Book review: Cerebus, Volume 1
Cerebus is an unlikely success story; a comic book about an aardvark warrior (mistakenly named Cerebus instead of Cerberus) that was independently produced and reached 300 issues, all because its creator, Dave Sim, said he was going to do it. The comic is done now (1977-2004), and much can be said (and won't, here) about Sim's published views concerning politics, women, and life, but Cerebus stands as a major achievement. This achievement is not readily discernible from the first volume. However, I set out to read it in order to get to the later volumes, which I am told take several turns and become quite complex.
This first volume introduces Cerebus. He is an aardvark, an earth-pig born, a barbarian swordsman of indeterminate origin who is generally drunk, hot-headed, and rude, but is actually quite a bit smarter than the people he encounters. You might recognize some of them as figures of our pop culture; Lord Julius looks like Groucho Marx, for instance. For the most part, this book follows our hero through some standard adventure-comic scenery, in which he battles foes, outwits enemies, and steals more gold than he can ever keep. As it continues, however, one begins to see traces of something more; there is a growing sense that Sim knows what he's doing and has realized that there might be more to this concept than, "hey, an aardvark warrior, that's funny!" In other words, what begins as an amusing premise but nothing more than that starts getting good.
This first volume plants the seeds of an epic that will transcend genre and take liberties with form. While Gerhard, the artist whose backgrounds lend a great deal of subtlety and polish to Sim's later books, is not yet arrived, there is already an interesting graphic sensibility at work. For instance, a background will continue through distinct panels on a page, which means that each panel can show Cerebus moving through the landscape in time while the page, as a whole, makes up one scene. To put it another way, imagine a page with a single landscape. Then imagine it divided up into panels like a puzzle, but with the same character's movements through the scene represented in the panels. If I've seen this before, I don't recall it, and I find it a versatile and fascinating device.
I am told that I must read Cerebus to get to the later volumes which deal with politics, religion, and Oscar Wilde. After reading the first, in which I doubt even Dave Sim had a plan, I certainly will continue.