Monday 13 January 2014

Throwing Babies (Again!)

Sketch: Cerebus Throwing Babies (2006)
Art by Dave Sim
YORAM:
(via ComicArtFans)
First, Cerebus is a great read! Second, Church & State storyline had some of the most memorable gags, including this one, where Cerebus is making a very powerful speech as Pope, and someone is the crowd keeps saying 'Bless my Baby, Bless my Baby'. Cerebus finally relents, takes the baby, whips it into the crowd and asks if there are any more babies to be blessed? Classic Cerebus. Classic Sim. Thanks to Dave for this great sketch :)

9 comments:

Keith said...

I like how "Throwing Babies" comes up often enough that it gets its own label.

Anonymous said...

The best though is the Moral "One less mouth to feed, is one less mouth to feed!"
You are welcome

Rufus

Anonymous said...

@Rufus

The moral after the baby-throwing was actually something like, "You can get what you want and still not be very happy."

"One less mouth to feed" was after he threw the old man.

I think it's an interesting and easy mix-up though as you'd figure that "one mouth to feed" would refer to a baby and not a patriarch (and his family). I could be mistaken, but I think a character in the series makes this same mix-up, which Cerebus corrects.

Perhaps Dave was commenting on how Cerebus' views differed from Astoria's. Namely, that what was pure terrorism for Cerebus, was deep philosophy for Astoria. Or maybe it means that political philosophy is easily and perhaps even unintentionally repurposed and changed in the hands of tyrants to justify their power.

-Reginald P.

Ray Cornwall said...

The Todd MacFarlane baby throw was also awesome. I vote for that on the next baby throw day.

I wonder if Dave ever heard from Todd on that?

Anonymous said...

@Ray

If you click on the "throwing babies" label, I think you will find a nice little surprise.

I'd imagine McFarlane was not flattered. McFarlane sort of taunted Dave I think when he said that Spawn would beat Dave's "independent record" for longest running comic book by one issue when it reached 301.

-Reginald P

Anonymous said...

Reginald P
Thanks for the correction. I really did confuse the two.
Still, it gives me the opportunity to go back an re-read those books.
As for The Astoria reference - which did not come for another 30 issue or so if I am not mistaken - again, LOL, you may be right

Keith said...

And funnily enough,"You can get what you want and still not be very happy." is the moral we are given again at the end of Minds. And it all starts with throwing babies.

Anonymous said...

@Reginald- Pretty sure that was Erik Larsen saying Savage Dragon would have to be 301 issues (then later saying it would have to be 310 because of the Image X-over month where the original Image creators all switched books for a month and Jim Lee made an issue of Savage Dragon that ended up focusing on Grifter).

And if I'm not mistaken, Todd wasn't too happy about 'Magenta' (HAH) getting whipped over the horizon line... a quick google search isn't confirming anything for me, and I've long since gotten rid of my Savage Dragon comics (where I'm pretty sure Erik mentioned the 300-ish issue thing in the lengthy, lively letters pages), so... eh. Maybe you're right.

But yes, baby throwing is hilarious.

-Wesley Smith

Anonymous said...

@Wesley

This link, from a familiar source, is McFarlane on 301 issues of Spawn beating Dave's record:

http://momentofcerebus.blogspot.ca/2013/06/todd-mcfarlane-spawn-at-250.html

In fairness to McFarlane, Dave did depict, in thinly disguised parody, Cerebus as Spawn murdering McFarlane's daughter in front of his eyes in gratuitously mocking detail. So, an over-the-top and public personal attack for no discernible reason. Kind of sick really.

-Reginald P.