The Bizness:
There's a Indiegogo live for the birthday card if you missed the Kickstarter and want one.Speaking of Volume 1,
Comiclink auctions.
The remastered Volume 1, digitally for $9.99.
The GREAT a Moment of Cerebus 2019 Re-Read
Well, I finished "Year Two," ie: issues 7 through 12.
Let's check the Motifs:
Issue 6 ended with Cerebus NOT walking away in silhouette, so that means issue 7 must end...
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| Ah damn it!!! |
But, he does move away from the stock Cerebus ending in "Year Two":
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| Issue Eight |
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| Issue 9 |
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| Issue 10 |
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| Issue 11 |
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| Issue 12 |
Now, the other motif of "Unreliable Narrators" continues with the "Know Ye O' Prince" omniscient narrator of the first year. (Although, issue one's narrator, is technically someone from the town:)
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| And, ironically, Cerebus enters the issue in silhouette... |
The other big difference for "Year Two," is continuing story lines.
Issue 6 ends with Cerebus going to find the Black Sun treasure, issue 7 starts with him continuing that. Although, the treasure changes from 6 to 7:
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| Issue 6 |
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| Issue 7 |
Another thing I noticed, and I think it's thanks to the beauty of the 17th printing, is Dave's "laziness" in a couple of panels.
(To be honest, it's less "laziness," and more cartooning shortcuts. In glamourpuss, Dave talks about Alex Raymond's abilities, and asks, "how does he DO that?!?" I had the same reaction to these panels:)
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| Issue 9 |
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| Issue 10 |
Truly, the "amateur" has grown.
Another thing about "Year Two" is that Dave does a bit of "Cerebus' Greatest Hits" by bringing back characters from the first year. I don't know, because I'm reading the phonebook, and not the original issues (or the reprints, or Swords), if these were fan demanded returns, or if Dave just decided to bring them back. But we get the return of Elrod in issue 7:
Alright, I might talk more about "Year Two" tomorrow.
Next Time: Either, "Year Two" or the transcript of Please Hold...
6 comments:
I suspect the silhouette endings were not so much Formula as a tool, humorous parody of a cliché.
By the way, I’m a little shocked that I can actually remember many of the clips you present here, I didn’t think I remembered anything from vol 1.
Hate to say it guys, but I'm guessing that the silhouettes were mostly Dave thinking that it would look cool *and* he didn't have to, you know, *draw* Cerebus. And, yeah, conveniently, a fairly good ending to the story.
Oh, and also, I think that issue 12 was the one in which Dave experimented with the weird "wash" art boards, which is why it looks so different from all of the rest.
For what it's worth:
Return of Elrod: From the introduction to issue 7 in Swords vol. 2: "...(I)f I'm going to do a mistaken identity scene, which required thought for accurate pacing, I better put Elrod in this issue, since his dialogue and pacing were easy for me to work with."
Return of Red Sophia: The first sentence of the introduction to issue 10, in Swords vol. 3: "It was time for Red Sophia to return. Elrod had been back once already and hey, fair is fair, y'know. That's about as specious a bit of reasoning as you're likely to hear, but that was the reasoning behind it."
Tony--First example of Dave inserting himself, albeit as the editor (Editor, or "Editor"), yes?
No, just an author talking about his work. The intros aren't part of the work itself (any more than "Notes from the President" or "Aardvark Comment" (although now I'm wondering whether it's mike bannon, or Mike Bannon, or "Mike Bannon").
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