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"There's not a lot of people who
you can learn from in terms of storytelling, but Dave's always
one of them." Dave Sim (1956- ) lives in Kitchener, Ontario in Canada and has self-published 300 issues of his comic book, Cerebus, between December 1977 and March 2004. Cerebus is one the most intelligent, thought provoking, and often humorous, comics ever produced and is a monumental achievement and a tribute to Dave Sim's dedication and resolve. "Easily the most common (and difficult) question I'm asked about Cerebus is to describe what the book is about. In an age when most movies, novels and television shows can be distilled to a sound byte (High Noon In Outer Space, West World Done With Dinosaurs), a description of Cerebus becomes an ever-more daunting task. Put as simply as possible, Cerebus is my attempt to document a life for twenty-six years and three hundred issues. Cerebus began in December 1997 and concludes in March 2004 at issue 300, with the death of the title character. It is my attempt to by-pass one of the major faults of comic books (and strips, for that matter); the fact that the characters never age or change and that most attempts at change can be summed up as gimmicks and temporary modifications introduced for the purposes of boosting sales. Sometimes the Cerebus story-line is funny. Sometimes it is sad. Sometimes it crawls along month to month with very little happening and sometimes it flies by at breath-taking speed with everything happening at once. I create the book consciously this way because that this is the way I see life; my life and the lives of those people that I know. In some story-lines, Cerebus is a central figure and a driving force behind the events taking place. At other times he is a secondary figure, observing rather than participating. Again, this is very much like my own life and the lives I see around me. ... Cerebus is
a six thousand page story-line, documenting the ups and downs
of a single character's life (as well as those around him). Cerebus,
like Howard the Duck, is a funny
animal in the world of humans. Everyone, whoever they are,
feel themselves to be unique and, more often than not in the
last half of the twentieth century, feel themselves to be out
of place where ever they are. Documenting that, to the best
of my abilities, seemed (and still seems) a worthwhile use
of twenty-six years of my life. Cerebus is
not a hero, a villain, an anti-hero, or an everyman. He is
capable of being each of those and he is most often none of
those. He's Cerebus. An aardvark
in the world of humans." "You know, you only come up with Superman once.
There was enough of a reaction to Cerebus,
certainly out of proportion to any kind of reaction I'd had
to anything else I'd done that made me think, 'No! I'm
going to stick with this character. This is a damn good character.
I don't know where he can from, but I'm sticking with this
guy.'" "My best intellectual assessment of
the completed work is that I said exactly what I wanted to
say, exactly the way I wanted to say it."
Interviews: On-line Comics: Resources: Reviews: Periodicals: Cerebus Short Stories: Non-Cerebus Work:
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ESSENTIAL READING: |
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"...the High Society story is certainly the first sign that
Cerebus is a book of vast scope told by a genuine innovator.
High Society provides a beautifully rendered portrait of a Great
Dictator (a Chaplin movie to which the story owes a great deal)
orchestrating his own downfall. Throughout Cerebus' stint as
an itinerant mercenary, he is depicted repeatedly as a cutthroat
mad for power. In the High Society storyline, he is finally allowed
to get some of that power and, consequently, has no idea what
to do with it." |
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 Church & State
1(Reprints Cerebus 52 to 80) Cerebus becomes Pope and gives the citizens of Iest a lesson in true faith. Government and religion are the subjects of the longest of the Cerebus story-lines and Dave Sim is joined by art collaborator Gerhard. |
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 Church & State
2 (Reprints Cerebus 81 -111) The Secret Sacred Wars rage on and Cerebus participates in the Ascension and on the Moon meets the Judge, who tries to explain the mysteries of the universe to Cerebus. Includes exceptional parodies of Mick Jaggar and Keith Richards. |
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"...one
of the great graphic novels of our time." |
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 Melmoth(Reprints Cerebus 139 to 150) Dave Sim explores the true meaning of death by examining the last days of Oscar Wilde, while Cerebus, still in shock from the conclusion of Jaka's Story, watches the world passes him by as he sits out side Dino's Cafe clutching Jaka's childhood doll and his sword. |
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 Mothers & Daughters
1: Flight(Reprints Cerebus 151 to 162) An explosive new story arc begins. Trapped in Iest, hunted by deadly Cirinists, Cerebus fights backs before seeking answers in the eighth sphere from Suenteus Po. |
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"...easily the best parody
of Sandman anyone's ever done, as various members of the Cerebus cast of characters become Snuff, Swoon and the rest of the Clueless.
It was wickedly funny, and had the author of Sandman curling his
toes when he read it." |
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 Mothers & Daughters
3: Reads(Reprints Cerebus 175 to 186) Dave Sim manages to include a critical examination of feminism as Cerebus squares up to Cirin in a fight to the death. |
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 Mothers & Daughters
4: Minds(Reprints Cerebus 187 to 200) The conclusion of the Mothers & Daughters story arc, and the conclusion of the central Cerebus storyline, as Cerebus has a final showdown with his own creator. |
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 Guys(Reprints Cerebus 201 to 219) Male bonding abounds as Cerebus tends a bar frequented by various misfits and drunks. |
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 Rick's Story (Reprints Cerebus 220 to 231) Of all the bars in all the world, Rick walks into Cerebus' and life will never be the same again. The Book Of Rick will continue to haunt Cerebus until #300. |
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"… Sim offers an astonishing caricature of F. Scott Fitzgerald
in the form of one F. Stop Kennedy. Though it may be possible to
read the comic narrative without considering the lengthy notes
that follow, the nature, depth, and accomplishment of the pastiche
would be largely lost to anyone not thoroughly steeped in Fitzgerald's
work and life. To not read the notes would be to blind oneself
to the industrious and imaginative engineering of Scott's life
and Sim's purpose and degree of success in what he identified as
'pushing the envelope' of what constitutes plagiarism, tribute,
satire, and parody." |
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 Form & Void (Reprints Cerebus 251 to 265) Cerebus and Jaka continue their journey, now accompanied by Ernest Hemmingway. |
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 Latter Days(Reprints Cerebus 266 to 288) The life span of an aardvark is long, and after years of being a shepard, sports star and strip-joint owner, Cerebus is eventually kidnapped by the Three Wise Fellows (aka The Three Stooges) and is held against his will in The Sanctuarie. |
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 The Last Day(Reprints Cerebus 289 to 300) Follow Cerebus' last day on earth as he deals with debilitating aches and pains, memory loss, political turmoil, indigestion, incontinence and when exactly is his son going to pay him a visit? |
Although
the 
