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| Cerebus #292 (July 2003) Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
(from 'Seeing Sound' in Cerebus The Barbarian Messiah, 2012)
From the first volume to the last, Sim has worked to create a credible environment: and one finds one development in his technique over 28 years in the representation of non-visual elements within the visual medium. In an early issue, relentless rain among the Pigts represented only in the image, as dense vertical lines crowd the panels. When the rain falls on The Last Day, its constant thunt thunt thunt fills the window from which the sound emanates. The sound effect's constant presense assumes tangibility, and we now see the thunt thunt thunt reflected on the floor during a moment's flash of lightning. The fragmentation provided by the panel borders reinforces the passage of time and the lack of movement from the unpictured Cerebus.
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| Cerebus #292 (July 2003) Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
Do you have a favourite example of Dave Sim's innovative lettering in Cerebus that you'd like to see featured here on A Moment Of Cerebus? Send in your selection (the issue and page number will do), together with a brief explanation of its appeal/impact on you, to: momentofcerebus [at] gmail [dot] com
5 comments:
When it rains really hard I think of these images. Just amazing.
Whoever said "when it rains, it pours" was definitely wrong. It should have been, "when it rains, it thunts".
I was just admiring those Pigt sequence rain panels in Cerebus Barbarian. They were such a simple, raw visual, yet strangely powerful. You should post a screenshot for comparison.
It's not exactly innovative lettering, but my favourite rain effect is from Church and State - I'm too lazy to dig out the longbox and give the issue - Boobah is transcribing:
TARIM: Krak-thakka-katoom. Booma Boom.
Cracks me up just thinking about it.
Thanks for these excellent reminders of just how brilliantly innovative the Cerebus books are. They really set a high watermark for the medium which very few comics have exceeded.
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