Posts tagged joanne

Rick comes back early from his date, Cerebus is already working on getting drunk. Turns out there was another guy there and Rick left early, thinking Joanne wasn’t interested in him. As Cerebus is lecturing Rick, Joanne shows up at the tavern, made that Rick left early. Rick talks her into going for a walk, and Cerebus goes back to getting drunk.

Later, he’s in bed, and Cirin manifests and is about to kill him when he partially awakens and she fades away. He hears an annoying thumping noise and is about to go investigate, when he realises that Rick and Joanne are having sex and that’s what he’s hearing. Delighted, because he feels this means he can leave now, he goes back to sleep.

Rick’s Story has changed to a parable, Biblical-style, the Gospel of Cerebus, is you will. Cerebus is going batty arguing with himself, part of him wants to leave, without Rick, and the other part feels that Rick is too vulnerable, that the world would destroy him if left on his own.

Cerebus hears a crash and thinks “Something Fell”, and sees Cirin for a moment, but then she’s gone, and instead Joanne shows up to apologise (with her fingers crossed behind her back much of the time), and to ask Rick for a second chance – she did lie about her mother and went to another bonfire with another man who mistreated her.

Cerebus prays Rick will accept her apology and offer, but he doesn’t follow Joanne and Cerebus is asking him, “Well?” when he comes inside.

Tomorrow – the month in review (focusing mostly on GUYS). Skip day Saturday, see you Monday for issue 226.

The next morning, a hungover Cerebus is behind the bar, fuming over Joanne and Rick, and planning how to get revenge on them both. Rick shows up, a gash on the side of his head. He’s woozy, confused, but tells Cerebus that Joanne never showed up.

Cerebus launches into a tirade about how women cannot be trusted, when Joanne shows up and offers her excuse that her mother was sick. Cerebus laughs and contests this, while Joanne demands for a rag and some alcohol to clean Rick’s wound. She does, but Rick, in his confused state, questions her excuse (thanks to Cerebus’ constant accusations) and she leaves in a huff.

Rick then confesses that he was going to ask Joanne to marry him (cuz, again, weak and proposing marriage to a woman he just met is not very strong – Rick needs a woman to love him, or a person to help him feel fulfilled) and now he’s seen the error of his ways and will never leave Cerebus’ side.

Cerebus is now pissed at himself, because he realises had he kept his mouth shut, he could have been rid of both of them and free to leave on his own.

We see from Cerebus’ count that the day of his planned departure has arrived. He’s still there, Rick’s there, and Rick is correcting his earlier (drunken) story of how he got the scar on his chest.

Joanne shows up, and Rick being weak (again, I don’t see a strong male character in this comic book – all the males are either cariactures or weak – especially Cerebus), falls for her at sight. Cerebus stalks down to inform her that yes, he’s still here, but no it’s not because of her, and she ignores him, ordering white wine.

Rick sits next to her and makes small talk while Cerebus cleans the bar, internally berating her, Rick, himself. (He’s a spiteful little shit.) Long story short, Joanne sees that Cerebus is jealous, and plays it up. She ends up inviting Rick out to the bonfire (and as we’ve seen before, the bonfire rituals tend to be orgies) and Cerebus ends up passed out drunk in the tavern.

Cerebus is still mad at Rick the next morning, but finds it hard to stay (terribly) mad at Rick. Rick reads from his read, and after they debate the merits of truths and lies in storytelling, Rick goes to see Cerebus’ quarters, where we discover Cerebus is stupid and been living in the cellar, taking cold showers, when he has a fireplace, huge bed and water heater upstairs. (He’s pretty fucking stupid, apparently.)

They play that stupid game and Cerebus bruises Rick’s arm, and he screams like a little bitch. And Joanne is watching from the corn.

See you Monday.

The dream continues, where Cerebus and Joanne get married; everyone’s applauding, and Cerebus, egomaniac that he is, absorbs the praise and adulation, until he realises that it’s for Joanne, when he sees her wearing his amulets and carrying his sword. He wakes up and screams for her to leave; she protests, talks about his ‘scorecard’, which is actually his calendar counting down until he leaves… which he tells her and she beats him with her purse and leaves.

Rick (looking much older, so time has certainly passed) shows up.

Joanne nags Cerebus to go to another tavern for dinner; it’s operated by Marty and his wife. On the way back, Joanne and Cerebus have an argument (mostly on Joanne’s part, Cerebus actually tries to diffuse it, to no avail.)

In bed, Cerebus has a strange dream. I cannot remotely touch upon it any better than the Q&A in the listing at Cerebus Wiki does, so here’s the link - http://www.cereb.us/wiki/index.php?title=Issue_218

Cerebus is already feeling trapped, hating the rhetoric of the relationship with Joanne – she’s very mundane and he’s not. Also, she’s falling in love with him; I’m not sure what his feelings are, entirely. (I suspect he does have feelings for her and that’s one reason why he wants to run away.) He’s also counting down until Bear’s return (not sure why he has it decided that way, but he expects Bear to return at the end of the season.)

Joanne (the neighbor from the reality Dave showed Cerebus where Jaka and Cerebus lived together and he cheated on Jaka with Joanne and Jaka killed herself as a result) shows up at the tavern. Cerebus tries to explain why they seem so familiar to each other, and she leaves. He spends several days getting drunk and recovering.

Joanne shows up again, dressed rather sexily, and asks him if he wants to go upstairs; he says yes, but she’s startled by his body after he comes out from behind the bar.

There’s some rather fun interaction and dialogue and interjections in the narrative from ‘Dave’.