The GREAT a Moment of Cerebus 2019 Re-Read
of the whole 6000+ page, 300 issue, 16 volume, 26 year, gee I'm going on WAY 2 much... SAGA! (No, I'm not re-reading Saga, I'm re-reading Cerebus!)
Okay, so I'm doing the re-read of the SEVENTEENTH printing of Volume 1. (Which you can get a digital copy for $9.99 here,) BUT I'm posting images from the SIXTEENTH printing, because that's what I got.
Let me talk about the Seventeenth printing for a minute.
This is a beautiful book. I had to e-mail Sean after I read the first issue to let him know how much I like this printing. It truly feels like this is a new book, as opposed to a new version of a book I've read a hundred times.
I like it so much, that I've taken my favorite panel from issue one:
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| This one. Man does it make me laugh. |
Okay, so thoughts on the first 140 pages of Volume 1:
This is the first six issues. Story-wise, the Conan/Sword and Sorcery/Fantasy parody elements are on full display. Knowing that the first three issues were Dave's "try-out," (if he could sell these, he'd carry on, but if it bombed, he'd just have 66 more pages for his portfolio) they read fairly crisply.
It was at the end of issue 3 (page 74 in the book) that I realized the first motif: Cerebus walking away in silhouette.
Here:
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| Page 30 |
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| Page 52 |
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| Page 74 |
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| Page 95, issue 4 |
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| Page 96, issue 4 |
"But Dave doesn't end issue 5 that way, right?" you ask. Wrong, he does:
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| Page 118, issue 5 |
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| Page 140, issue 6 |
The next thing that struck me right with issue one, was "You can get what you want and still not be very happy..." Now, this line doesn't show up until the baby-throwing bit in Church & State Volume 1 (page 296), but:
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| Click for full size |
One of the things I DON'T get is why pages 48 and 49 were restored the way they were:
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| Page 48 |
Okay, last thing. Somebody said something in the comments a few days ago about "Dave." Well he first appears in Issue #4. Seriously:
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| Page 92. See, says so right up there... |
Matt Dow
Interim Editor
A Moment of Cerebus
Next Time: Dave does this kind of thing for the Genesis Question and the Bible.
10 comments:
Best of success to you, Matt, in reading & blogging about the whole work. It seems like--other than Carson's--most of the online re-read blog attempts I have heard of fizzled out well short of the goal, more than likely due to the pressure of real life than any deficiencies in the work, I suppose. Dave's text in Jaka's Story is great reading, and in much of Reads it's compelling, but it also signals that the necessary commitment may be inversely proportional to one's available time. Here's hoping you find it rewarding all the way through at whatever pace you make!
"Here it's Jaka walking away towards us. Although, from Cerebus' point of view, I bet she's walking away in silhouette..." Dear lord did I laugh my ass off when I read this.
Great catch on the silhouettes and the reversal with Jaka!
Sean's work producing the remastered edition should accomplish much for maintaining the Cerebus legacy. Dave's heavy use of black in so much of the early issues really suffers for their endless reprinting on lousy newsprint. Now, while many of the backgrounds and shadows still don't make sense to me--why are there so many thin alternating light and black slats? What's the light source and what's blocking it? Why did he spend so much time on weaved, hatched, rocked, or minutely-tiled walls?--these pages now are much more appealing to stare at and parse for visual detail. The attacking skeleton in the first panel of p. 17 genuinely looks scary, as does that dragon on p.24, and the descent around the cavern-column of demon heads on p. 45 now comes across as tense as it always should have appeared. The many pages drowning in black environments no longer are so tedious and suggestive of artistc laziness. The full-page splash of Cerebus trudging in the rain on p.97 is my new favorite of Sim's solo work as far as placing the aardvark in a natural environment. Only the oppressive overly-vertical rain in the Red Marches remains tiresome to see for that many pages.
As many times as I've re-read these early issues over 35 years, it was only last year when reading this edition that I noticed that Cerebus's "unusual nature" (p.52) isn't just that he's a bipedal aardvark who speaks, fights, and knows about magic, but that it's something to do with his soul (p.49). I'm gonna keep an eye on how that theme develops as I get back to the later revelations about his being.
Another trope of Dave's in these stories is how the mystical MacGuffin keeps turning out to be or is treated as less than what it seems. The Flame Jewel, the Eye of Terim, the Chaos Gem, even Seersucker. Misdirection and manipulation are the main strategies for survival and getting ahead. We get a glimpse of the human cost of that on p.140. Dave has used a lot of his own words outside the text to retcon Jaka as selfish and manipulative herself but it's rare in the entire work that we ever glimpse that behavior. Here, at least, is the first of a very few times we've seen a remotely sympathetic character, even if, as brief as Cerebus's (and our) connection with her was, the sentimental ending doesn't quite seem deserved.
On the subject of re-reads, if anyone's interested, I'm reuploading my Cerebus Superfan Award-winning Sanctuary of Reality video reviews of Cerebus to a new channel (since my old channel got demonetized for having too many old promos and stuff I didn't own (even though I never monetized any of that)). I'll be finishing the last 100 issues of the book there, as well, as soon as I'm done moving all of the vids over to the new channel.
Hi Jesse. I'm interested. What's the youtube link to the vids in question?
Hi Mike,
The new channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQzXqds8pup3U8Dz2E4HovQ
The playlist for the first phonebook (what I have moved over there so far) is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8nvBQOW-jcBJHdI7FbvawhXT5Mophx0G
Hey Matt!
Sent you a 17th printing digital copy in the mail, so hopefully you can use those for your future posts!
Re: the tone--Khem is sucking the life out of him, and that's causing his 30 percent tone to leave his body visibly. Cerebus' mental status is often indicated by his tone as well (though this is difficult to tell in the original printings given the amount of dot gain, and also the camera tricks the prepress people did to keep his tone from filling in). When he's bewitched by the potion/in love with Jaka in issue 4 he temporarily has a 40 percent tone. When he's drunk/drugged and marries Red Sophia he's down to a ten percent tiny tone. Ten percent tone again when drinking codeine with Mick. Ten percent tone when injured at one point.
Which is the long way to saying--I didn't "fix" anything that had a plausible story explanation. Just things that Dave a the time would have paid an assistant to magically clean up if he could have afforded one. The ripped tone on a few pages of V1. Strokes outside that panel borders (to a certain extent). See Dave's essay on Gene Day's inking (introducing Gene's Swords backup) and you'll get the type of stuff I'm taking about.
So I've been thinking about narrative captions in comics since Matt started talking about, then blogging, his reread. Of course they are a standard device in comics, and I doubt most people give them much thought - like in traditional fiction, they're just words that tell the reader what's going on. Nobody is "narrating," at least nobody in the story. One of the great, towering achievements of comics art - Foster's Prince Valiant - uses nothing but captions.
I suck at literary analysis, which is why I ended up majoring in physics in college (I'd started out as an English major), but at some point Dave Sim adopted a different approach to narrative text. Certainly in these early issues it was of the type mentioned above - or was it? Is it even conceivable that the narrator here is one and the same as the narrator during the "Final Ascension" in C&S, and during the opening part of "Flight?" And if so, wouldn't that make the narrator Dave Sim? And if that's right, is it Dave Sim the cartoonist from Kitchener, or Dave Sim who talks to Cerebus as he's flying through the solar system, or the Dave Sim who meets Cerebus in the bar at the Wall of Tsi? And to what extent are those different Dave Sims? Or am I just chasing the proverbial wild goose?
Anyway, I'd love to read what some other Cerebites think about this aspect of Cerebus as we follow our beloved Interim Editor's journey.
Tony,
I dun fugged up.
Issue one's narrator is somebody from the town. "He" says as much on page one.
Now, if this is the same narrator in subsequent issues. I don't know. I don't THINK it is, but I could be wrong.
Matt
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