And Todd McFarlane leads a revolution? And then there’s bible stuff, and then Cerebus dies and goes to hell.

Ooops spoilers.

Well, OK, I remembered more than I thought I did? But I don’t remember what’s happening in Guys at all, so despite being less than enthused by Cerebus now, I’m rather looking forward to reading these issues.

I do remember there being discussions on alt.comics at the time about whether Sim really had been serious about Cerebus ending with #200 after all, because Sim tied up all the loose ends, and explained just about everything that anybody had ever wondered about Estarcion during Mothers & Daughters. (As well as killing off a number of central characters, and removing others from the playing field.) So the talk was that the last third of Cerebus was an epilogue where nothing much happens — it’d be Sim’s way of showing what happens after a “The End” in a traditional novel. I remember not being very taken with that theory, but we’ll see…

The first issue of this carries on the “rah rah self publishers” thing that so dominated the last quarter of the Mothers & Daughters comics.

OK, that thing ended with Dave sending Cerebus back to Estarcion, and he now seems to be ensconced in a rural tavern. Kinda like what was happening in Eddie Campbell’s Bacchus at the time?

Eep! I swear, when I had that thought, I didn’t remember that Bacchus was in this, too. And… I had also repressed that Sim was going to feature his most dialect heavy characters (Prince Mick and The Beatles) in this, too. I vaguely remember back then being exasperated, because some of these speech balloons are rather tedious to try to work out. But if you read them out loud, it’s OK. Still, not my favourite way to read comics.

The Beatles are nice matriarchal boys while the Rolling Stones boys are real rebels, see? See?

Well, that’s an efficient infodump, eh?

Sim continues the memoir he started back in issue #200…

And we get a preview of some self published comic, so things are basically as usual, ey?

Friends of Jilly… did Sim have a beef with Friends of Lulu, which was getting started around the time?

Then! With the second issue of Guys, Sim announces that he’s going to stop his campaigning for various comics issues (where “various” is defined as “self publishing”) and just concentrate on doing the comics. Like his peers. What he’s not saying, though, is that around this time, most of the self publishers stopped. Self publishing, that is — most of the most popular ones went and signed up with Image, Dark Horse, Sirius or the like, so I guess the general air of depression is easy to explain.

Bear is angry at Cerebus — for good reasons.

Sim drops the letters pages, and also drops the previews. He says that it’s because of reasons, but this also means that the page count drops from the previous norms of 40-48 pages to 24 pages. Which has to help with the printing bills. He doesn’t mention what the circulation is at this point: It had dropped to 15K at the end of Melmoth, and then gone up to 25K during the early, fun parts of Mothers & Daughters. Meanwhile, the comics market had undergone another meltdown, and I don’t think many people were enthused by the last half of Mothers & Daughters, so I’m curious what the circulation was now…

Oh yeah, I didn’t really mention what Guys is about: It’s about Cerebus being exiled to a tavern (by Cirin), and he spends his time being drunk and talking to Bear (his only friend) and other people at the tavern. And passing out drunk a lot, and being incoherent. I’m guessing Sim had a lot of first hand experiences with being a black-out drunk?

Sim manages to squeeze in a comics convention in the tavern while Cerebus is semi conscious. Here we get some dialogue from Daniel Clowes, presumably (based on the lettering). “Something worthy of being next to my work.”

Cerebus isn’t happy.

Sim writes a mystifying er essay to Friends of Lulu, asking them to… er… allow men to be members? And to stand by the first amendment? It’s a bizarre letter, anyway.

For the first time in Cerebus (I think!), Sim starts the story on the inside front cover. I guess these bits are done in a way that doesn’t necessitate including them in the reprint books — it’d be pretty awkward…

Lots of people involved in self publishing turns up for a few pages each. Here’s Rick Veitch, looking dreamy.

Sim’s memoirs continue, but he says that he has some difficulties with the entire thins… and “Next: Final Chapter” — that doesn’t happen.

That’s a lovely drawing. Did Gerhard do it all? Hm… I’m guessing Sim did the birds, at least — they look like Sim birds. But I’m not sure at all. The wall looks very Gerhardian.

Friends of Lulu write back and say “eh? no”.

And then Sim wants to include something in their newsletter as an exchange for carrying something from Friends of Lulu in Cerebus, and their response is, and I paraphrase exactly: “Fuck off, asshole”.

No, we’re not spared text pieces in Guys, either. This guy seems particularly irrelevant, but I guess Sim wanted to show that there was some resistance to Cirin in the wider populace…

After having hurt Bear’s feelings one to many times, Cerebus decides to stop drinking…

… and then Cerebus has to suffer being the sober guy in a room full of drunk guys. The horror. The horror.

Sim is devoid of feelings, as always.

Cerebus’ sobriety is shattered when he becomes too horny.

In Estarcion, they had periodicals (like pulps), but Don Simpson arrives with a new invention: Comic books! Cerebus is an immediate fan.

Oh, I didn’t know about that one. I guess sales picked up again, and Sim had the first four issues of Guys collected?

The others in the tavern aren’t fans of Wanker Man, the new comic book, and Cerebus throws a hissy fit, and…

… Bear reads him the riot act. And… it’s not that this seems out of character for Bear, exactly, or that it’s not… “interesting”… but god, it’s pretty tedious, isn’t it? I think Guys is the first Cerebus book where I’m just kinda bored? Nothing much happens, and there aren’t really many interesting characters, and most of the jokes fall flat.

The Comics Journal sure takes up a lot of mind space in Sim’s head…

On some of the issues, the action starts on the cover…

… and continues over the inside front cover. But again, I guess these are designed to work so that they can be elided in the reprint books.

We do get some letters pages, and sometimes the page count creeps up to 32 again, but Cerebus is a lot more… quiet? than it used to be, filled with different voices as it were.

Bear’s ex returns, and Bear turns to mush. His girlfriend seems nice?

Which reminds me of this interview I found while doing research yesterday:

O: Much of your commentary on feminism has centered on how inherently illogical, irrational, and emotional women are. At the same time, Cerebus, your central male character, seems more emotional, irrational, and illogical than just about anyone in the series. Is that because he’s a hermaphrodite, and has female elements? Or because he allows himself to be controlled by women? Or is there more to it?

DS: Well, yes, each of those aspects figure into it. Like in Guys, when Bear finally blows up at him and says it’s like he’s… part chick… or something. Married guys, boyfriends, newly divorced guys, and guys—like Cerebus—who are permanently stuck on a chick that they might never even have slept with, or they might have broken up with 10 years before, are like that. Part chick. That was my joke with Bear. He had broken up with Ziggy long enough ago that he could see clearly again, and could come up with the observation that Cerebus was part chick. But as soon as Ziggy came back, POW. Bye-bye Bear. And, when he turns up again after their next inevitable breakup, he’s 50 pounds overweight and his hair has turned white. I finally stopped hanging around with guys when I realized that they were all just waiting for the next one to come along and stick an ice-pick in their brain.

So Sim eventually discovered that guys were kinda lame, too — not just women. I guess Guys is somewhat autobiographical?

Cerebus gets in touch with his emotions — so he’s really changed by his encounter with Dave…

Still, his character changes at the drop of a hat. Not a lot happens in Guys, but on this page, Cerebus is back to being hyper effective and perceptive, and challenges Cirin directly. It’s not really that convincing, storytelling wise, but it’s at least… something.

And it is fun when Joanne shows up, and Cerebus earnestly tries to explain that they’re all fictional and stuff.

*gasp*

As always, some sequences are somewhat inscrutable. Cerebus is throwing a piece of chalk, and… uhm… is he allergic to chalk or something?

Sim starts a long correspondence with Alan Moore. From Hell had just wrapped, so I guess Moore had some time on his hands.

Sim runs excerpts from different mid century modern male novelists on the inside front covers — but he only says in the succeeding issue who he’s quoting. Why not? But I guess this means that he’s giving himself an education in what’s considered “good literature” to see who he’s going to do next and try to get some attention from The New York Times or something. So he’s reading Mailer, Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc etc::

Let’s take Fantagraphics as an example. What do they bring to the table that attracts my interest? This is difficult to condense, but basically, Gary and Kim have worked very hard to make Fantagraphics and all of its material “New York Times-worthy” and they’ve been very successful. Very successful, which is no small trick. So, I look at my catalogue and I go, “What have I got that’s New York Times-worthy?” My best guess would be Form & Void, the Hemingway book, or Going Home, the Fitzgerald book.

On the other hand, perhaps this occurred to him only afterwards… but the grumblings about Daniel Clowes in these issues seem to indicate otherwise.

I have to admit it: I didn’t real the Alan Moore/Dave Sim letters this time around, either. Sorry!

OK, back to Guys: Cerebus has a bad dream and tells Joanne to get out.

And Rick, Jaka’s ex husband, shows up, and Guys ends.

I guess Guys functions like Melmoth — it gives the reader a breather between more momentous storylines. But at 19 issues, it’s a bit of a slog: Sim’s insights into the World Of Guys aren’t that interesting, and we only get a smattering of interesting things about Estarcion. And especially ending the book on this note feels like a depressed move.

The Comics Journal #192, page 82:

Does being brought face tofate with all these
turns change the character at all?
SIM: eah, I think it does. The evidence in the early
parts of Guys would indicate that he’s made progress
just in being polite, “Please and thank you.” A lot of
people — myself included — get to a point in their
lives where it is well worth taking a refresher course in
“please and thank you” as a first on the road back
to real progress. Drunk, Ofcourse, erebus is a differ-
ent fella. That would indicate he’s using alcohol to
escape what he’s leamed about “please and thankyou.”
When the alcohol is free and ids really all there is to do
[laughs] that can make for quite an impediment.
Which is what I intended it to be.

The Comics Journal #192, page 84:

SAJRGEON: Do you get reaction from your fellow profes-
sionals ? Doyou seek it out at alluhen you complete a major
uvrk?
Slk No, I don’t really seek it out. There are social
occasions and things like that. [laughs] Creators have
great skills at avoiding saying anything bad on social
occasions. “Saw Y)ur last issue. “What did you think?”
“It was interesting.” The ones I’ve talked to love Guys.
n ey admired the guts behind doing Reads and [laughs]
the relief Of Minds. “Finally, an issue I won’t have to
fight about over the dinner table.” Everyone loves to
laugh, though, so Guys tends to generate real affection.
I do get Gerhard’s reaction just by watching him read
the pages and what he’ll say — or not say— after. But
mostly reaction is, naturally enough, an after-the-fact
curiosity. I know what I think Of it. I put it on the page
so that, in as much as I’m capable Of doing that, it
reflects what I wanted it to reflect. And then after that
comes the reaction. And that can be a comment from
somebody, it can be a re&iew, it can be a letter. any of
those kinds ofthings. And those all tend to, for me, just
stay in the mental box tucked over in the corner. Good,
bad, or indifferent, it’s just an item ofcuriosity. “What
are people going to think of this?” is a natural question
when you’re working on something. And then six
months later, you find out. “Oh, tha/s what they made
of it.” And thaes very different from “Did this accom-
plish what I wanted it to.”

The Comics Journal #192, page 89:

SAnGEON: Has your drinking informed the portrayal Of
drinking in Cerebus?
SIN: Oh, definitely. The nature of social activity that
surrounds drinking, the effect that drinking has on
that social activity, ids a fascinating subject to me. I’m
not sure drinking could be viewed as Guys’ primary
theme, but it is certainly one of the themes of Guys.
Each theme lye introduced into the various volumes
has represented a large societal force with a multi-
layered examination of it: “Whaes funny about it?
What’s tragic about it? What’s the good side and
whaes the bad side of this double edged sword?”
Whether it’s love or religion or politics or death or any
of those things or motherhood, there’s always a good
side and a bad side. It’s, “Isn’t this interesting, isn’t this
something that is certainly worth the treatment?”
SAJAGEON: Cerebus’ overdrinking bar aluuys been a big
comedic you, particularly early on.
Yeah, yeah; that’s always been there — as it has
always been there in our culture. We’ve just come
through 20 years of regressive political correctness so
that somebody like Foster Brooks who did a really
good drunk character or the foundation of Dean
Martin’s stand-up act, all of those things became “Oh,
thaes not funny” and i€s like, “Fuck you, I think it’s
funny.” I like it; it’s interesting doing something that
is at odds with 1990s society. les interesting in devel-
oping it in Guys because obviously I’m writing dialogue
and the first requirement is, “Okay, think of the guys
thatyou know, how would they say this? Ifit’s a specific
character like Harrison Starkey, okay, what are the
exact vocals rhythms or what not?” It’s only after I get
it all in place and it satisfies my critical faculties: “Yes.
this is the way guys talk. This is accurate.” Only at that
point do I look at it relative to what is allowed and what
isn’t allowed in the 1990s. And then “Whoa!” [laughs]
“People just don’t say stuff like this anymore.” Well,
yeah, they do. They just don’t Say it in front ofwomen
or on television.

OK, over to reviews on the web:

Maybe it’s the black & white art, but there are too many moments where I found myself bored.

Heh:

I know Dave meant the living situation depicted in this book to be negative, but I can’t help but read it thinking, “not too shabby.” Who wouldn’t want to live their days in leisure, with no employment obligations, and unlimited free time to socialize, read, play games, and get hammered? I guess it says something about my nature that I reacted this way—I hate obligation and live for absolute freedom from time. I’ll never get it, of course, which is why this book appeals to me. Life, eh?

Heh:

It’s all beautifully told, low-stakes stuff and Sim doubtless had a lot of fun kicking back after the fireworks (on-and off-page) of Mothers & Daughters. But he also had a higher concept for the storyline. Guys is drawn from a boozy stretch he spent as a single regular in a Candadian pub, and he claimed he wanted it to reflect how men really are when they’re on their own, away from female influence, shootin’ the shit, followin’ the bro code, doing (as Bear puts it) “guy shit” instead of “chick shit”.

And if so, man alive, Dave Sim needed better friends.

Sure:

Getting back to the artwork on display… The shot at Dan Clowes always annoyed me. Maybe Dave lumps everyone published by Fantagraphics together as an evil Grothian horde of snide pretentiousness, but while Gary actually has called people “meretricious philistines” in print, I really can’t imagine Clowes speaking like that.

This is the most insightful thing I’ve read about Guys:

Maybe it’s different in North America, maybe I don’t know the right sort of manly men, but the action in Guys is unrecognisable to me. It’s hard to enjoy the book in the bros-forever sense Sim apparently wants because not one interesting conversation happens, not one good joke is told. Mostly what we get is issue after issue of guys being dickheads to one another and laughing about it afterwards. He should have called it BANTZ.

Exactly.

Anyway: Tomorrow is Rick’s Story, I guess, and I remember that starting off well enough, and then turning to zzz-dom. We’ll see.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Cerebus (1994) #187-200 by Dave Sim & Gerhard

In today’s sermon, we’re doing the final book of Mothers & Daughters — “Minds”. And at 14 issues, it’s the longest book, but oddly enough, the most focused one.

Is that Sim? Or perhaps Astoria? Nah, she has a stronger jaw line, and she’d never wear that sort of earring.

This book could have been called Aaardvaaaarks… in Spaaaace, because it’s Yet Another Ascension, but this time it’s both Cirin and Cerebus who travel into space.

Cirin seems very knowledgeable about what’s going on, and Cerebus (despite having done this kind of thing before) is clueless as usual.

The reactions to “Reads” — where Sim explicated on depth that women are (and I paraphrase slightly) “doo doo heads” — start arriving in full. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, many of the readers weren’t really convinced by Sim’s arguments.

(One point here — Sim says that he’d drafted the text pages a few years earlier. And in a later letter column he says that he was a virtual recluse from 89-92, seldom leaving his neighbourhood — which brings certain visions of how it was written to mind…)

But I get the feeling that Sim is a bit distracted during these issues. Not only because of the “Reads” fallout, but because the US comics market was going through changes.

Not only was Sim trying (and succeeding) in getting a self publishing movement off the ground, but distributors were behaving oddly (and soon there’d be a serious implosion, leaving only a single distributor standing). So here he’s organising a travelling self publishing … festival? Centred around himself and Gerhard visiting cities, and inviting other self publishers to join him. It’s not clear how much of a cynical move this was (later pronouncements that he was using other self publisher as cannon fodder and the like can be take with some grains of salt, I think).

Oh yeah, Cerebus and Cirin fight a lot.

Fortunately Sim doesn’t move whatever he’s nattering on about here into the story pages of Cerebus, but he probably didn’t have room, anyway, since he’s very strict about sticking to the 20 story pages per issue format. (He varies the size of the issues a lot, though — I think the largest one in this batch is 48 pages long.)

And that’s because of the letters and essays and speeches, but also because of the previews. Remember Paul Pope? Everybody were super excited about him for about half a year (me included), and then not so much. Not just because his comics stopped being as interesting, but also because of his weirdo politics. It’s like Pope managed to speed run the Dave Sim Career Arc in a couple years.

Hey! I don’t have that book! Aargh. I mean, this is supposed to be a complete blog series about Renegade Press and Aardvark Vanaheim’s comics… OK, just bought it from ebay now, so I guess I’ll talk about it (out of sequence) in a couple weeks.

Sim doesn’t just spend a lot of attention on comics industry things — he starts running ads for the Cerebus World Tour on the front cover, also including covers from participating artists. That’s pretty unique.

And… he starts putting the comics industry essays at the start of the issues, which is perhaps going a bit overboard. That has to hurt sales, right? People picking up a random issue in a comics store would be even more befuddled than usual.

Also note how he’s expanded the credits in the left hand column — he’s being very explicit about who’s doing what, and he’s even started to list Diana Schutz as the proffreader; a job she’d been doing for many years.

Oh yeah, there’s a Cerebus storyline happening here in between all the essays, isn’t there? Yes, and it has some really great artwork, and very interesting storytelling choices… occasionally. There’s like a half a dozen striking sequences (like this one, where we see (well, we don’t see Cerebus) Cerebus as a child, running around in the garden with a kitchen fork, imagining himself conquering a city). It’s good stuff.

In the previous books, we’d gotten a lot of infodumps about What’s Really Happening in Cerebus’ world, but there’s less of that here. But we do learn that it seems like people there don’t see Cerebus as we do — they see him as an oddlooking human, and not as an aardvark.

The previews continue, with more or less known people. Here’s Stephen Blue.

Heh heh — that sounds like the genuine way religious people talk about their gods in their heads.

Looks like a real festival kinda thing.

Heh heh.

It seems like Sim was really successful at getting people all het up about getting rid of publishers. The US direct market was (for a bright, shiny moment) a place where that really could happen — because comics books are sold non-returnable, and the distributors would carry everything, you could feasibly do it all yourself (if by “yourself” you mean “have a girl/boyfriend that does the work for you”) and have a viable way to make a living. It didn’t really work out well for most of them, but a lot of interesting books were published during these years…

… including Eddie Campbell’s Bacchus. And up to the left we see the amazing Cerebus/Bacchus crossover! Whoho!

And finally…

… the “Dave” character appears explicitly. He’s Cerebus’ creator, and he wants to have a serious talk with Cerebus.

Unfortunately, he’s Sim’s most boring creation — he blathers on in a way that makes Suentus Po seem like a master of wit. I wonder why Sim kept the driest of the history lessons for the Dave character…

Seth writes in to roll his eyes at Sim, and Sim answers at a totally normal length.

There aren’t that many pages like this in Cerebus, which is perhaps a bit surprising? I mean, Sim spends so much time doing previews and shows, but none of these kinds of things (which might perhaps be more effective at selling books).

Those lovable scamps over at The Comics Journal take out an ad in Cerebus.

What Dave has to tell Cerebus is mostly about how Cirinism was started, and how it’s such a stable form of governance that it’ll never be toppled. I don’t quite remember what happens after issue #200 — doesn’t Cerebus finally conquer everything?

I guess we’ll find out over the next week or some… I may well misremember what happens in the last 100 issues.

But there are some revelations here — like how Cirin isn’t Cirin.

Sim gets into more totally normal things, like telling the distributors who they should hire and stuff.

It’s wartime! The distributors are in a flux, and Marvel starts self distributing, disrupting everything!

Cerebus, of course, wants to know why he can’t just be with Jaka.

Hey! Charles Vess!

And Dave shows Cerebus what would happen if he were to change their characters enough to get them together — it never ends happily, because Cerebus is who Cerebus is. Which is… somewhat risible, because Cerebus shifts around as Sim needs him to: Sometimes he’s super duper hyper competent and things are moving, but then Sim doesn’t know how plot further from that, so then suddenly Cerebus is a moron. But Dave isn’t necessarily Sim, so the question is whether this all makes sense and/or is compelling within the comic book? And… nope. The entire plot line of Mothers & Daughters is yet another retread, where we’re returned to where we were before we started, and it’s getting pretty tedious by this point.

But you do feel that Sim’s annoyance with the Cerebus character is genuine. (Also see: “Projection”.)

(Speaking of dictionaries, Sim’s doesn’t have “a recurring element” as one of the definitions, apparently.)

And so “Minds” end, and… eh. It didn’t feel like Sim’s heart was in it. It’s perhaps not the worst book in Mothers & Daughters, but it’s a runner up.

But there’s an epilogue in #200! Heh heh.

Is that Gerhard? It’d make more sense if it were Sim, but it looks nothing like Sim.

And… Sim starts writing a memoir?

Well, what can I say about Mothers & Daughters as a whole? “Flight” is pretty exciting. In “Women”, the plot doesn’t move forward, and instead Sim spends most of his time continuing to kill off his “fantasy” characters. Both books are really good reads, though — propulsive and we get to know a lot about Estarcion (and it’s interesting stuff to boot). “Reads” is a bore. And “Minds” is a wet fart.

It’s pretty much how all of Cerebus books go: They start off being really exciting, and then they run out of steam before returning us to some status quo.

Hero Illustrated #24, page 16:

THE INDEPENDENCE
TOUR ROLLS ON
Diminished turnout in Columbus and
Seattle can’t dampen Spirits
The Spirits of
Independence Tour rolls
on: after its first show in
Austin, TX, in mid-
February (an event
Hepcats publisher/cre-
ator Martin Wagner
dubbed “an anti-conven-
tion”), the Tour recently
stopped in Columbus,
OH and Seattle, WA.
According to all
reports, nearly 200
people came to the
Columbus show (held on
March 12) to see small-
press creators and self-
publishers, including
Dave Sim (publisher of
Cerebus and founder of
the Spirits Tour),
Gerhard, Stephen
Bissette ( Tyrant), Don
Simpson (Don
Simpson’s Bizarre
Heroes), Steve Conley
(Avant Guard) and con-
vention host Paul Pope
“l was really happy with
how many people
showed up,” Hayes said.
“It has to do with the way
I’ve seen Seattle cons go.
Generally, if there’s no
Marvel or DC interest run-
ning through the room,
not [many] people show
up. This was an impres-
Sive thing, and as far as
I’m concerned it did what
it was supposed to do:
inform people and ..
show ‘ern there’s more of
a world of independents
than you would be led to
believe.”
Sim noted that the pay-
ing attendance was down
from the initial Austin
show: “We could virtually
disappear by Kitchener
[Ontario, Canada] the
final stop of the tour,” he
laughed, “but I don’t think
that’s going to happen.
What was interesting is
(THB). Columbus’ Central City
Comics acted as the “retailer” for
the stop.

Bart Beaty writes in The Comics Journal #263, page 117:

Minds
I read Cerebus every month
while I was in grad school, which
started for me about the time that
Minds was published. After mov-
ing to Montreal I quickly found
the best (English) comic-book
store in the city (the now sadly
departed Nebula Books), and
picked up an issue a month for
the next six years.
My time in graduate school
was a period of rebirth for my
interest in comics. Despite the
fact (or because of the fact?) that
few of my fellow students took
notice of the form, I dove back in
head first. This was the early
“boom” period, and most
of what I saw left me cold. A few
streets over, however, French
bookstores were offering the
whole history of Franco-Belgian
comics, and within a few years I
stumbled across the emerging
French small-press. My interest in
American comics waxed and
waned, but Cerebus remained a
constant.
In my classes I increasingly
took to using comics as examples
of just about any point that I
wanted to make about mod-
ernism, post-modern ism, and
every u ism” in between. In the
end, I wrote my Masters thesis (in
part) about Classics Illustrated,
and my PhD dissertation was
about Fredric Wertham. My
interest in these subjects derived
from the ongoing connection to
the fortn that I felt as a Cerebus
reader. Not only had this comic
kept me within this obscure sub-
culture, but now it was expanding
to shape the direction Of my
scholarly and professional career.
I once thought that there
might be a good dissertation in
the pages Of Cereous, but now I’m
not sure. I still find myself won-
dering if Sim would grant the
rights to reproduce images from
his work to an academic press.

Tom Spurgeon writes in The Comics Journal #179, page 129:

I admire the work of Dave Sim and Chester Brown.
But as comics, the kind you buy at the comic Store
to take home and read, Cerebus and Undenvater are
busts.
Tne recent addition
of Spirits Of Indepen-
dence tour dates to
the cover of Cerebus
was the symbolic
final nail in the cof-
fin for that comic’s
transition from Cere-
bus to The Dave Sim
Show starring Cembus,
Editorials now leap
off the inside front
cover and push the
comics back three Or
four pages. Add the
space for formal edi-
torials to that set aside for letters, transcripts, and
previews, and editorial content dominates the
magazine. I don’t presume to tell Sim what to pub-
1ish in his magazine; indeed, I envy the circulation
he enjoys with his forum. But I can’t help thinking
the serialized Cerebus chapters are the carrot Of-
fered the weekly comics shopper so they’ll enter
into Dave’S World. At worst, this may be the alter-
native comics’ version of the foil-embossed cover,
pandering to the desires of Cerebus fans to remain
up-to-date on the latest story in order to get them to
buy something which is at heart completely differ-
eat. At best, it’s an unbalanced read.

The Comics Journal #192, page 82:

SAJRGEON: While #186 seems to be a big moment of
transformationforyou and (potentially) your readersbi?,
it doem’t seem that Cerebus’ comes until the last book m
Mothers and Daughters. What exactly is the transfor-
mative moment that brings about the reflective moment in
Minds? Tbefigbt with Cirin? The loss ofJaka? Meeting
•Dave?’
All three. All three and the accumulation of his
experiences up to that point, some ofwhich registered
at a conscious level and some at the unconscious level.
How do you think your life should end, given who you
are and what you’ve done? What do you think you
deserve? It’s a valid question for anyone to ask them-
selves, in my view.
Does being brought face tofate with all these
turns change the character at all?
SIM: eah, I think it does. The evidence in the early
parts of Guys would indicate that he’s made progress
just in being polite, “Please and thank you.” A lot of
people — myself included — get to a point in their
lives where it is well worth taking a refresher course in
“please and thank you” as a first on the road back
to real progress. Drunk, Ofcourse, erebus is a differ-
ent fella. That would indicate he’s using alcohol to
escape what he’s leamed about “please and thankyou.”
When the alcohol is free and ids really all there is to do
[laughs] that can make for quite an impediment.
Which is what I intended it to be.
SNAGEON: In one ofourprevious sessions, you talkedabout
being surprised (andlaughingyour ass of) that all Cerebus
•wanted to knou about was
Yes. A great moment. One ofthose times when I
know that the 18 years of hard work was worth it.
SAJRGEON: How does this view ofmissedopportunities and
(perhaps) wrong turns work with your belief in
synchronicity? A lot of what Cerebus is told happened to
him as a child has echoes in what ends up happening, but
the point Of What tells him is that he missed some
major opportunities. These Seem mutually exclusive to me.
I don’t think you get disconnected from the
intricate web in which we all finction. If you miss an
opportunity, you will get echoes ofthe missed oppor-
tunity. Rick Veitch alluded to the same thing at the
end of The One — the rousing orgasmic conclusion
which is “just a bit Off One Ofmy fivorite jokes is the
guy dressed as Napoleon bursting into the psychiatrises
offce and saying “Doctor! You must help me! I think
I’m Jesus Christ. ” The doctor looks him up and down
and says, “But you’re dressed like Napoleon.” And the
guy says, “You don’t understand — I am Napleon —
but I think I’m Jesus Christ.” Cerebus was convinced
from an early age that he was destined for greatness.
And he achieved greatness of a kind — a so-so prime
minister who didn’t accomplish anything, a so-so pope
who didn’t accomplish anything. Political leaders tend
to have charmed lives and what impediments there are
in their lives tend to be temporary setbacks or minor
impediments that can be gotten rid Of. Most of them
have a sense of destiny that gets Rilfilled when they
reach that highest omce — prime minister or presi-
dent. At that point we all get to watch the offce
magnifr the flaws they didn’ t correct in themselves on
the way to their predestined summit. It makes great
theater.

Wizard Magazine #52, page 110:

AARDVARK-VANAHEIM A 300-issue plan might
sound pretty darn ambitious, but hey, when you’re on #200, it’s not
that big a deal. No, no, wait. Itis a big deal, but the whole 300 thing
is kinda… Aw, skip it. You know what we mean.
Considered the Rock of Gibraltar of the small press, Dave Sim’s
Cerebus is experiencing a rather drastic change in its status quo (as
you can probably tell with the art to the right of this). Yes, the short
ill-tempered aardvark known as Cerebus loses an eye. (Y ‘know,
that’s gotta hurt really, really, really, reeeeeally bad.)
Cerebus #200 ends the current Cerebus storyline titled “Minds,” and
also serves as the conclusion of the giant 50-issue “Mothers & Daugh-
ters” opus, as well as a journey of self-discovery for Cerebus. Sim says
of the issue, “I’m not sure if it’s going to represent a change in his char-
acter. We’ll have to wait for the last 100 issues to find that out. As
Cerebus’ creator, I’m certainly giving it the old college try to find some
sort of spark of life underneath that gray, obnoxious exterior, and see
if he can’t become a better character for it.”
This gala issue leads into the next Cerebus opus, titled “Guys,” and
sets up the rest of the Cerebus saga for the last 100 issues. (Geez, didn’t
it seem like the ha16Nay point, #150, just passed? We’re gettin’ old, man.)
—Big Picks written by Craig Shutt

Right:

I wish the exposition of the Serna/Cirin backstory had not come as a Deux Ex Machina moment in this book. “Dave” telling Cerebus this information feels to me a bit like grasping straws – “What do I fill the issue with now?” or alternately, “I don’t want any of the backstory I made up for the novel that no one may ever see going to waste – howabout inserting a little into the current issue?”. So we are treated to a great deal more exposition about how much of what Cerebus has experienced in the preceding issues fits into his life

Hm…:

I was really pissed off by this book the first time around. Thought the ending of the Mothers and Daughters saga was an incredible cop-out, that Dave had run out of good ideas and the rest of the run would be dull as hell. Having already read 60+ issues after this book, I can see it a bit differently now. It seems necessary for the being behind the whole Ascention to be… but that would be telling. It makes sense. Kind of takes some of the fun out of the presumed naivete of the series, but it had to be done.

Uhm…:

Minds puts the last nail in the coffin of role-playing, eliminating the need for the Viktor Davis proxy by having Dave reveal himself, as himself, to Cerebus. He freely speaks to Cerebus as Cerebus’ creator and in doing so sets the stage for Sim to understand his own relationship to God. Issue #200 was released in 1995. Sim leaves behind atheism for monotheism a few years later in 1998 (I think). It is almost like Sim forces God to reckon with Sim in the same way Sim forced his audience to cleave to him in Reads. Ballsy.

No, Sim says he believes in God during Minds.

Anyways! Hotcha! 23-skidoo, gramps! I’m outta here. Tomorrow: Guys.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Cerebus (1993) #175-186 by Dave Sim & Gerhard

This blog post covers the third Mothers & Daughters book — “Reads”. The first issue here says that it’s going to run for 14 issues, but that’s revised down. I’m not sure whether it’s just a typo here, or whether Sim changed his mind.

“Reads” is a bit of a hodge podge. The first half of “Reads” is dominated by the story of Victor Reid (a name based on Sim’s middle name and his mother’s maiden name), and it’s told in prose. It takes up to 14 pages per issue, which doesn’t leave a lot for the Cerebus story (since we only get 20 story pages per issue).

And the Victor Reid story doesn’t really seem to have much to do with anything. It’s about a writer working in a publishing industry which seems pretty much identical to the American comic business — only producing pulp fiction pamphlets instead of comics. Since Sim (over the preceding year) had gotten really into self publishing, and was travelling around the country extolling the wonders of doing it yourself, it all seems more than a bit like Sim’s day-to-day travails is, once again, taking over Cerebus. And Sim writes in the introduction that he’s already written all the Victor Reid bits before he’s even started drawing the issues, so it means that he’s giving himself and Gerhard a bit of a holiday: Instead of writing and drawing 20 pages per month, he only has to do a handful of pages.

As usual with Sim’s prose, it’s leaden and smarmy.

The text is replete with references to current figures in publishing, and it’s basically about how publishers are bastards, and you shouldn’t deal with them. I think that’s a familiar refrain…

But! There’s more pages left after the tedious Victor Reid bits! What’s happening with Cerebus and people? Well, this.

The issues continue to feature a lot of previews and stuff from other self publishing artists. Here we have a ditty from Colin Upton about a guy that’s so brow-beaten by hip women that he turns into a Nazi or something.

That’s a nice Colleen Doran pic. (She doesn’t smoke or drink.)

The number of issues for “Reads” has been corrected, see?

The Victor Reid text isn’t just about how awful DC Comics is — it also takes a detour into Truman Capote land (I read that unfinished book a few months ago; it’s not very good, either), but it’s pretty unresolved.

In Cerebus land, Suentus Po explains to everybody what’s going on and stuff.

And the lads are in the UK.

Editors are so evil! So evil!

Nina Paley shows up for a few pages…

Heh heh. Sim is so good at these scenes…

See? It’s fantastic.

Wow.

And so the Victor Reid saga comes to a conclusion — in the middle of “Reads”. He suffers the ultimate indignity: Having become rich and famous, with a wife and child, he’s producing works that are a bit on the naff side.

So now what?

Oh yeah, Sim continues his quest to kill off all of the “fantasy” characters.

Sim continues to handle mild criticism in a reasonable manner.

Sim is so taken with Rick Veitch’s new self published book that he runs pages from Rare Bit Fiends three issues in a row.

Once Astoria and Suentus Po leave, Cirin and Cerebus get into it, and this drawn-out fight continues for the rest of “Reads”. It varies how many pages are dedicated to the fight, but it’s pretty epic.

But then… Is that Sim? IT IS

Or Viktor Davis, as the character is called. (Davis is also a family name.) This text has nothing to do with anything, either… at least not in the beginning. It’s a rambling, tedious text.

Sim is now also an expert in epidemiology, I’m sure you’re relieved to learn.

And Sim continues to travel the word, spreading the gospel of Selling The Comic Books.

*gasp* Collectors take note! The first appearance of the new Cerebus design! I.e., with only one ear!

Sure, sure.

And then… Sim reveals that Cerebus will end with #200, and not go on to #300!

Just kidding!

But the thing to note here is what effect Sim imagines this would have on the reader — the world being torn asunder, depression spreading throughout the realm. And not “well, that’s a something. Anyway. What’s for dinner?”

And then! Just when you think there’s been a sufficient number of ascensions, another one happens!

Yes, yes… writing a letter with mild criticism to a comic book is just the same as going to somebody’s house and then start slagging off their furniture. It’s exactly the same thing. ⭐⭐⭐ logic.

What’s the word for when you’re so caught up in your own emotions that you don’t even realise that they’re emotions any more?

Steven Bissette gets two issues of Tyrant previews.

And so the Cerebus bits end…

… and here half of Cerebus’ audience left. In issue #186, Sim explains that men are the Creative Light and women are Irrational Voids.

This didn’t really go over well with people — I guess Sim was ahead of his time, because these days he might well have become a Gamergate Super Star. (Or perhaps not — Sim’s thing would probably be too weird for them.)

Amazing Heroes #201, page 33:

Mothers & Daughters
AH: You started to talk about how
“Mothers and Daughters.” is about
birth and rebirth. Do you want to
elaborate on that?
SIM: Not really. One of the difficult
things with talking about the book is
that you can’t really give surprises
away, the problem being that you sort
of have to talk generally, and the more
generally you talk, the less actual in-
formation people are getting.
AH: I ‘II ask a more specific question.
How many issues will ‘Mothers and
Daughters ” run?
SIM: Fifty issues. Just about exactly,
I think, but I’ve been wrong before.
“Church and State” was originally go-
ing to run through issue and then
it was going to run through issue #115,
and then it ended up going through
issue #111.
All: Will it have a lot of Cerebus in it?
SIM: Yeah. I always find that a little
odd because I think the book always
has a lot of Cerebus in it. The fact that
As soon as daughters give bitth,
politicaly they become mothers,
he was just sitting on a chair, clutching
a doll and a sword for a year, to me
there was a lot of Cerebus in it. I think
[when] most people ask that question,
what they’re asking is, “Will he be up
fooling around and stuff?” Yeah, he
does a certain amount of that.
AH: I understand Cerebus will be-
come Pope again?
SIM: Umm, yeah. Briefly.
AH: I felt very torn because on one
hand I want to be completely sur-
prised by the book. On the other hand,
I feel a sort of responsibility to ask for
some sort of preview.
SIM: Heidi McDonald used to run in-
to the same problem phoning about
the Amazing Heroes Preview Special
because it’s not really the sort of book
that lends itself to that sort of preview.
“After their big galactic war, they
come back to earth and rebuild their
clubhouse” sort of thing.
I think I’ve really said all I really
can say about “Mothers and Daugh-
ters.”
Thematically, it is birth and rebirth.
Cirin and Astoria figure prominently
in the story as obviously the most pro-
found mother/daughter type of rela-
tionship. Even though they’re not
blood relatives, there’s no question
they relate as mothers and daughters.
Examining a little bit more of the
distinctions between Cirinism and
Kevilism. Cirinists are mothers and
Kevilists are daughters.
Largely, and this is again something
I see in reality, mothers tend to have
specific characteristics and daughters
tend to have specific characteristics,
and as soon as daughters give birth,
politically they become mothers. They
could have been the most ardent fans
of civil liberties, but the moment they
become mothers, there isn’t a civil
liberty you can’t take away that
wouldn’t make them absolutely deliri-
ous because it keeps their children
safe.

Heh heh.

Anne Rubenstein writes in The Comics Journal #174, page 122:

In Cerebus #181 through #186, however, “Victor*’
becomes “Viktor,” who appears to inhabit the real world
of North American cartoonists and publishers, rather than
the Cerebus universe (in fact, Viktor may be a stand-in for
his creator, David Sim). And it turns out that Viktor/
Victor’ s problems arise not merely from unfortunate cir-
cumstances but from a vast conspiracy of the “Devouring
RapaciousFemale Void” against the ‘Rational Male Light.”
Now, it is just barely possible that this is intended as a
devastating satire on Ayn Rand, assuming that anyone still
reads Ayn Rand. And to envision Rand’ s taciturn, muscu-
lar architect replaced by a geeky cartoonist who Capital-
izes Words (the creator of a talking aardvark,
yet!) is a minor giggle. The bit in #182 where Viktor-the-
existential-rebel defies social convention by making cof-
fee with unfiltered water then leaving it on the burner all
morning is especially clever, if overlong. So maytr Sim
was just riffing on The Fountainhead; in which case, bully
for him. Ayn Rand is an easy target, but to judge from the
Cerebus letter column, many of Sim’ s readers are impres-
sionable teens who need satire’s inoculation against
windbaggy Theories of Everything.
On the otherhard, my editortells me that Sim sincerely
believes this stuff. Even the bit about the coffee. Which is
to say, he has developed his own windbaggy theory. If we
can take it seriously, the general outline is simple enough.
Sim sees gender as the sole explanation for all human
nature ahd human experience. To Sim, men are rational
and good but weak, while women are emotional and bad
yet powerful; creative work, which is male, is a form Of
struggle against femininity. This is an unpleasant but
unoriginal set of ideas: better writers than Sim have
espoused similar notions, including George Bernard Shaw
and Jack Kerouac.
His theory rests on three assumptions, two of which are
loony. First, Sim asserts that the differences between men
and women transcend all our similarities and explain all
our behavior. I disagree, but the point is at least arguable.
Second, Sim asserts that women (always, everywhere)
have more power than men. This is simply false. Third,
Sim asserts that there is some amorphous, evil ‘Life
Force” behind this all, leading women in the great male-
controlling conspiracy, which is what gives us all that evil
power. Uh, right you are, Dave. Every Tuesday at lunch,
I get my orders from the Life Force Goddess. It keeps me
so gosh-dam busy that I barely have time to do my nails.
If you believe all three assumptions, then Sim’ s Big Idea
will make perfect sense to you. If you don’ t, then you can’t
argue with him.
Fortunately , Sim ranges so far afield with his Great Big
Theory of Why Life Sucks that he makes it impossible (I
hope) for the most devout, credulous fanboy to buy much
ofit. Among otherthings, Sim takes credit for recent world
history, as in this passage from #186: “When I put Marga-
ret Thatcher in the book and she was forced to resign by her’
male cabinet a few months later, well, when you’re some-
one like me who… is not intellectually equipped to explain
something away as a coincidence, that can ‘be a pretty
unsettling experience. ” And the sequence ends with a rant
Of the sort that used to give drugs a bad name, with Sim
predicting he will eventually be jailed for his sins against
“the Female Emotional Void Age.” Now, Canada does
have some ridiculous anti-pornography laws, but it has not
banned public displays of paranoia and grandiosity. So
Sim is doomed to the saddest fate that can befall a guy who
yearns to Explain It All to You: he’ II be sniggered at, then
forgotten.
For what it’ s worth, though, he does a bang-up job of
drawing aardvarks. •

I remember being on the alt comics Usenet group at the time, and there was one person who claimed for a couple of years after #186 that the entire Female Void thing was an obvious parody, and Sim would reveal everything to us later. That… didn’t happen, obviously.

J. Hagey and Kim Thompson writes in The Comics Journal #174, page 114:

This revelation occurs in the 186th issue of Sim’s self-
published comic Cerebus the Aardvark. In the midst of an
ever-expanding series of semi- or quasi-autobiographical
ramblings entitled “Reads,” Sim, in the guise of his alter-
ego “Viktor Davis” (Sim ‘s middle name is Victor), deliv-
ered a 15-page text essay that deals primarily with gender
relationships and, as Sim puts it, “The Funny Way Things
Are.”
The main point of the essay is that there exists “Male
Light,” from which all creativity and thinking flows, and
‘Female Void,” from which all that is irrational and
emotional pours forth. There is a battle between the two
which the Female Void is winning, and has been for some
time; the consequences of this are catastrophic, on both a
global and an individual scale. Almost all women are
greedy leeches who prey upon male energy to feed them-
selves. There is now way to change the “Female Voids” or
mitigate their nefarious effect upon the commonweal, so
the rational “Male Light’s” only recourse is to stay as far
away from them as possible, and, in the words of Dr.
Strangelove’s Jack D. Ripper, “deny them [one’s] es-
sence.” (In fact, Sim does at one point us the word
“essence” to describe the male substance in question.) A
justification of — even, call for — misogyny as a philo-
sophical stance, “Reads” comes on like a combination of
a bitter post-breakup barroom rant, biologic conspiracy,
and bizarre male Objectivism (in the Ayn Rand sense of
the term).
“It wouldn ‘t be that big a stretch to categorize “Reads”
as Hate Literature Against Women,” Sim writes coolly
toward the end of his piece, and although Sim’s point in
this context is a narrowly legal one — that his comic could
concei vably be prosecuted under the (admittedly slippery)
laws against hate literature in effect in his native Canada
—it is, on a more general level, a fair description. One irate
reader who wrote in called Cerebus “the Mein Kampfof
comics,” and, with thoughts like these, it’ s not hard to see
why:

[…]

Inevitably, the question arose as to whether “Reads”
actually reflects Sim’ s opinions, or whether it is a deliber-
ate, ‘Modest Proposal”-style provocation inserted into
what is, after all, a clearly fictional framework. Given
Sim ‘s spirited defense of the ideas expressed in “Reads” in
subsequent issues (no longer under the flimsy cloak Of
“Viktor Davis”), it was not surprising that, aside from a
few cartoonists who didn’t know Sim or Cerebus well and
thus had no opinion, practically everyone agreed that
he’s off his rocker— and there have been a few, within “Reads” wastobetaken literally, as a statementoffaith—
Cerebus’s letters columns—these people, by and large, including Sim’sco-illustratorGerhardandhisclosefriend,
have not included any of his fellow cartoonists.
Dark Horse editor Diana Schutz (who, as a favor, has been
Wethoughtitwouldbeinterestingtocontactanumber proofreading Sim’s work for years, including “Reads”).
Reservations were mild: Alan Moore suggested that Sim
might be overstating his case ‘ ‘to help others understand
their position,” and Hepcats creatorMartin Wagner floated
the possibility that the view ‘ frnay have been his at the time
but may not be now.” Naughty Bits creator Roberta Gre-
gory commented that “his views are so extreme that his
readers must wonder ifhe’s serious or trying to be funny,”
and speculated that “with his ‘Viktor Davis’ persona he
may be trying to step outside and examine these ideas.” In
fact, Omaha the Cat Dancer writer Kate Worley pointed
out that “it’s hard to confront Dave directly because it’s
cast in a semi-fictional form,” but quickly went on to say
that she found this “particularly revolting — because it
gives too easy an out.” Still, it doesn’t appear to be an out
that Sim is inclined to take, and “Reads” can thus be fairly
taken as a genuine position paper on Sim’s part. In fact
there’s an element of evangelical fervor in the tone of the
piece: at one point, Sim reflects wistfully, ‘ ‘Would that he
could conjure a podium, a venue, and assemble all the
creative Male Light in one place.”

You can buy the entire issue of The Comics Journal here (or rather a subscription to the archives). There’s a bunch of articles on “Reads”.

The Comics Journal #192, page 82:

I knew if I
could get past Reads — and given the ubiquity and
portrayed malignance of the Androgynous Main-
stream, I put the odds at about 70/30 in åvor Of
Cerebus being allowed to exist after #186 — that
Cerebus and I were going to have a little chat.

Yes, that was a real worry, eh?

The Comics Journal #192, page 77:

SAJRGEON: Moving into #186…
SIR Okay.
SPURGEON: Let’s talk about the structure/approachfirst, as
far the style. War that a choice based on the type
of material you were presenting?
SIN: Yeah. In the limited amount of space, there were a
lot orthings I had to cover. The same decision I made
early on: the staccato effect that goes on throughout
Mothers and Daughters. You’re seldom in one place for
more than one or two pages. I’ll showyou this over here,
and I’ll show you this over there, and this over here;
sketching the parameters, discussing women. Again,
they’re very subtle creatures, and it’s much easier to
sketch the parameters ofsomethingyou’re doing rather
than to start at the beginning and “Here’s how we’re
going to deal with this in a logical and sequential
fashion.” The subject just isn’t amenable to that.
SRJÄGEON: You aren afraid Of using material
that spoke to a h mired number Of people in your audience.
At the same time, this is the central idea Of your work…
Oh, definitely. The end of#186 is very much the
eye in the pyramid, the summit of the mountain… or
the deepest part ofthe pit, depending on which picture
suits your own view having read it.
SPUQGEON: We had a switch between two Oscars, now we
have a switch between That planned?
SIN: Oh, yeah. That ties in with throwing in Suenteus
po in the course of Flight, and the chess game that
continues through Women, setting up a false Dave for
Cerebus to have to deal with. In examining the totality
of the Cerebus project, all 6000 pages, there are really
three parts to the equation: There’s Cerebus, there’s
me, and then there’s the person reading it. There are
those three individuals. Five people are not going to sit
hunched over a copy of Cerebus reading it simulta-
neously. It is those three individuals. So what I was
doing was bringing those three individuals as close
together as I possibly could. I was dealingwith Cerebus
through Flight and Women, setting up a stand-in Dave
for him to consider and deal With and — through the
course of the text pieces in Reads setting up a stand-in
Dave for the reader to consider and deal with. Here’s
a stand-in for the first halfofReads: Victor Reid. Is it
Dave or isn’t it Dave? Just as Cerebus is wondering, “Is
it Taritn. or isn’t it Tarim?” Victor Reid — my middle
name coupled with my mother’s maiden name —
mirrors a series of incidents and attitudes and failings
that I see in myself, looking back over 30 years of
conscious existence. A scrap from my 20s, a scrap from
my 30s — my wry observation on the nature of
biography where a handfill of bits of information are
extrapolated into an “accurate” word-portrait of a
hunian being. All of Victor Reid’s personal experi-
ences happened to me, in one form or another, some-
where in my life. On the professional side, it was
“there, but for the Grace of God, go l.” All of my
awareness of the horrors of freelance existence I’ve
gotten from other creators in conversation and from
observation that I’ve been able to bypass for almost two
decades as a self-publisher. All of the pitfalls and cul de
sacs and slapstick that makes up that freelance exist-
ence.

The Comics Journal #218, page 115:

SPURGEON: Is there anything you can say about it now?
SMITH: Sure. There’s not much to tell. A lot Of it was
based on Dave’s infamous Cerebus #186 where he
published his little a tract” about women sucking the
life blood out of men, and how they can’t “think, ” they
can only “feel.” He put Vijaya and I into that issue.
That was unacceptable to me. He was crossing a line
that he’d been warned not to cross.
SPURGEON: He talked to you about it beforehand?
SMITH: He was writing about the time he came out to
California to staywith us during the firstA.P .E. show.
The night he arrived, Dave sat down on the couch
opposite us and said, “Let me tell you what color the
sky is in my world.” Then he proceeded to lay out this
horrible, upside-down, conspiracy-theory view of the
world. Vijayaandlsatthere,andatfirstwetalkedwith
him about it. We were like, “Wow. You almost have a
point, sort of, but Ws upside-down there at the end.”
And he goes on for hours! Droning on and on…
SPURGEON: Dave can talk.
SMITH: Now I know what it must’ve been like to
be trapped in Waco listening to David Koresh!
Vijaya and I were rocking back and forth, going,
“Can we please go to the bathroom now?” I’m
making light of it, but it yeas really offensive
stuff, and there was no arguing with him. Finally
I said, “Dave, ifyou don’t shut up right now, I’m
going to take you outside and I’m going to deck
SPURGEON: Really? Wow!
SMITH: It was that serious. Well, he shut up.
There was dead silence, and he squinted his
eyes. He took a drag off his cigarette, and that
was it. We went on with our weekend and
forgot about it. At least I did. He wrote about it
in Cerebus#186. But in his version, instead ofme
threatening to give him a fat lip, he has me
fawning and begging him not to reveal the true
evil secrets ofwomen in front of Vijaya. [Scared
voice] “Dave, stop giving away the secrets ofthe
universe! Please! Stop giving them away! get
in trouble with Vijaya!” And Vijayais portrayed
like a scheming Mata Hari, when really she was just
angry and bored. [Laughter] I was in Japan a couple of
years ago, where Vijaya and I spent a week with Jules
Feiffer. At the end of the trip we were at a nice dinner
and Jules was asking me about the self-publishing
movement and Cerebus #186. Ofcourse I told him the
story, and we laughed. He said after spending five days
with me, I just didn’t seem like the same kind of guy
Dave had put in his book. Anyway, to finish the story:
To add insult to injury, on the back cover of Cerebus
#186 Dave listed the Spirits of Independence tour
dates and locations. None of which had been agreed
On. The Spirits tour was something we had come up
with — me, Larry Marder , Dave, and Martin Wagner.
We’d been working on the tour for a year and a half,
and we were supposed to get together later that month
and decide when and where it was going to be. But we
were having a struggle over whether it was about self-
publishing or whether it was about creators. I wanted
to include people like Mike Allred, and Peter Bagge,
and Frank Miller as well as self-publishers. My whole
deal was about creators who Steer their own ship. Still
is. Dave’s whole thing was it has to be self-publishing.
He got real aggressive about it, and decided that the
rest ofus didn’t really need to go on the tour. [Laughs]
So the whole thing wasjust like… I just had it. I just
had it. You guys are going around and telling people
they’re going to get rich, be the next Bone. And that
was just not true. And the whole thing… I didn’t want
to have anything more to do with it. Dave got the tour
to himself.

OK, I guess that’s enough of the contemporaneous reactions to “Reads” and #186…

Uh-huh:

The controversial sections of Reads are a pretty small fraction of the full 300, and even if I don’t agree with all of it, at least it’s written well.

True:

The prose bits go incredibly slowly, making this a turgid crawl to get through. The comic bits go so quickly that they account for maybe 5% of your reading time. Those parts still show Sim’s strengths; the guy can really write/draw a riveting, ultra-slowmo action sequence. But that accounts for so little of the volume that it’s not enough to save it.

Like with “Women”, very little happens in this book. “Women” could be summarised as “they move across the city”, and this one is “and then Cerebus and Cirin ascend”. But there was a lot of backstory being filled in in “Women”, and it had Swoon, so it was funnier. “Reads” is just a pretty turgid book.

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.

Cerebus Number Zero (1993) by Dave Sim & Gerhard

This was originally meant to be published in a poly-bagged, foil inked version with a holographic card (as a kind of comment/parody of what other publishers were doing around this time), but Sim decided that that would be too expensive a joke, so instead it’s came just in a normal version, and one with a silver ink cover version.

And it’s meant (I guess) primarily as a promotional tool: It collects all the “interstitial” issues that weren’t included in the collections. Sim had previously published “Free Cerebus”, which just gave a recap of the storyline, but this one gives new readers a more hefty taste of Cerebus (since it includes four issues at the price of one).

Each issue has a chatty introduction…

… and then we get the issue. It’s a no frills package, but it makes sense both for those who had all the collections and for new readers, I guess.

Sim notes that the 112/113 issue would perhaps make more sense being included in Church & State II, and I agree:

I don’t think a new reader would be able to make heads or tails out of this thing. But it’s got a great mood, and it looks really good.

The final bit is a skit where a bunch of Lord Julius dopplegangers wreak mayhem, and is very nice indeed.

I guess Sim stopped making these interstitial comics after this, though? From now on, all the issues go into the collections.

Wizard Magazine #21, page 124:

And now for something completely different, take a
look at Dave Sim’s Cerebus Those of you not overly
familiar with Cerebus may recognize him as the lil’ grey
guy in Spawn #10. If you liked him in Spawn, there are
: over 150 issues of his own monthly title devoted to chron-
icling the aardvark’s adventures, and luckily most of them
are collected into trade paperbacks. We say luckily because
if you think trying to get a Valiant or Image gold book
: with their 5,000 or so print run is tough, you should try
: finding a Cerebus #1 that was printed more than ten years
ago in a 2,000 copy print run. There have been a few
: issues here and there that weren’t included in the collec-
tions, much to the frustration of aardvark aficionados
everywhere. Cerebus #0 remedies this situation with
reprints of issues #51, #112-113, and #137-138. To
: sweeten the deal, Sim has included a Cerebus hologram
: card polybagged with each book. These stories weren’t
. originally reprinted in collected form because they are
stand-alone stories, and not an integral part of the story-
line in the surrounding issues. This makes Cerebus #0 the
perfect introduction to this trail-blazing creator-owned
character.

WILLIAM CHRISTENSEN

Well, the card thing was announced, but didn’t happen, as far as I can tell, so kudos to Wizard for accurate reporting.

The Comics Buyer’s Guide #1037, page 100:

* If you still haven’t tried Cerebus
(Aardvark-Vanaheim, $2.25), let me
make yet another try at convincing you
that you are rnissing out on something
really good and really important.
Cerebus Number Zero ($2.25) is a fat
issue reprinting three stories not collected
in the enormous trade paperbacks
(“telephone books”) which otherwise cov
lect the entire 15-year run of Cerebus
from #1 through #162. A copy of Cerebus
#0 (#51, #112/113, and #137-138) and
the seven volumes of trade paperbacks
Cerebus (reprinting #105), High Society
(#26-50), Church and State (two volumes,
#52-111), Jaka’s story (#114-136),
moth (+139-150), and Flight (#151-162)
will set you back less than $175. It’s
even possible you can order through a
good comics store and get a nice discount
on the entire set.
The Cerebus series is a finite series (not
a limited series in any sense of the word),
planned to run issues and detailing 26
years in the life of Cerebus, an aardvark
(an aardvark with an aattitude) in a world
of humans. Cerebus began in December
1977 and will end in March 2004. It is a
monumental task, and Dave Sim (aided
on the art by Gerhard) has produced
more than 3()()() pages to date with more
than yet to come. This would be
impressive even if it weren’t good;
though, in fact, it is great. You can’t very
well pick it up halfway through and derive
full enjoyment from it, but, thanks to the
reprints, that isn’t necessary.
It is unlikely that anyone will ever
duplicate Dave’s feat no other “inde-
pendent” comic-book title has even man-
and the chance that
aged 100 issues
anyone will match it in quality and quan-
tity is astronomically remote.
(Even in the mainstream world, the clo-
sest anyone has come to a finite series
entirely written by one person and with a
definite beginning, middle, and end is The
Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Neil has pro-
duced 54 issues, a special, and a spin-off,
with maybe two years to go until the series
ends. And Neil is “merely” writing it,
while Dave is writing and drawing and
publishing Cerebus. Both series are excel-
lent; fortunately, there is no reason to
we can enjoy
choose between them
both.)

This blog post is part of the Renegades and Aardvarks series.