The Death of Cerebus
by Anonymous at 8/02/2004 05:10:00 PM
As John posted a little while back,
Dave Sim recently completed his 26 year project, a 6000 page black and white graphic novel (comic book) about an aardvark named Cerebus. I, being cheap, have not been buying the monthly serial, but instead buy the "phonebook" at the end of each "chapter" or "storyline" which collects all of the serialized issues into one volume. Typically this volume comes out about 3 months after the serialized version, and being self-published the deadlines are prone to slip, leaving me to wait until just now to read the conclusion to Cerebus. (I've been waiting periodically since 1988, so it hasn't really been a hardship)
The first 4 volumes are certainly VERY funny, and definitely worth reading for everyone. The next 4 volumes begin exploring the nature of feminism and the relationship of men to women in general, and are decidedly less funny.. Then, with Volume 9, Dave reaches some definite conclusions, and decides its time to voice them. However, failing to alienate his entire audience (because many, like me were giving him the benefit of the doubt) he wrote Tangents which pretty much cleared out everyone who chose to be offended. I, for one, can refuse to take things personally, and get great entertainment out of exaggerated political hyperbole, so I continued blissfully forward. Finally Dave presents a new interpretation of the Bible based on his theories of male/female interaction (at the level of the Deity) which I have to concede, in many ways make more sense of the Bible text than the conventional interpretations. In the end Cerebus establishes a (short-lived) ideal male-dominated society, and finally Dave ties it all together with an analogy to quantum physics and embryonics.
Dave started out a well-behaved Canadian Human-Secularist, started investigating the tenents of feminism, found them lacking, and went right on to inventing his own form of maleism, which he believes to be the god-given underlying reality of all things. Cerebus traces this progression, including the re-working and refinement of certain ideas, so in many ways, the thing works well as a story, as long as you can read it without becoming offended. (If you read tangents and are offended, then this is not for you past the first 4 volumes, which is okay, Dave already tells you how it ends by that point) There are certainly some interesting ideas to think about (kind of like the Illuminati Trilogy) as long as you don't take it all too seriously. Anyway, take a moment of silence to honor the completion of an epic task, and the death of a furry, grey misogynistic bastard.
Dave Sim recently completed his 26 year project, a 6000 page black and white graphic novel (comic book) about an aardvark named Cerebus. I, being cheap, have not been buying the monthly serial, but instead buy the "phonebook" at the end of each "chapter" or "storyline" which collects all of the serialized issues into one volume. Typically this volume comes out about 3 months after the serialized version, and being self-published the deadlines are prone to slip, leaving me to wait until just now to read the conclusion to Cerebus. (I've been waiting periodically since 1988, so it hasn't really been a hardship)
The first 4 volumes are certainly VERY funny, and definitely worth reading for everyone. The next 4 volumes begin exploring the nature of feminism and the relationship of men to women in general, and are decidedly less funny.. Then, with Volume 9, Dave reaches some definite conclusions, and decides its time to voice them. However, failing to alienate his entire audience (because many, like me were giving him the benefit of the doubt) he wrote Tangents which pretty much cleared out everyone who chose to be offended. I, for one, can refuse to take things personally, and get great entertainment out of exaggerated political hyperbole, so I continued blissfully forward. Finally Dave presents a new interpretation of the Bible based on his theories of male/female interaction (at the level of the Deity) which I have to concede, in many ways make more sense of the Bible text than the conventional interpretations. In the end Cerebus establishes a (short-lived) ideal male-dominated society, and finally Dave ties it all together with an analogy to quantum physics and embryonics.
Dave started out a well-behaved Canadian Human-Secularist, started investigating the tenents of feminism, found them lacking, and went right on to inventing his own form of maleism, which he believes to be the god-given underlying reality of all things. Cerebus traces this progression, including the re-working and refinement of certain ideas, so in many ways, the thing works well as a story, as long as you can read it without becoming offended. (If you read tangents and are offended, then this is not for you past the first 4 volumes, which is okay, Dave already tells you how it ends by that point) There are certainly some interesting ideas to think about (kind of like the Illuminati Trilogy) as long as you don't take it all too seriously. Anyway, take a moment of silence to honor the completion of an epic task, and the death of a furry, grey misogynistic bastard.
So he dies? Great. Thanks for ruining the ending! :^)
I tried reading Tangents a little bit this morning. I wasn't trying my hardest, but I couldn't really follow it and I gave up after 5 minutes of reading and maybe 5 more of skimming. It might be that he uses too many parentheticals (and nested parentheticals) (which is a bad habit that I have, too! (Ha ha!)).
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