Is this the one where Rayek challenges Cerebus to cross the Bridge of Destiny?
I just dug up a bunch of my old poetry from my late teens and early twenties and most of it is about what you would expect from somebody that age except if they were pretty good at poetry. I'm currently not going to post any of it because I don't want teenagers reading what I wrote as a teen and being disheartened by the quality of their own lines. Also you're probably reading this for all of the insightful things I'll say about Cerebus. Or maybe you clicked on a link to read something insightful, saw that my caption confused this comic with Elfquest, called me the R-slur, and clicked away before you could find out I was just being silly.
Why didn't Dave Sim ever license Cerebus as a sugary cereal?
Deni mentions that Dave has a nervous breakdown between issues eleven and twelve. What that entails, I have no clue. I don't really know what constitutes a nervous breakdown. It probably means he shit himself multiple times in the space of a month. I wouldn't want to suggest shitting yourself only once or twice in the space of a month would constitute a nervous breakdown. That could probably just mean you had a wild month full of illicit indulgences. I've never even come close to a nervous breakdown, as far as I can tell, because I've never shit myself. Weird how you can not know the definition of a thing at the beginning of a paragraph and then make up your own definition of it and then accept your made up definition as normal by the end of the same paragraph!
Actually, I have shit myself. But it was while I was sleeping and because I was having a night terror. Also I was almost certainly no older than ten which, I believe, is an age which precludes anybody from making fun of me for it. The night terror might not seem like much of a night terror when I explain it but that's because you didn't experience it. I was dreaming that I was making my bed but I couldn't quite get it made and I was under a time restraint and things were really ramping up to a climactic end because I just couldn't get it done! Also the background in the dream was psychedelic, like the multi-colored shapes around the POWS! and BANGS! in the old Batman television show. I woke up in a cold sweat with my pajama bottoms full of shit. It was not pleasant.
I should stop trying to be more honest on the Internet. Especially since nobody is really going to know me unless I really open up about all of my deep, dark secrets that make me super interesting because I've mentioned I have them and that they shall remain a mystery. Ooh! What could they be?!
Dave Sim doesn't mention his nervous breakdown in the Swords of Cerebus essay. He just mentions that Batman and Robin, having had their parents murdered tragically, made for a funny story. Perfect fodder for parody in Cerebus!
Cerebus has found himself in Beduin refusing to forget all of the Cockroach's gold. He was so close to being filthy rich that he couldn't quite yet go back to being not filthy rich. There was surely still a way to get all of that gold and keep it and not to lose it in a river at the end of this issue at all! And if anybody could do it, it would not be Cerebus! But he was still going to try!
Why didn't Dave Sim ever license Cerebus as a sugary cereal?
Deni mentions that Dave has a nervous breakdown between issues eleven and twelve. What that entails, I have no clue. I don't really know what constitutes a nervous breakdown. It probably means he shit himself multiple times in the space of a month. I wouldn't want to suggest shitting yourself only once or twice in the space of a month would constitute a nervous breakdown. That could probably just mean you had a wild month full of illicit indulgences. I've never even come close to a nervous breakdown, as far as I can tell, because I've never shit myself. Weird how you can not know the definition of a thing at the beginning of a paragraph and then make up your own definition of it and then accept your made up definition as normal by the end of the same paragraph!
Actually, I have shit myself. But it was while I was sleeping and because I was having a night terror. Also I was almost certainly no older than ten which, I believe, is an age which precludes anybody from making fun of me for it. The night terror might not seem like much of a night terror when I explain it but that's because you didn't experience it. I was dreaming that I was making my bed but I couldn't quite get it made and I was under a time restraint and things were really ramping up to a climactic end because I just couldn't get it done! Also the background in the dream was psychedelic, like the multi-colored shapes around the POWS! and BANGS! in the old Batman television show. I woke up in a cold sweat with my pajama bottoms full of shit. It was not pleasant.
I should stop trying to be more honest on the Internet. Especially since nobody is really going to know me unless I really open up about all of my deep, dark secrets that make me super interesting because I've mentioned I have them and that they shall remain a mystery. Ooh! What could they be?!
Dave Sim doesn't mention his nervous breakdown in the Swords of Cerebus essay. He just mentions that Batman and Robin, having had their parents murdered tragically, made for a funny story. Perfect fodder for parody in Cerebus!
Cerebus has found himself in Beduin refusing to forget all of the Cockroach's gold. He was so close to being filthy rich that he couldn't quite yet go back to being not filthy rich. There was surely still a way to get all of that gold and keep it and not to lose it in a river at the end of this issue at all! And if anybody could do it, it would not be Cerebus! But he was still going to try!
This conversation isn't just a contrived story plot. Cerebus has been drunk at this bar for two weeks. That surely makes his hearing this news more realistic, right?
Cerebus makes his way to the Cockroach's apartment only to discover the gold is missing. But there's a tunnel where the gold was and it leads to the Cockroach's cell which is full of the Cockroach and gold. The Cockroach demands Cerebus explain why he's entered the Cockroach Cave and Cerebus decides to mirror the Cockroach's origin story. He claims his parents were murdered and that he was an orphan.
It's not just that Dave Sim is funny; he's adept at crafting really terrific gags.
Cerebus and the Cockroach load up Cerebus' boat with the gold and then the Cockroach takes off with it as Cerebus is fetching the last bag. If Cerebus doesn't learn to stab every weird character immediately upon meeting them from here on out, I don't think he's paying attention to his own life. And then when Cerebus gets back in the boat and Elrod appears (after having told Cockroach that Elrod was after his gold), Cerebus learns the lesson about immediately murdering people twice over in this one adventure!
Before Cockroach can murder Elrod, Elrod starts with the small talk.
Before Cockroach can murder Elrod, Elrod starts with the small talk.
Such a delightfully accurate description of The Batman.
Dave Sim's dialogue is so smooth and natural and funny, I imagine he spent a lot of time cackling at his own jokes while trying to draw this comic book. Elrod responding to the Cockroach's hissing with "If I were you, I'd see someone about that slow leak, son," would have caused me to stop writing for the entire day as I patted myself on the back and kept repeating it to myself and chuckling at my own grand wit.
The guards interrupt the battle between the Cockroach and Elrod causing Cerebus to have to get involved because he's the only character that can purposefully succeed in battle. Elrod and Cockroach would have been okay but they would have had to accidentally survive the situation off-panel in a way that causes the reader to think, "How the hell did that jerk get out of that predicament Cerebus left him or her in?"
Cerebus knocks out Cockroach, threatens Elrod, and then leaves with his boat full of gold. His plan is to buy a tavern outside Beduin if his boat full of gold doesn't wind up sinking. But it does so he'll have to wait another two hundred or so issues before he winds up running a tavern and hanging with his mates.
As Cerebus rides a piece of the broken boat down the river, his gold lost under the water, he reflects on the events of the day which happened to be his 27th birthday. I don't know if that's supposed to mean anything. Was Dave 27 at the time? Was it just a bit Dave thought would emotionally cap the end of the story? Maybe it was just an easy way to put a period on the tale. Hell, if I can't even understand why this stupid comic book ends this way, why am I even bothering to try to understand Gravity's Rainbow?!
Cerebus #12 Rating: A. Some really solid gags in this thing and a decent heist story to boot. Each issue of Cerebus is like a well-crafted song on a record album. I'm always less amazed that somebody can write a catchy, hit song that's absolutely brand new than I am by the fact that they can come up with ten to twelve little mini-stories for the album. And that's basically what Sim has done up to this point. Twelve solid stories that ... oh! That's probably why it was Cerebus' 27th birthday! It's been one full year of Cerebus stories! Ha ha! Watch out now, Gravity's Rainbow! I'm figuring shit out!
The guards interrupt the battle between the Cockroach and Elrod causing Cerebus to have to get involved because he's the only character that can purposefully succeed in battle. Elrod and Cockroach would have been okay but they would have had to accidentally survive the situation off-panel in a way that causes the reader to think, "How the hell did that jerk get out of that predicament Cerebus left him or her in?"
Cerebus knocks out Cockroach, threatens Elrod, and then leaves with his boat full of gold. His plan is to buy a tavern outside Beduin if his boat full of gold doesn't wind up sinking. But it does so he'll have to wait another two hundred or so issues before he winds up running a tavern and hanging with his mates.
As Cerebus rides a piece of the broken boat down the river, his gold lost under the water, he reflects on the events of the day which happened to be his 27th birthday. I don't know if that's supposed to mean anything. Was Dave 27 at the time? Was it just a bit Dave thought would emotionally cap the end of the story? Maybe it was just an easy way to put a period on the tale. Hell, if I can't even understand why this stupid comic book ends this way, why am I even bothering to try to understand Gravity's Rainbow?!
Cerebus #12 Rating: A. Some really solid gags in this thing and a decent heist story to boot. Each issue of Cerebus is like a well-crafted song on a record album. I'm always less amazed that somebody can write a catchy, hit song that's absolutely brand new than I am by the fact that they can come up with ten to twelve little mini-stories for the album. And that's basically what Sim has done up to this point. Twelve solid stories that ... oh! That's probably why it was Cerebus' 27th birthday! It's been one full year of Cerebus stories! Ha ha! Watch out now, Gravity's Rainbow! I'm figuring shit out!
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