Cerebus In Matt's Life: Part the First

Hi Everybody!

Today on A Moment Of Cerebus, we look at the FIRST time mild mannered Interim Editor Matt Dow encountered Cerebus the Aardvark...

We set our Wayback machines to 1982. Reagan was President, Trudeau was Prime Minister, and Matt was three years old.

His dad had gotten him, and his older brother Ben (Hi-ya Jerkface!) a subscription to three Marvel comics (I think it was one of their frequent subscriber deals...), Star Wars, The Incredible Hulk, and...

The Amazing Spider-Man. (Matt's love for the wall-crawler is what led him to discover and first read Cerebus around 1993...)

And there, in the October cover dated issue:

Image copyright 2004 Marvel, see it says it right there. Not to spoil the issue, but Spidey fights the Tarantula. It does not go well.

Matt found the character that would one day consume him (wait, what?):

Of course, at three, Matt couldn't read the ad. But through sheer determination (and older brother Jerkface's refusal to read the story to our little hero,) Matt slowly learned the skill for which he would be must frequently told to, "stop that and finish [insert random task here]!": READING!

Soon the forty or so comics in the Dow brother's collection (carefully and lovingly stored in an old shoebox,) were read almost to shreds. The stories memorized. And so, young Master Dow began to go back and read the advertisements. (Because, seriously, who the heck WANTS to go out and pick dandelions?) 

CEREBUS

Cerebus is an aardvark, just 3 feet tall, tough as nails and ready to lick any 5 men. His stomping ground is the world of swords & sorcery. And if there's trouble, especially involving gold, he's smack in the middle of it! 

Short supply, don't delay! 

Who was this CEREBUS? What's an aardvark? And why was he ready to lick any 5 men?

A quick trip to the encyclopedia, proved fruitful. Aardvark's are ant-eaters. They use their long tongues to lick the ants out of anthills. Where the 5 men come into it, the people at World Book decided to leave out. Surely, it would be educational to find this Cerebus and learn more.

Unfortunately, at a dollar fifty apiece, purchasing these strange funnybooks was out of the question (not even the complete set of issues 23-38 for 21 bucks (a savings of $3!!!) was a consideration...).

If only Matt had done chores instead of rotting his mind with that funnybook trash! Wertham was right!!!

Next time: With Great Power comes an unhealthy obsession with a man who leaves the house in nothing but his long underwear...