The Death Of Elrod

The Death Of... I Say, The Death Of Elrod (Cerebus #22, November, 1980)
Art by Dave Sim

DAVE SIM:
(from an interview in The Comics Journal #83, August 1983)

I may not be pleasing to the mainstream of fans - what one thinks of when one thinks of comic book fans per se - but I am pleasing to a group that is not being pleased very much, and which can only get larger. I mean, they're all over 25 and are part of the baby boom. Cerebus is like comic books for the baby boon generation, like RAW is, like Heavy Metal is. When you become too sophisticated to wonder if Elektra is going to win this time and kill Daredevil, and you get to a point where you're seeing real dramatic tension like "Is Cerebus going to be prime minister or not?" you recognise the difference. It can be one or the other. If you read "Next Issue: The Death of the X-Men?" after reading comic books for 20 years, you're not likely to go, "Oh shit, I can't wait for the nest issue, because these guys might die." You know better. I used that cliffhanger once with the end of #21, that had "Next Issue: The Death of Elrod" and then did the death of Elrod issue, which was a parody, and people were really shaken up. I know what they were thinking: "This guy is a crazed son of a bitch! This guy is an alternative comics asshole who has all the reins in his hand and doesn't have anybody telling him not to, he might just do it?" Mary Jo Duffy [a Marvel Comics editor] threatened to kill me if I actually killed Elrod: "Don't you dare kill Elrod!" It creates more tension in Cerebus because it's impossible to predict where I'm going.