Posts tagged comic book

This blog was never about deconstructing Cerebus, psycho-analyzing Dave Sim, or any of that.  It was simple a year long read-a-long.  I’d only ever read the first phonebook (and a couple crossovers in other comics), and had always had this as part of my geek Bucket List - read all 300 issues. 

So I have.  And I have mixed feelings.  I may even come back in 3-6 months and cogitate further… but that’s not a promise. 

As far as the comic goes, I cannot truly recommend reading all 300 issues.  Read through Mothers and Daughters, and stop with issue #200.  Stop there and make up your own ending for Cerebus’ story.  Maybe he learned some hard lessons and was a better aardvark.  Maybe he was the same jackass.  Maybe he died young, maybe he died old. 

Even the first 200 issues aren’t perfect - there’s so much wasted potential for just great adventure/drama storytelling.  But the first 200 are DEFINITELY worth reading.  When he’s on, it’s some of the best comic book storytelling of all time, no exaggeration. 

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Thank you for riding along with me last year.  If you’re inclined to follow my other scribblings/bloggings/etc, you can find me on Twitter - @cr8dv8, my personal Tumblr (lots of reblogs, photos from my life, links and occasional posts by me) is http://cr8dv8.tumblr.com/ , my hodge-podge of a blog can be found at http://betterblogthanyours.wordpress.com/ and my creative writing twitter account is @TerryWrites

Also, if you’re a Doctor Who fan, or know of any, let them know about my year long project for 2012 - a viewing/reviewing of ALL original 26 seasons of the original run from 1963-1989, the first Seven Doctors’ serials. It can be found at http://classicdoctorwho2012.wordpress.com/ (there will be an introductory post later today, 1.1.12)

Again, many thanks.  If you have any comments, please submit them via http://2011yota.tumblr.com/ask

This is it, the end. Cerebus dies. Leaping from the bed, he stumbles on the stairs of his bed, they tip and he falls head forward. Farting on the way down, and thanking God for that, he lands head first and breaks his neck. We see scenes of him from various stages of his life flash before his eyes, then his spirit (young and wearing the vest) steps from his body.

A great light strikes down and he sees so many that have passed before. He’s a bit afraid, until he sees Ham, Jaka and Bear, beckoning to him. He’s delighted, and transforms into Rabbi so that he might fly up there. Halfway there, he realises that Rick is not there, and therefore it must not be Heaven/where he wants to go. He tries to fight it, calls out to God, but he is sucked in.

The end.

Yes, it’s anti-climatic, but it couldn’t be anything else. As prophesied, he dies alone, unloved.

At the end of the month, I’ll have a couple posts talking about the series as a whole. Thank you for riding along with me.

Shep-Shep starts asking questions about various claims Cerebus has made – apparently his relationship with Jaka is not public knowledge/part of the official story of his life. Other things are questioned, but Cerebus asks what’s in the box, trying to change the subject. Shep-Shep informs him that Cirin is still alive but “in worse shape” than Cerebus. However, New Joanne and her followers have been learning Cirin’s secrets. They’ve taken to cloning, and the thing in the box is a lion cub with a human head, the head cloned from Shep-Shep. They have plans to make one that is a giant and take it to Egypt (suddenly we’re in our history, now? It was confusing enough with the Torah being part of the continuity – I thought this was all set tens of thousands of years before our written history.)

Anyhow, it becomes obvious that Shep-Shep and his mother are insane. Cerebus confronts Shep’s claims, he gets mad, and after talking about Muslims (?!?!?), he storms out. Cerebus pulls a dagger from beneath his pillow and intends to follow and kill Shep-Shep and (apparently) New Joanne, too.

We start out with a multi-page pan out, showing us that night has fallen. We go all the way out ot the gate of the Sanctuary, where two derelicts/junkies/whatever are slumped against the gate, which is locked. Then we zoom in, this time we hear someone fiddling with a key and lock, and when we get back to Cerebus’ chamber, Shep-Shep enters. He carries a box with something living inside (it has air holes and there’s skritching sounds.)

There’s banter, we find out Shep-Shep’s real name is Sheshep Ankh, but Cerebus discovers it didn’t mean “Beloved of God” as New Joanne told him, but it’s Egyptian for “Living Symbol”. This seems to carry some weight with Cerebus. They talk more, about New Joanne and her version of how Cerebus and her first met.

Wow, something actually happened! Even with a bunch of unnecessary pages.

Back to one issue per day.

Cerebus struggles to the door, bends over, picks up the statement and pen, signs it, hands it through the door, struggles back to the bed arguing with himself internally, his “heartburn” flares up (and he clutches his left arm, tell tale sign of an impending heart-attack, esp. combined with the heartburn), but he makes it to his bed. The “happy sappy” voice in his head is quiet all of a sudden, but he stops to pray first, then crawls in bed and wonders why he feels like saying “Rosebud” all of a sudden.

The sad thing is it took a whole issue to do all of that. Multiple pages of Cerebus shuffling and bending over to pick up the statement and pen. REALLY? How fucking useless and pointless can you get? (How badly can you say “oh fuck, I have no story this issue, let me just stretch it out”?) Fucking lame.

295 “Latter Days 30”

296 “Latter Days 31”

Cerebus eats cheese and argues with the guard outside the door. His attempts to threaten and bribe the vetoer into changing his vote have not succeeded. Shep-Shep has arrived, but Cerebus has not been let out to see him.

Cerebus’ heartburn acts up, he falls asleep/passes out and has a dream that he interprets that his goose is cooked. I’m guessing he’s having a heart attack. He wakes up and finds out that he has to sign a statement if he wants to see his son.

See you next week.

293 “Latter Days 28”

294 “Latter Days 29”

Sigh. We get a comic full of old body jokes, fart jokes to find out that the bureaucracy that Cerebus set up is keeping his son from seeing him b/c they’re afraid that C wants to have sex with his son. o.0

While waiting the resolution of that, Cerebus recalls something about a music festival and abortion rights being why his son left/hasn’t been around.

1. I…

Six more issues! Yay! Almost done!

291 “Latter Days 26” (no sub-title)

291 “Latter Days 27”

An ancient Cerebus wakes up from the dream of the Creation story. He goes downstairs, which takes pages of stupid bits about Cerebus complaining about body parts. I guess it’s supposed to be funny? He finally gets there and starts writing the dream down as a book. He writes it down, hides it where a voice (Dave?) directs him to, and is told in 2000 years, when the building is razed to build a shopping mall, it will be found. Cerebus then tries to leave to go pray but is told by the guard outside the locked door that the sanctuary is under lockdown, fear of a Joannist attack. Cerebus asks when his son, Shep-Shep, is due to visit, and is informed that his son hasn’t been to visit in 10, maybe 15 years. Cerebus sits down and cries and we see a younger (well, not-ancient) Cerebus walking with a young boy, a flashback as Cerebus sits and cries.

And despite it all, despite how much the writer is an ass, the story is just fucking stupid at times, and how much I’d love to beat the living fuck out of Cerebus, I couldn’t help but go, “Awwww.”

Cerebus cannot remember what happened with his son. We see a montage of images over the years, Cerebus and a boy, Cerebus and a teen, Cerebus and a young man, Cerebus and a man – all his son, obviously. Cerebus pouts and argues with himself and finally decides to pray, and when he starts, he gets the news that his son is on the way, coming to see him that very day. Cerebus begins thanking God.

288 “Latter Days 23: Chasing YHWH VII: The Final Cobweb”

289/290 “Latter Days 24/25: Chasing YHWY VIII: The Final Twinkle/XI: The Ultimate Roman Numeral”

Cerebus is answering questions from someone who turns out to be Jaka. Or a Jaka lookalike (not a like-a-look, mind you.) Cerebus and whomever she is are kissing and he pronounces them husband and wife so they can have sex w/o fornicating. She asks him if she reminds him of Joanne at all, and he swears that she doesn’t, just as we see who she looks like.

289/290 is a double issue and begins “Latter Days Book Two: The Last Day” with a dream of the Creation story. Again, I just don’t even care enough to bother reading it.

286 “Latter Days 21: Chasing YHWH V: The Final Page”

287 “Latter Days 22: Chasing YHWH VI: The Final Flower”

More of the same. There’s a couple pages of panel discussing Cerebus getting fat and exercising. I think he says he’s only 46, which completely throws off the calendar, cuz I thought it was year 60 something of the new regime that he met K. Not that I care enough to try to find out.

OH THANK GOD IT’S OVER. It IS over, right? Right? I’m afraid to pick up the next issue to find out.

Anyone who touts this as art or whatever is just as pretentious a twaddle-nose as Sim.