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| Cerebus #49 (April 1983) Art by Dave Sim |
(from 365 Day Of Cerebus: Part 2, posted at Multiversity Comics, 28 February 2013)
...Yet the astonishing thing is that High Society overall really isn't
all that dated. In fact, a very easy parallel to make would be looking
at Cerebus' campaign to Obama’s first campaign for office, at least in
terms of Cerebus' platform representing everything the people wanted
(against a goat), yet when he finally got to office his attitude
seemingly changed and nothing necessarily got better due to the pit dug
before Cerebus took office. It's one of those weird little "life
imitating art" things that's only visible in hindsight, but it’s
interesting none the less. Granted, Cerebus' goals are relatively
disengenuous, as he's doing this all for himself rather than for anyone
else, but it's never not impressive how Sim has managed to make the book
not excessively dated with its subject matter given how out-of-date
these things can often become. It’s one of Cerebus' many overall
strengths; there are certainly some things lost in the sands of time,
but the repetitive nature of the cultures Sim frequently pokes fun at
does allow the book to stay relevant to modern day issues during a 2013
reading...
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| Cerebus #49 (April 1983) Art by Dave Sim |
...The craftmanship that goes into the issues within this arc is also
pretty stunning as well, and it's amazing to see the work that Sim was
doing in comics two decades ago that today are lauded as modern
innovations. For example, a recent issue of Batman (#5 by Scott Snyder
and Greg Capullo) required readers to rotate the comics as Batman
traveled down a maze; Cerebus #49 features a drunk Cerebus stumbling
through the events of the issue while readers are required to rotate the
comic in order to follow him along in his disorienting journey. There
are quite a few examples of this forward-thinking storytelling
throughout in terms of the narrative technique that Sim employs,
including how well the book transforms with Guided View [at Comixology]... It's also of note that High Society is where Sim begins
balancing prose portions into the story (whether as a transcription from
an event or an excerpt from a non-fiction novel) which will be more
recurring later, and while I don’t think it fair to credit Sim with the
origination of this idea or any of the other tricks of the trade
(possible, but I’ve not researched it to confirm either way), it’s never
the less still impressive to see how much creativity Sim was using in
these books that we somewhat take for granted in today's modern
comic-reading culture. Not to knock Batman, but the way that Sim
utilizes the rotating book technique is certainly much more interesting,
and a touch less stunt-y...
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| Cerebus #49 (April 1983) Art by Dave Sim |
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