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Printheads: Cerebus by Dave Sim & Gerhard

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  1.  (3456.1)
    Always think of Dave as the comics world's Woody Allen. Everybody loves the earlier, funny stuff. The point he totally loses me is when the 3 Stooges show up in Latter Days. That sequence is interminable but through-out the 300 issue run there are many innovative and audacious pieces of comic craft.
  2.  (3456.2)
    Did Dave Sim actually challenge Jeff Smith to a fight, or is that just an industry myth?


    No, that's true.
  3.  (3456.3)
    I'm a massive massive fan of Cerebus, even the later stuff, though I think his anti-feminist rantings are in and of themselves deeply flawed and contradictory, while his conversion to monotheism tedious, within the workings of the story I found them quite interesting, like the idea of the Holy Female Supremacist army of Cirin, or 3 stooges representing the 3 different branches of Abrahamic monotheism. Whether or not that worked for everyone is beside the point. The artwork and lettering he and Gerhard produced are what make it an astonishing endeavour.
    • CommentAuthordkostis
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2011
     (3456.4)
    Did Dave Sim actually challenge Jeff Smith to a fight, or is that just an industry myth?


    The challenge was to a boxing match.

    The distinction was important to Dave at the time. Something to do with his preconception of proper manly behaviour. In addition, I suspect a large overdose of Hemmingway.
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      CommentAuthorm3t4lfi3nd
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2011
     (3456.5)
    What I really enjoyed about Cerberus is that it's so...unapologetic its own body of work. I think I quit around Jaka's Story, not really sure why...perhaps I got bored with it. Sometimes I loved it, sometimes it fell flat, but it felt so creator-driven in it's highs as well as lows I can't help but have a healthy respect for it's weight and mark on the medium. Although I don't know much about the stories of his craziness or his stance on feminism, but I think Cerberus is an instance where the work is much more than the author. Besides there are worth things than being anti-feminist, and being such isn't necessarily grounds for immediate ostracization or hostility from me, but then I haven't read what he said so that may be premature of me to say.
  6.  (3456.6)
    Cerebus was a reflection of a character’s life, along with the lives of those he met. It takes place over a long period of time and all of the changes that Sim went through reflect themselves in the narrative in a very natural and very honest way. It presents a cohesive whole in ways that few stories (much less comics) ever do.

    It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with Sim. The author (and artist)’s life is irrelevant. It’s about the work and the work on Cerebus is astounding. It lives, it breathes, it makes you laugh and it pisses you off.


    From a column I wrote for Hypergeek last year, which can be found here.
  7.  (3456.7)
    By the way, I think a world with a single talking anhtropomorphic animal to be a bit implausible

    "One: CAN YOU EVEN HEAR YOURSELF? Two: that's addressed in future volumes."

    I fixed the error, but, well, conceptually Pogo is more coherent than Cerebus, if you know what I mean And since I don't plan to read the later, women reviling volumes, how it is addressed (i will go as far as Jaka's world)? Was Cerebus turned into an Aardvark by the malignant witch of Borealia? Or maybe it's all symbolic, and Cerebus is a real man that Dave Sim represents as an animal, bit like the stylized Bone cousins.
    • CommentAuthorandycon
    • CommentTimeFeb 20th 2011 edited
     (3456.8)
    SPOILER

    no, there are two other aardvarks: Suenteus Po a mystic and Cirin who leads a matriarchal church


    Oh crap sorry, didn't really think of that as spoilers.. my bad.
  9.  (3456.9)
    I did some Googling, and Dave's open-letter challenge to Jeff Smith is published here.
    •  
      CommentAuthorFinagle
    • CommentTimeFeb 21st 2011
     (3456.10)
    /Cerebus/ was so hugely formative to me - I was finishing high school during /Church and State/ - that I can't really even grapple with it. It must be how regular people feel about the religion they were raised with.

    Just the letters pages alone changed my life - I met a correspondent through there by replying to a letter, which forged a friendship with a New York artist that changed my perspective as a Kansas loner immensely. (Hey, Oscar)

    I have the entire run, and I haven't finished the last couple volumes yet. I know how it ends, but I'm not ready to make that journey yet. I too left off around 'Reads', and really, I'm reluctant to spoil the memory.

    Is anyone reading /Glamorpuss/? I tried, but...well, I learned some interesting things about illustration.
  11.  (3456.11)
    Glamorpuss seems more like it would be a very good blog, but on paper it doesn't make much sense to me. I know Sim isn't crazy about the web and is hardly on it, but I think he missed an opportunity there.
  12.  (3456.12)
    CEREBUS was a hugely formative comic for me too. Even in his crudest early work, Dave's mastery of pacing and timing are there, and the ebb and flow of dialogue. He only got better and better, content regardless, and his work is more than worthy of study.

    Thematically, people get bogged down in his gender relations crap, and miss the very interesting explorations of power, the use of power, the seeds of destruction inherent in every rise to power, and those who choose to walk away from power.

    His conclusions, unfortunately, seem to be that nothing holds up to scrutiny, and any flaw is a huge flaw, and since everything is flawed, round and round the mulberry bush. He also argues for points. He's a great guy when he wants to be, but if you've ever had a friend who makes you think "I just don't know what he sees through the walls of his fishbowl," magnify it enormously, and you've got Dave.
  13.  (3456.13)
    Recently I find myself really, really wanting to read Cerebus, so I probably will - even though the time/space/money commitment the whole thing requires seems pretty daunting. I really want to read the whole thing too, and see where it goes and how it ends up. We'll see how that goes.

    But for years now I had no interest in it whatsoever because I'd read one of his back-matter rants about women that bugged me in all sorts of ways. I don't know if it's that I'm mellowing with age, but I'm willing to go at it now to get all the good stuff out of it.
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      CommentAuthorSobreiro
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011
     (3456.14)
    Speaking of this, check this recent interview with Gerhard: The Craft Behind Cerebus
    • CommentAuthorJim Moore
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011
     (3456.15)
    @Sobreiro - thanks for the link to that interview...Gerhard is absolutely incredible.
  16.  (3456.16)
    I've looked around at all the usual suspects but haven't seen any volumes of Cerebus for sale anywhere. Any leads?

    I had only heard about Cerebus recently, and then I was hearing a 50/50 split between "It's brilliant" and "He's crazy", so I hadn't really been too intrigued until this thread.
    • CommentAuthordkostis
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011
     (3456.17)
    I've looked around at all the usual suspects but haven't seen any volumes of Cerebus for sale anywhere. Any leads?


    You can get them on Amazon and from Diamond. Or you can get them shipped direct from Dave Sim here.
    •  
      CommentAuthorscs
    • CommentTimeFeb 22nd 2011
     (3456.18)
    Cerebus is insanely brilliant, Sim is brilliantly insane. Having read it in single issues since about #8, I'd argue it's impossible to separate art and artist in this case. The huge text screeds were consistent with Sims' comments in the letter column and other forums, and Sim inserted several versions of himself into the books.

    A few years ago, I re-read large chunks of it, skipping over the letters, etc. It works a lot better that way. The attitude and viewpoint is still there, but without the in-your-face phrasing of Sims' direct editorializing. The misogyny and irrational worldview is one thing when coming from a character who's only one or two of an entire cast, quite another when Sim is metaphorically hitting folks over the head with them in the lettercols and editorials.

    So yes, I recommend Cerebus. It has several major 'dead points' in the storytelling, but even with those it's still worth the read. And the good parts are so brilliantly good they overshadow the flaws. In particular, "Church and State", "Jaka's Story", "High Society," "Guys" and "Rick's Story" are masterpieces in and of themselves. "Going Home" had some brilliant moments. But the sections of any book where he attempts to reconstruct/deconstruct other writers are best skimmed over. In one of the issues above, Sim said he ran out of steam and wished he'd been able to stop around 250 issues. Having read them all, I agree.
  19.  (3456.19)
    @dkostis

    Thanks for that. By the 'usual suspects' I meant Fishpond, Bookdepository and a couple of LCS websites - I tend to avoid Amazon because shipping to the antipodes is usually too much for me to justify. If Amazon has them I'm not sure why the other big book sellers don't. But yeah, looking at that other link, I really can't afford them any time soon.
    •  
      CommentAuthortmcd02
    • CommentTimeFeb 23rd 2011
     (3456.20)
    Strangely enough, a few weeks ago the covers of Cerebus issues started catching my eye in the backissue section of my LCS. I wasn't sure what it was (honestly I kind of assumed it was a kids or all-ages comic since the character on the cover was a sort of cartoonish animal). Then last week a buddy of mine mentioned it. And now this thread has popped up, and I'm thoroughly interested in reading this comic now. I was in the shop today and saw they had a few of the collections for sale. One was Church and State, but I don't remember the others. Can one read the collections out of order? I don't think they had Volume 1; they had four or five volumes that mostly weren't in order.

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