Carson Grubaugh's Re-Read Challenge: Jaka's Story

CARSON GRUBAUGH: 
(from Carson's Re-Read Blog, August 2016)

...I suspect some readers will now accuse me of ignoring all of the text pieces that make up the fictional "Jaka's Story" that exists within the narrative; that I am leaving out everything to do with how Jaka become Jaka, the coming of age stuff, etc. That is merely surface fluff for the penultimate act of the book which is about finding one's artistic voice, one's inspiration. As a child Jaka finds her voice in dance, this is suppressed by the society she lives in and it takes her removing herself from that society to be able to do what she loves. But, remember. that story is being written by Oscar, who has been struggling to finish his book and is grappling with his own creativity. Any theme you see in "Jaka's Story" has to be filtered through this layer of understanding.

Ultimately, Oscar has to see Jaka dance to gain his final burst of inspiration and in doing so gives us the clearest picture that Dave Sim can formulate of what an artist is, as summed up in this page from issue #128.

Artists are those who stare into the void (with all the significance that holds in the world of Cerebus) and have the balls not to look away. Not only do they not look away, they summon the courage to assert themselves within the void. By making such public declarations they become vulnerable to the world.

Oscar, in "Jaka's Story," writes a character that found her art in childhood, debt fee to any apparent predecessor other than nature itself. Oscar seems to feel the weight of not, himself, being inspired by such a primal source. He needs Rick telling him stories about Jaka's life. He needs to see Jaka dance because his imagination is not enough to conjure the words.

But, the ultimate point is, as much as we want to think of artists as gods capable of filling blank slates with primal bursts of creativity from within perfectly introspective voids they would be lost without the influences they encounter when they step away from the void. Sim, especially, makes it a central aspect of his creativity to always take his first steps into the void wearing the shoes of others. His frequent mimicry of other artists' rendering styles and writers' voices, use of  parodied characters, and, as I am arguing, the willingness to take on different public persona, bears this out. He feels no shame, and there is none to be felt, in acknowledging that his work does not in fact exist inside of a void. It is indebted to the efforts of all those who influenced him and the giants that preceded him.

It is to Sim's credit that he has a strong enough sense of self that all of this mask-wearing never comes off as desperate grasps for a place to fit in or an identity. His self-confidence is strong enough to allow itself to occupy the stance of others. It is curious to understand what they understand. If this process leads to drastic changes in who Dave Sim is, that is fine, because the core of the self-confident seeker is still there. On the other hand, if that core rejects a position it can say it has done so not because of ignorance but due to the process of living in the opposing shoes and finding that they rubbed blisters into the heels.

Any self obviously has immutable properties, preset assumptions and existing prejudices that will affect how well it plays whatever role it takes on but it is a rare self that even tries. I value those that try... [Read the full review here...]

CARSON GRUBAUGH'S
CEREBUS RE-READ CHALLENGE:

Introduction

Cerebus Vol 1

Cerebus Vol 2: High Society

Cerebus Vol 3: Church & State I

Cerebus Vol 4: Church & State II

Cerebus Vol 5: Jaka's Story

Cerebus Vol 6: Melmoth

Cerebus Vol 7: Flight

Cerebus Vol 8: Women

Cerebus Vol 9: Reads

Cerebus Vol 10: Minds

Cerebus Vol 11: Guys

Cerebus Vol 12: Rick's Story

Cerebus Vol 13: Going Home

Cerebus Vol 14: Form & Void

Cerebus Vol 15: Latter Days

Cerebus Vol 16: The Last Day