This is the thread where I try and summarise Cerebus

How’s this guy doing

Ew.

he's got his finger on the pulse

lmao

yikes

Can’t someone just put him down, for fuck’s sake?

I got given the Alex Raymond book for Christmas. Wish me luck.

it's a good thing he has a posse of younger people mostly writing and drawing these for him, or he might accidentally come off vaguely out of touch

On top of everything else what is going on with those fonts

I guess you set off to do 300 issues of a comic book about a barabarian aardvark, there is a pretty decent chance you are going to lose your f'n mind.

I was a steady reader of Cerebus from High Society onward to somewhere in the 140s when there was more text than art and seeing this all go down in real time is something. I seem to recall that Deni Loubert saying something to that effect: 300 issues about an aardvark in the wilds of Kitchner will drive him mad.

I was given a self-drawn comic this Christmas by someone who appeared as a character in Cerebus many years ago.

Hempel?

it's just such a fucking insult how good this guy is at page & panel design, and such a blessing that he's so far over the bend that nobody'll ever put his talents to use for, like, viable political candidates who'd make things even worse

As an equally epic, well-drawn and well-written comic without the baggage of its creator, let me humbly sugggest Finder by Carla Speed McNeil.

I'm about halfway through the Sim content of SDOAR and it's... something.

I hadn't realised until I read Eddie Campbell's intro that Sim had abandoned completely all the work he had included in glamourpuss (for, frankly, Sim-based reasons) and instead appears to be creating a revenge narrative where Alex Raymond is the only true artist and Caniff had him killed so the extent of his rip-off wasn't exposed.

Of course, Dave being Dave, this is only revealed when you compare King Features published funny pages vs the original art and they are in on the conspiracy. And in an even more Dave move, this is a multi-dimensional conspiracy achieved using an as-yet undiscovered school of metaphysics revealed to (possibly only) him.

The most ridiculous part so far though is obliquely comparing Rob Liefeld to Alex Raymond. Even the staunchest defenders have to acknowledge that's fucking crazy talk.

I might have to find my glamourpusses after this because I recognise NONE of this.

Is it an interesting something or a “go away Dave” something (or both!)

It's both, to be honest.

At the moment it's all mystic visionary Dave and very little sexual politics Dave - he touches on it once and backs the fuck away VERY quickly - and if it was anybody else (e.g. Scott McCloud) it'd be getting discussed very seriously.

Even if you don't agree with his central premise (and I'm not sure who else does apart from Dave) some of his Tangents are really engaging no matter how implausible (for example, Raymond's affair physically manifested a parallel Earth in another dimension which Oskar Lebeck had his ideas for Twin Earths psychically beamed from which is why they're so technologically accurate to the modern day).

Also Dave's art is, for the first 100 pages or so, absolutely undiminished and his layouts are great. Lettering sucks though.

I'm at about page 150 and Dave's last is 209 before it becomes nearly all Carson.

it's hard to think of someone else in this field whose skills have remained so high and who have stayed so prolific and yet i have no interest in anything they're making

Xpost
What is SDOAR?

Strange Death Of Alex Raymond

whose skills have remained so high and who have stayed so prolific

His past skills at comedy, dialogue, pacing, design and lettering are not at all evidenced by the work he is prolifically publishing

Can't disagree.

The Dave stuff in SDoAR is somewhere between 15 and 8 years old, depending on reuse. Haven't got to him just doing layouts yet.

I can't remember how I got them (might have been the Diamondback deck reprint?) but I have some of the early Swords of CiH and they're pretty much as bad as you think they are.

I obviously meant his visual skills, which seem pretty strong yet.

Got to the end of Dave's art life and it's losing its way a bit, meandering around the Margaret Mitchell revelation it promised earlier without actually getting anywhere near revealing.

Scott and Zelda turn up about now so I can see Dave folding himself into the metaphysics soon.

And in other cosmic alignment, a GoFundMe was launched while I've been reading to put online the TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY pages Dave has done outlines for since he stopped interacting with Carson Grubaugh (obviously including the Dave versions of the blue pages in SDOAR).

I am resisting, even at the $5 entry level, and looks like I'm not alone as two weeks in there are only 34 donations.

I obviously meant his visual skills, which seem pretty strong yet.

The work he is prolifically publishing is three older existing drawings of cerebus, cut-and-pasted by other people onto a 140-year-dead guy’s drawings! He’s only just started doing some variant covers again in the last year, after …seven years? of not drawing for publication, and mostly copying photos for about as many before that. It’s possible that the SDOAR 3.0 which aldo is resisting gofunding show that he still has a facility for original composition, page structure and visual storytelling, but it’s also possible it shows a significant deterioration — and I dunno that sketching layouts for one patron’s commission can be judged as prolific without seeing any of them.

ie yes one might argue his drawing has not deteriorated to the same degree as his comedy, dialogue, pacing, design and lettering; however, he is prolifically publishing all of those, and his drawings are published a couple of times a year, usually via POD to an audience of …dozens?

I am referring to what I have seen of strange death, which seems cleanly and well executed. Glamorpuss, the Dore stuff and Judenhass are varying levels of embarrassing, yes

With only 34 in for SDOAR3.0 dozens feels accurate at this point.

It's hard to tell just how far Dave's drawing has deteriorated from the limited stuff I've seen because once he moved to the tracing paper technique the 'good' is introduced at the inking stage and the trace drawing is quite literally a bit sketchy. So because all we see now is really the pencil we should be comparing it to something that looks unfinished - and if we do that then it looks fairly sustained. But the point is kind of moot because imo there's no way Dave will ever produce finished art again (not least because that would mean not falling out with a collaborator).

It's also fair to say though that going down the SDOAR route and reproducing other people's work, plus the reproducing photos stuff, has ruined his creative art abilities.

Based on SDOAR2.0 layouts are the only real strength he has at Cerebus levels but I haven't seen any of the SDOAR3.0 stuff and the SDOAR2.1 layouts are a drop off from the rest of the book.

CiH is absolutely dreadful.

Had a dig through the cereblog:

This is the sole image used to advertise the SDOAR 3.0 GoFundMe, that you can subscribe to see more of - I couldn't figure out how much more or for how much.

This is a recent actual drawing, which I couldn't figure out whether it's a cover printed like this or drawn on a "blank" cover.

These are the only art he is publishing regularly at the moment, and afaict the only time he has published art serially in about eight years?

Someone should tell him about the “cool S”

all the actual car crash stuff i've seen from sdoar is quite nice imo but it seems i am not keeping pace with his output and that's because i don't have much interest in him anymore

Kickstarter for Remastered TMNT #8, with 24 variant covers* at $20-$100 each, a behind-the-scenes book (collecting material from two previous BTS books promoting this Kickstarter, plus new material - presumably the two complete BTS books will also be offered as stretch goals) for $30, a comic book of TMNT/Cerebus convention sketches by unnamed artists, a collection of the 75 promo sketches by Sim^ for $30, a trading card set of the promo sketches for $95 and a trading card set of the variant covers for $20, an enamel pin of Cerebus' face, another enamel pin of Cerebus'face wearing a TMNT mask ($15 each or $25 for two), three variant cover versions of a November ashcan promoting this project (regular cover $100, green foil cover $150, platinum foil $300), and new editions of previously-kickstartered remasters of Cerebus #1 and #2 at $15 each, and a Dave Sim cover variant of a previously-kickstartered remaster of Spawn #10 for $50.

$45k raised from 308 backers so far, five days in. I think the cheapest you can get everything (via bundles) for is $1230

*(artists range from Simon Bisley and Brandon Graham to original Mirage artists Michael Dooney and Jim Lawson, to one of the guys that writes & photoshops Cerebus In Hell.)

Man, the Eastman/Sim combo is an unpleasant moneygrubbing two-headed monster.

Tom Ewing's deep Cerebus dive, started on Feb 1st and a post per phone book, is really really good. https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2024/02/there-are-three-aardvarks starts it off, and there are links at the bottom of that post to each subsequent post. He's up to Rick's Story, posted today.

Thanks, this is great stuff.

Oh this should be fun!

Also tipped me off that he's actually been updating Popular haha

I just got the UPS saying my Minds portfolio is turning up tomorrow - these still remain value imo, full size reproductions of pages and yet more otherwise unavailable Dave commentary - and had forgotten that I had added the Akira Cerebus, which is the first full new Cerebus comic (i.e. writing and art) in 20 years and the first full issue Sim art since glamourpuss finished.

So I guess I will have to report back over the weekend. Pray for me.

"That's right! The first Aardvark-Mangaheim (Dave Sim's Manga parodies) begins here, and Manga will never be the same! AKIMBO! Hand drawn by Dave Sim, it's Manga vs. Photorealism in the battle of the century, with Cerebus caught in the middle! Who will win? Who will lose? "With Hands On Hips And Elbows Turned Outward!"

Dave Sim now only exists to make my brain hurt. Take one for the team, aldo.

They have failed to deliver it, presumably because of some kind of hate crime. Updates when, and if, it ever turns up.

Tom Ewing's deep Cerebus dive, started on Feb 1st and a post per phone book, is really really good. https://freakytrigger.co.uk/wedge/2024/02/there-are-three-aardvarks🕸 starts it off, and there are links at the bottom of that post to each subsequent post. He's up to Rick's Story, posted today.

I commented on one of the posts that the whole thing needs to be collected and published, ideally illustrated by Gerhard. Tom mentions at one point a post-300 interview with Ger, who said that in the latter days (the book's, not the aardvark's) he had to work in silence because Dave refused to have music playing. Can anyone here provide a link to that interview?

A friend sent me a reco for this book in response to me sending the Ewing piece. Has anyone read it? https://www.clairedederer.com/monsters

intrigued, i tried it.

i like ewing's writing better. dederer seems to be reaching towards some kind of Grand Unified Theory, and for me, there isn't one. it's so full of _ideas_. chapter 3:

If you are a trans person, or love a trans person, or simply disagree with Rowling’s language, what then to do with that part of your childhood that had become intertwined with Harry Potter?

i'm not sure why she's asking the question. there are plenty of trans people who have had that experience. each of them deal with it in their own way. she deals with it, apparently, by writing punditry that considers these questions _intellectually_. not my bag.

perhaps there's some merit in dederer's book, but i didn't see on a cursory skim. perhaps i missed it. if someone's read her work more in-depth and believes it _does_ deserve further consideration, i'm all ears.

-

Here's what I like about Aard Labour: The first sentences. Starting with part 5:

This is the fifth in a series of posts on Cerebus The Aardvark, an often technically brilliant comic.
This is the sixth of my posts about Cerebus, the alternative comic that ran from 1978-2004.
This is the seventh in a series of posts about Cerebus The Aardvark, a comic I used to read.
This is the 8th of my posts about Cerebus The Aardvark, a controversial and long-running comic.
This is the 9th in a series of posts about Cerebus The Aardvark, a controversial independent comic.
This is the 10th in a series of posts about Cerebus The Aardvark, a 300-issue comic series of some notoriety.
This is the 11th in a series of posts about Cerebus The Aardvark, a 300-issue comic by a troubled Canadian.
This is the 12th of my posts about Cerebus The Aardvark, a 16-book graphic novel by a guy with serious issues.

There's no intent, as far as I can tell, in the changes in these lines. No metanarrative Tom is spinning out. I like the writing, though, the different ways of looking at the book.

Reading Ewing's work has given me lots of cause to reflect. I have had many thoughts. I don't know if there's... value in my sharing them. It's more to do with me than with anything else.

Tom mentions at one point a post-300 interview with Ger, who said that in the latter days (the book's, not the aardvark's) he had to work in silence because Dave refused to have music playing.

Correction, this was from a commenter, not from Tom.

Gerhard stopped drawing in the office years before the end, and would just come in every two weeks or so to pick up Dave's pages and do his part of the business admin. (After he quit altogether, leading to the catch-up double solo issue in the last year or so, he only returned as artist iirc.)

IDK. It's a really interesting topic for me to circle back around on, particularly now that I am, I suppose, at the center of the - what is it - "marxist-feminist-homosexualist axis" he goes on about? In some ways he's very much a proto-Scott-Adams, except that Sim is often brilliant and Adams... isn't, particularly. Whenever I read about Scott Adams, I almost immediately think of some epithet or another used to denigrate another's intelligence (though not the r-slur, at least). Then I say, oh, wait, I'm trying not to use that sort of language, and find that I have nothing to say about Scott Adams. Nothing whatsoever.

Sim, on the other hand... reading about him, I can think of a great deal of things to say in response. Nothing _about_ him. Nothing actually _to_ him. My understanding is that he regularly describes women like me as "devils, vipers, and scorpions". I'm sure he has some extremely logical explanation for why those are _his_ initials. That's the thing. I can say very _little_ about Sim himself beyond "Wow. What the fuck?" The only way I can understand him is through the lens of extreme mental illness - my own, not his. I don't know the man and am not qualified to make any judgement whatsoever on his sanity or lack thereof.

How do I "separate the art from the artist" when the artist, and his statements on his own art, are so bizarre as to be incomprehensible to me? The work certainly has _meaning_ to me. The artist, without particularly knowing me, has passed collective judgement on groups I belong to. In light of that it seems somewhat superfluous for me to form any sort of opinion on the man himself. Confronted with Dave Sim's opinions, all I can do is shrug and say "...OK." I guess it would be different if I could conceive of them as being any sort of credible threat to me, but he's just so _marginalized_. I understand marginalization. He has opinions, and he voices them, and basically nobody listens. A tiny minority. Nobody takes him seriously. "He's brilliant, but...". Some of the labels he bristles against are in fact fully accurate. I'm not sure why he argues so vociferously against being labelled a "misogynist" - it's, again, he has this worldview, this _language_, that just doesn't _correspond_ to other people's. To say that he's not a "misogynist" is to render the concept of misogyny itself meaningless.

Which, I mean. Misogyny isn't really the important thing to me anyway. I've kind of moved away from "misogyny" to a broader critique of patriarchy. Not sure what Sim thinks about patriarchy or whether he'd consider himself and advocate of it.

See, it's easy to get lost. In trying to _understand_ him. Which is impossible, for me, at least. The important part is that long ago, I related to his work a lot, found it brilliant, didn't quite understand it. I only ever read the first four phonebooks. That's where Cerebus ends for me - the end of Church and State II. I reread those phonebooks, particularly High Society through Church and State II, a number of times, and didn't quite ever understand it. It influenced me, though, at least in terms of giving voice to a lot of feelings I had about myself. The trajectory of my life thus far can be roughly summarized by the "gifted boy -> burnout girl with a praise kink pipeline" meme. I think I first read Cerebus post-boy, but pre-burnout. A troubled American with serious issues.

The thing is, at that time I saw myself fully as a man, and I read Cerebus, and it spoke to me on that level, informed how I thought about my own gender. And what I saw, at that time, was a work full of detestable men (and I guess a detestable aardvark). And the aardvark is apparently... intersex? All of the work I see about it describes Cerebus as a "hermaphrodite", which to my understanding is not the preferred nomenclature. All of this time I've been thinking of Cerebus the character as a cis male aardvark and it seems to be more complicated than that. Fuck if I know. Cerebus more than most works I know seems like a palimpsest, the author writing over it while it's still being published. It's sort of this ancient half-buried _thing_ in my past. I've written over myself so many times since then. Sim's written over his work so many times since then. There's some point of contact, some _important_ point of contact that I had with a prior version of that work, but G-d help me if I know how to put it into words.