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| Cerebus #200 (November 1995) Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
(Following Cerebus #2, December 2004)
...The Cerebus story ends in issue 200 in the sense that he won't let go of Jaka and won't see who and what Jaka is, so whatever progress he is able to make through the rest of his life is severely limited compared to his potential. There is the rising action from 111 to 200 which is fitful but largely along a straight line, a vector and largely vertical. From there it's all ricochet. He's going to live a long time, so he has to end up somewhere, but the somewhere is really irrelevant after issue 200. Through his choices, he forfeits his chance to be a major catalyst in the history of his time and his world and becomes, instead, just a minor functionary. Get him to write down the dream that he had and hide it in the fireplace so that someone useful and with a functioning brain and a sense of proportion can find it umpty-ump number of years later. Reminds me of the Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here line: "Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead-role in a cage?" To me, yes, that's exactly what Cerebus did, which is why he ended up the way he did.
2 comments:
Umm, huh? A hugely influential messiah-figure is a "minor functionary?" An accidental messiah to be sure, but still...
Well, I think that Dave meant that about the end of Cerebus' life, when he was essentially a religious figure in exile--a prop for whatever religion or part of his religion still existed at that point. I think that we see from the few shots outside of the Sanctvary in "The Last Day" that the world had gone to hell in a hand basket with little pink ribbons on it and that Cerebus was, in his latter and last days, merely a figurehead. Compare that to what he COULD have been and accomplished. Then think about all of the ways and times he pissed it all away.
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