Random Thoughts

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.

Cerebus (1977) #163-174 by Dave Sim & Gerhard

This blog post covers the second of the four Mothers & Daughters books: “Women”.

The main structuring device this time around are competing quotes from Astoria’s and Cirin’s books. If you’ve ever wondered what the difference between Kevillism and Cirinism is, you’re in luck!

Other than that, it’s very much like the previous book: We follow a handful of different storylines, all taking place at the same time. We’ve got the Roach, Cerebus, Cirin, and of course Astoria. Who turns out to be an expert on hair cutting, too! As usual with Sim, I’m not sure whether he means to show that she’s hyper competent or that she’s a bitch — I think probably the latter?

Randomly, we get (I guess) Rikki Lake? It’s a handful of pages, and Sim captures that talk show format well, but it doesn’t make much sense in context. I mean, even less than most of the parody stuff does.

Sim notes that it’s rare that he gets a letter that actually comments on the plot itself. And those are indeed good questions.

The mix of action and infodumps works quite well, but perhaps not as well as in the previous book. Basically, all of the main characters are passive for large sections of the book, and they are uncharacteristically passive; letting things happen around them and just sitting around, listening to other people tell them stuff.

I don’t think we know at this point that the woman who’s talking at Cerebus here is the real Cirin? She isn’t introduced at all. But I may be misremembering. Anyway, she explains that “women’s intuition” is rape, and all I’m thinking is that this probably refers to something specific in Sim’s life: He was lying to some woman, and she caught him at it. That should be illegal! He lied real good!

Am I being less than charitable? I don’t know?

On the other hand, Punisheroach becomes Swooncommamortals, and that pretty irresistible, eh? A Sandman parody is just what’s needed at this point. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really go anywhere much…

A reader writes in and talks about the time Gary Groth wanted him to go to an auction and buy some shelves. Hey, why not.

Groth had written an article about how perhaps Image Comics was a bit naff, and Sim threw a hissy fit. He seems to be trying to walk his rant back here a bit, claiming that it was “a parody of his journalistic style”. Which is a bit odd, because it was written in Sim’s normal style. (Granted, Sim is a bit on the naff side when it comes to prose, so perhaps it’s indeed possible he thought he was writing in a different style…)

Sim tries to do Dave McKean Sandman cover (well, a parody of it, at least) and kinda fails? But the Gerhard inset photo is a nice touch.

OK, perhaps Sim isn’t totally over it.

For a few years at this point, Sim had been showing ambiguous woo woo happening around Cerebus, but now he’s reached the point where Cerebus waves his sword around (in his sleep) and a tower grows and topples (onto Cirin), so the mysteries have somewhat dissipated: Cerebus is God’s Special Chosen Messiah.

Gary Grinch, that’s witty… Sim is definitely not over it.

But the comics are progressing nicely — Sim does these semi-chaotic sequences so well: Everything is really clear, really, but it feels like we have to be on our toes; it feels vital that we don’t miss anything. It’s excellent reader participation.

Sim launches the Cerebus Campaign ’93, which is a sort of comics retailer outreach program, but also involves readers trying to get more money to Sim, I mean, advocate for the art form. As Sim says “other creators are watching”, so you betcha if the retailers manage to shift oodles and oodles of Cerebus merch, then they’ll be er rewarded? by other creators? Anyway, it’s all very altruistic on Sim’s part.

Oh yeah, I guess I’ll have to do a blog post on Cerebus #0 — coming up next, I guess.

Lots of selling points! Women sure do love Cerebus.

And Sim is definitely, definitely not over the Gary Groth thing!

Like I said earlier, one frustrating thing about this book is how many characters just sit most of the book out: Here Astoria chooses to sleep instead of doing something, or anything. It’s kinda weak plotting. On the other hand, the book already feels pretty overstuffed, so keeping a lot of the characters in mothballs may make total sense.

Er… Sim is going into the furniture business?

Not over it.

Another thing Sim does so well at this point is to write both for the collection and for the pamphlet: Reading each pamphlet feels like a satisfying thing on its own. Most of the issues end on some kind of cliffhanger, and on the way there, the issues build up from zero in a very accomplished way. And yet, while reading the issues all together, it feels like a natural whole.

Sim is really getting into the Gospel of Self Publishing: His Notes from the President are mostly “how to”s on doing comics in these issues.

Sim prints an address to some con, and he’s still harping on about that Groth article from a year earlier. And the lucky participants there didn’t get a five page diatribe…

… but instead a seven page speech that I’m sure the participants were thrilled to sit through.

Sim also prints other people’s primers on self publishing.

Sim explains “why women and government don’t mix” — and as an example, he uses somebody who was not up for election and is not in government, taking some weeks off to care for their father. This is as prime Sim logic.

So what was Astoria’s plan, then? Well, she was going to set fire to the hotel she was in, killing herself and her followers. Because that’s something Astoria would totally do.

Sim is really inconsistent with his characters — he’s really good at giving them er character, but then he goes “eh, whatev, I’ll have them do foo now”, even if they’ve been anti foo up to now. It’s a bit on the lazy side.

Yes, Image has indeed arrived.

And the self publishing thing is really getting into gear — we’re getting previews from the most trend setting ones, like Wandering Star by Teri S. Wood. (Almost all these self publishers would fail disastrously a couple years later.)

And then we reach the end of “Women”. It’s a propulsive read — it feels like we’re learning so much and that so much happened over these pages, but when I think back on it… not so much? You can basically recap this issue with “Astoria, Cerebus and Suentus Po made their way to Cirin”. And all of that happened in the final issue, really. But I guess that the most important bit in this book (for Sim) was to explain that women are poo poo heads.

Sim used to run the circulation figures in every issue, but stopped doing that when Cerebus’s sales started flagging. (Nobody likes looking like a loser, I guess.) But here’s some numbers: Circulation bottomed out at 14,700 at the end of Melmoth, but shot up to 20,700 over the next couple years.

The Comics Journal #192, page 75:

SNAGEON: Going back, rm kind of
astonished that there’s this long
up and then a dramatic
shift a-wayfrom it.
SIN: Yeah, that was resolved
pretty late in the equation. I
knew that the halfway point in
Mothers and Daughters was go-
ing to be Suenteus po, Cirin,
Cerebus, and Astoria together.
Although I was working on that
through the course of Flight, it
wasn’t until I was partway
through Women that I was go-
ing, “Okay, this is going to be a confrontation; what
sort ofa confrontation will it be,)” I knew that Suenteus
Po would leave already, for exactly the reasons that he
stated: the explanation that “Hey, I’m trying to get
through my life with as little effect or repercussion.”

Er, it’s difficult to search for reactions to this book — the name “Women” doesn’t help much. OK, we’re got this on Goodreads:

Pretty low rating.

Exactly:

While it’s still brilliantly done (really, at this point I’m taking the fantastic art, lettering, dialogue, page construction, etc as a given, which is probably unfair), I don’t think there’s enough differentiation from Flight to merit it being a separate volume. The next two parts of Mothers & Daughters have very individual and distinct feel and this just doesn’t. Furthermore, it doesn’t do enough to advance the storyline – by the end, essentially all that’s happened is that some characters already in Iest have gone somewhere else in Iest.

Of course, some of the reviews are less specific:

The hateful, misogynist, incoherent rantings of a brilliant, batshit crazy individual.

What a waste of genius.

Genius? Wut.

Heh heh:

It’s not uncommon to read this volume very much on the edge of your seat. The name of the volume is a bit of a strange thing, however. The story is really just about Cirin and Astoria, and with any other women being side characters. Cerebus spends most of the time being drunk and performing magic unknowingly, and the Roach spends most of the time jerking it.

[…]

Women is the volume that a lot of readers make their last, because of what comes next.

Yeah, the next one is the one with all the text? I guess we’ll find out tomorrow. Or the day after, since tomorrow is #0 day…

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

Free Cerebus (1992) by Dave Sim & Gerhard

This book was published (in 60K copies, according to Sim, making it the Cerebus thing with the highest print run) to have something that shops could give to punters attending the Cerebus US Tour ’92. Makes sense to me.

But what do you put into an introductory pamphlet like this? I’d have guessed a couple shorter pieces to give people a feeling for the pacing and humour of reading a Cerebus comic…

… but Sim goes for a plot recap of 150 issues instead.

There are some sequences, but… And Sim gives away a whole bunch of plot points in a pretty offhand way. I mean, none of this means anything to somebody who doesn’t know about Cerebus at all, but for somebody who’s just started on, say, High Society, it had to be a bit eh?

Sim includes some favourites.

And teases characters beloved by all kids, like Mick’n’Keef and er Margaret Thatcher.

I’m not sure — did anybody read this and go “well, that all sounds really intriguing; let me start reading the 3K pages of Cerebus now”? I guess it’s possible… But the book feels cheap instead of free — like no work has gone into it.

But I dunno.

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