Dave Sim's "Cerebus" - Issue 300

[Alrindel]

For those that don't know what this is, in 1977 a Canadian artist named Dave Sim started a self-published comic book about an anthromorphic aardvark barbarian called Cerebus, kind of a spoof of "Conan the Barbarian".  After the first two years, he announced to anybody that would listen that he planned to write, draw and self-publish 300 issues, one a month, telling the story of Cerebus' life, and then when it was finished sometime in 2004, that would have been his professional career and he would then retire and live off the proceeds.

Cerebus #300 came out this month.  26 years and change later, Sim has just completed doing exactly what he said he would do.  The strain arguably drove him completely bugfuck insane, but he did it.  6500+ pages long.  Some of it is brilliant, some of it is funny, and some of it is just incomprehensible, but there it is.

Anybody else read this?

[Moriarty]

I was introduced to Cerebus via Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which I got into, almost literally, MOMENTS before the big TMNT media explosion).  I picked up the first phone book and at that time, the Melmoth mini-book was just starting.  I didn't know what the fuck a Cerebus 'mini-book' was until I realized that after issue 25, starting with High Society, Cerebus' story arcs were at least 25 issues long!

So I'm collecting the current stuff while trying to get as much backstory as I possilby can on this fucking Aardvark, from back issues to phone books to reprints of back issues, my X-men infested 16 year old mind trying to comprehend just what the hell was going on on this end of the comic shop and why he just didn't color the goddamned pages for chrissakes.  

Just when I got comfortable with the whole Cerebus, and even the Dave Sim mythos, including a brush with mega-fame with some McFarlane (or as I like to call him, 'that fucking asshole') and Gaiman elbow rubbing, Reads came out, Sim went nuts(er) and he lost me.  I came back for a little while during Guys and thought Sim got his sense of humor back and I stayed through Rick's Story.  When <spoiler>Jaka came back I decided to leave it there.  I still knew about the 'alone, unmourned and unloved' deal and I would rather leave the series on a high note with that.  </spoiler>  I put in too much emotional capital into Cerebus over the years and I'd prefer to live with my own deluded ending rather than the actual one.  But I'm stupid like that.

Regardless, I'll probably pick the issue up, for old times sake, but I'll mylar and backboard it up, put it in the old memory lane box and leave it unread.

[Snowspinner]

I just got in too late to try. I want to read Cerebus, but the brilliance all seems several books in, and I just don't have the energy or cash flow to drop money on the early phone books to work my way through. And there are enough other things I want to read that I can afford.

[Alrindel]

For anyone who wants to try Cerebus, I would suggest just reading the "High Society" collection which is one of the funniest skewerings of democracy ever written.  After that it gets heavier with Church & State, but still good.  Jaka's Story and Melmoth are both serious, melancholy and excellent, and then it goes rapidly downhill with Flight, Women, Reads, and Minds, which is where he loses most people.

Then it gets seriously fucking funny again with Guys.  Then there's Rick's Story which is quite good, and then I haven't read any of the last ones yet.

But "High Society" definitely stands on its own: I think a lot of people who would hate the rest of Cerebus would still enjoy that book.

[HaemishM]

FUCK.

Having been broke as fuck, I haven't been buying comics lately. Cerebus is and will always be one of my favorite literary experiences ever. I didn't realize it was so close to ending.

High Society and the first Church and State phone book are both absolute classics in literature.

[schild]

I used to love Cerebus. Off to the comic shop. Surprised I didn't remember Sim's story. Thanks for the heads up.

[Kyper]

I used to read Cerebus not long after it first came out.  I think I picked up my first copy sometime during the second year of its run.  Cerebus was funny as hell back then.  It was certainly different from the mainstream.

I stopped collecting comics a few years later.  I had no idea Dave Sim was still at it, let alone crazy as fuck.  300 issues is a helluva long time.  Maybe I can find some back issues somewhere for cheap.

Edit:  What was I thinking, all that old stuff is available in graphic novel form nowdays.  Amazon has a bunch here.

[daveNYC]

I guess I'll have to wander out and get it.  I've got some of the 290s floating around.  Not really his best work.  Still, it'll be worth reading.

On a side note, I think Bone #50 is out and about.

[HaemishM]

Dave Sim has always been crazy as fuck, he just got more crotchety as time went on. He still has provided me with much inspiration, including the time I tried to self-publish my own comic. And he has also provided me with the goal for all my creative pursuits:

"To be much admired among people who like that sort of thing."

/raises a 40 to Dave and the aardvark.

[cerberus]

my lawyer senses are tingling, surely I have a valid trademark lawsuit against this guy?

[Alrindel]

Good interview with Sim in today's Onion AV Club.

[HaemishM]

Good interview with Sim in today's Onion AV Club.

This man always knows what to say to incite something.

Generation X and Generation Next, or whatever you want to call them—even know what a thought is, having been raised to be women. I think this is particularly true among leftists, which is what I assume The Onion's readership is primarily made up of. North American leftists just keep trying to relive the '60s, or to make the '60s happen again. Oasis are a pretty poor excuse for The Beatles, and John Kerry is a pretty poor excuse for John F. Kennedy. But it seems to me that that's all that interests leftists. They don't want to think: As a central example, they don't want to examine feminism as a philosophy; they want to re-experience it as a new phenomenon. For obvious reasons. It doesn't work, so there's a very strong urge to go back 30 years to when it seemed that it might work.

In some ways I have to agree with him, especially about Oasis and the way NA Leftists seem to want to recreate the 60's as if that was some special goddamn time instead of being when a lot of lazy thinkers dropped out, drugged up and sang songs.

I always love reading interviews and such with him. He's such a pompous jackass, but he makes you think all the same.

[daveNYC]

He's an arrogent little fuck, it kills me that he want's to be compared to Will Eisner.  I guess humility is for pussies.

I was suprised at how hostile he was towards the interviewer.  He seemed to have decided that The Onion was a bunch of non-thinking, leftist, feminists (the three adjectives seem to be synonymous) and he treated a number of the questions with a lovely mix of contempt and bile.

At least I got a new sig.

[Alrindel]

I was suprised at how hostile he was towards the interviewer.

I didn't get any special impression of particular hostility towards the interviewer, because as far as I know, he's like that to everyone.

[daveNYC]

So he's just an asshole?

[Alrindel]

He's not JUST an asshole.

He's a brilliant writer and artist.  And an asshole.

[daveNYC]

There are far better pencilers out there in the world.  And doesn't Gerhard (sp) do the backgrounds?

[HaemishM]

Gerhard does the backgrounds, Sim just does the characters.

Dave Sim is the type of guy you'd probably want to punch square in his bitch mouth if you spoke to him in person. He is the consumate arrogant asshole.

I personally would compare him to Will Eisner, but that's just my opinion. He will never have Eisner's humility, or sensitivity, but he wouldn't want those anyway.

He is a brilliant loony.

[Snowspinner]

I always love reading interviews and such with him. He's such a pompous jackass, but he makes you think all the same.

/reads interview?

He does?

He just makes me want to hit him a lot. He's not smart. He does not have insights. He has absurd misunderstandings of various things, ranging from the nature of the Pope's ex cathedra power, to the nature of the left. It's amusing to watch the interviewer point out that, no, actually, that wasn't the question he was asking.

Reading this interview gives me the sense that Dave Sim is not a brilliant creator. He's a strange man who shouts on streetcorners who somehow got a comic book, and just because it was difficult to understand, people decided it must be brilliant. He lacks insight, and his ego is insane. Truth be told, most leftists could care less what a whacko is writing in an independent comic book that most people are never going to read.

Having read 186, I have to also say, his notion of a rational argument is rather unusual as well. Perhaps the reason people wondered if he had been dropped on the head as a child instead of taking his points seriously was that he didn't have any points.

Dipshit.

[daveNYC]

Don't dog on his comic book.  Self publishing one of those things is hard work.  Self publishing one that sells more than 100 copies a month is a cast iron bitch.  Self publishing one that lasts for 300 issues is a milestone that will probably never happen again.

This guy is the ATITD dev team in a world of EAs.  Or something like that.

And he's a jackass.

On a side note, I read the "Tangents" that he kept thinking the reviewer was asking about.  That's the sort of shit that kept pissing me off about the later issues of Cerebus.  If I wanted five pages of plain text, I wouldn't be fucking reading a comic book now would I?

[HaemishM]

Dave Sim "managed to get a comic book" by publishing it his damn self for 300 issues. Dave Sim may be a nutjob... actually, he IS a nutjob, but don't come off saying he didn't get where he is by his own goddamn hard work. Without Dave Sim, the graphic novel would probably not exist in its present form today, Image Comics would not be where it is/was, and lots of good comics would never have seen the light of day.

Yeah, that's right, I'm a Dave Sim fanboi.

He is hugely opiniated, and has that sort of insular ideas about his own rightness that comes from pretty much eschewing all forms of social contact with people who don't agree with him, or at least tolerate him enough to know not to get into an argument about things like feminism with him.

Read the comic. Hell, do nothing but read the "High Society" or "Church and State" graphic novels. I stop reading after about 150 due to lack of money, but even the ones that made me go "Why the fuck is he writing this" still gave me something to think about.