The six Swords Of Cerebus volumes, published between 1981 and 1984, were Dave Sim's first attempt to collect the individual monthly issues of Cerebus in a more permanent form. Each volume contains four early issues of Cerebus, together with a bonus short story often involving a guest artist. In total Dave wrote 26 introductions for the Swords volumes -- some tackled just a single issue of Cerebus, while others stretch out to cover a whole arc, such as the 3-issue Palnu Trilogy. In these essays, we meet a rather different Dave Sim to the one we know today -- he'd have been in his middle-to-late twenties when writing them -- hear a lot of very entertaining anecdotes and learn a lot about his experience of producing the book in its first three years. They're a lot of fun.
CEREBUS ISSUES:
#1 | #2 | #3 | #4 | #5 | #6 | #7 | #8 | #9 | #10 | #11 | #12 | #13 | #14-16 | #17 | #18 | #19 | #20 | #21-22 | #23-25
ADDITIONAL SHORT STORIES:
Vol 1: The Name Of The Game Is Diamondback with Marshall Rogers
Vol 2: Demonhorn & The Morning After with Joe Rubenstein
Vol 3: What Happened Between Issues Twenty & Twenty-One with Gene Day
Vol 4: Magiking & Silverspoon
Vol 5: Cerebus Dreams by Barry Windsor-Smith
Vol 6: A Night On The Town with Gerhard
The Cerebus short stories originally created for the Swords Of Cerebus volumes were eventually collected and reprinted in the Cerebus World Tour Book 1995, which also featured a new 19 jam-strip between Dave Sim and Chester Brown.
Many thanks to Paul Slade for collating the 'Swords of Cerebus' articles for AMOC.
Swords Of Cerebus Vols 1-6 (1981-1984)