Is "Giant-sized Woman-Thing" as funny as "Giant-sized Man-Thing"? What about "Giant-sized Child Thing"?
For those wondering, judging by the length of time between posts, if I'll keep doing these Cerebus "reviews" (inverted commas to represent that they are, at the most charitable of descriptions, negligibly reviews), don't worry (or do worry if you were wondering in the hopes I'd stop): I just purchased the "High Society" Bi-weekly issues on eBay. I've also got the "Church & State" bi-weekly issues but I think those only cover Volume One. I don't know what I'll do after that. If I have to, I'll resort to reading them online but I'd rather have a fungible copy in hand (while technically an unneeded adjective in this case, I need to get "fungible" and "non-fungible" into my vocabulary if I'm ever going to become an Internet hipster millionaire without any ethics at all (Goals!)). Maybe I should start reviewing the smell of each comic since that's a big part of the experience, especially buying the comics off of eBay.
For maybe the first time in 25 issues, Deni's "A Note from the Publisher" actually says something other than "You should read this issue!" or "We apologize for the late publication date" or "Dave may or may not have had a mental breakdown due to the pressures of self-publishing and taking too much LSD." Hmm, I wish "A Note from the Publisher" had ever been as interesting as I just made it out to be. But this one is like a mini-essay on Cerebus and being Canadian! She throws in some really good evidence like "If you read Cerebus carefully, you will see that he too is a survivor." That's to prove that he's Canadian because Canadians are survivors unlike all those other stupid nationalities that love to run over the edges of cliffs on any day of the week ending in "day." People usually say "any day of the week ending in 'y'" but I decided to make the saying even more stupid.
I'm usually pretty hard on Deni's "A Note from the Publisher" because it's boring information in the Bi-weekly format. I'm sure it was quite helpful in the early days of Cerebus to know about publishing delays and the other multiple independent publishing problems that caused concern. It might even be not boring and useful for readers who aren't cynical bastards like me. Maybe I should stop being such a dick and try to see the world through a more positive and rosy lens! Maybe I've already started because, as I said, this was Deni's best note yet! It made me stand up and yell, "Yay, Canada!" Although who doesn't daily stand up and yell "Yay, Canada!" simply as a thank you for the original Degrassi Junior High?
Dave Sim continues his essay from last issue about getting drunk with some Americans in Canada and going back to a hotel room with a loaded gun. The drunk friends don't really figure into the story. It's really a story about Dave and guns and Canada and mortality and John Lennon. It's his "this is where I was when I heard the news" story. And it almost feels like I can grasp a bit of Dave's eventual religious thinking in this story. At one point he does say, "Okay, God. I get the message. No gun." But that almost seems like the atheist's version of using God as a figure of speech. He may as well have said, "Okay, Universe. I get the message. No God." I mean "No gun." Anyway, there's definitely a thread of schizophrenic thinking which is maybe appropriate since he evokes "Strawberry Fields Forever" which evokes LSD (and I don't know the history of that song at all so I'm just speculating here having listened to it and loved it and loved LSD) which evokes schizophrenic thinking. What I mean to say is that he's receiving messages from the universe that he instantly applies to his current internal monologue, not as "Oh, I can use this experience to help me negotiate the logic of my current problem" but as "Oh, my internal monologue has affected the world surrounding me and caused it to reply in kind, to suggest to me answers to my current dilemma."
Is Dave Sim schizophrenic or schizoaffective? Probably not. But his manner of thinking displayed in both his fictional and personal writing definitely leaves some room for a reader to believe that interpretation. Just like I wouldn't claim he's a misogynist but I understand why so many people might reach that conclusion. If my blog were more famous, I'm sure I'd run the gamut of weird reader interpretations as well based on loads of things I've written in whimsical or facetious states of mind. A lot of what Dave Sim winds up writing in Cerebus could be interpreted as simply science fiction in a fantasy setting. He's just taking modern problems and ideas and exploding them to test how current modes of thinking might fall out under different societal pressures. A lot of what's coming up could be slapped with a Philip K. Dick credit and I don't think a lot of people would question it.
For maybe the first time in 25 issues, Deni's "A Note from the Publisher" actually says something other than "You should read this issue!" or "We apologize for the late publication date" or "Dave may or may not have had a mental breakdown due to the pressures of self-publishing and taking too much LSD." Hmm, I wish "A Note from the Publisher" had ever been as interesting as I just made it out to be. But this one is like a mini-essay on Cerebus and being Canadian! She throws in some really good evidence like "If you read Cerebus carefully, you will see that he too is a survivor." That's to prove that he's Canadian because Canadians are survivors unlike all those other stupid nationalities that love to run over the edges of cliffs on any day of the week ending in "day." People usually say "any day of the week ending in 'y'" but I decided to make the saying even more stupid.
I'm usually pretty hard on Deni's "A Note from the Publisher" because it's boring information in the Bi-weekly format. I'm sure it was quite helpful in the early days of Cerebus to know about publishing delays and the other multiple independent publishing problems that caused concern. It might even be not boring and useful for readers who aren't cynical bastards like me. Maybe I should stop being such a dick and try to see the world through a more positive and rosy lens! Maybe I've already started because, as I said, this was Deni's best note yet! It made me stand up and yell, "Yay, Canada!" Although who doesn't daily stand up and yell "Yay, Canada!" simply as a thank you for the original Degrassi Junior High?
Dave Sim continues his essay from last issue about getting drunk with some Americans in Canada and going back to a hotel room with a loaded gun. The drunk friends don't really figure into the story. It's really a story about Dave and guns and Canada and mortality and John Lennon. It's his "this is where I was when I heard the news" story. And it almost feels like I can grasp a bit of Dave's eventual religious thinking in this story. At one point he does say, "Okay, God. I get the message. No gun." But that almost seems like the atheist's version of using God as a figure of speech. He may as well have said, "Okay, Universe. I get the message. No God." I mean "No gun." Anyway, there's definitely a thread of schizophrenic thinking which is maybe appropriate since he evokes "Strawberry Fields Forever" which evokes LSD (and I don't know the history of that song at all so I'm just speculating here having listened to it and loved it and loved LSD) which evokes schizophrenic thinking. What I mean to say is that he's receiving messages from the universe that he instantly applies to his current internal monologue, not as "Oh, I can use this experience to help me negotiate the logic of my current problem" but as "Oh, my internal monologue has affected the world surrounding me and caused it to reply in kind, to suggest to me answers to my current dilemma."
Is Dave Sim schizophrenic or schizoaffective? Probably not. But his manner of thinking displayed in both his fictional and personal writing definitely leaves some room for a reader to believe that interpretation. Just like I wouldn't claim he's a misogynist but I understand why so many people might reach that conclusion. If my blog were more famous, I'm sure I'd run the gamut of weird reader interpretations as well based on loads of things I've written in whimsical or facetious states of mind. A lot of what Dave Sim winds up writing in Cerebus could be interpreted as simply science fiction in a fantasy setting. He's just taking modern problems and ideas and exploding them to test how current modes of thinking might fall out under different societal pressures. A lot of what's coming up could be slapped with a Philip K. Dick credit and I don't think a lot of people would question it.
Still funny in a The Family Guy keep the joke going way too long kind of funny (which isn't really funny) or not? I guess not since the first choice I already declared not funny, I guess.
I think the Blank Page gag was good at three times. But I think Dave also needed the fourth just to make sure the gag had definitely run its course. And maybe it was funnier when buying this comic book every two weeks?! I may just be experiencing the timing of it incorrectly.
And on to the story!
Cerebus has decided to hang around with Professor Charles X. Claremont on his mission to summon the Apocalypse Beast (also known as Woman-Thing) to end the world. Professor X learned the spell to destroy the world from a book of children's fairy tales written by Suenteus Po. I can't quite remember what, ultimately, Suenteus Po's philosophical beliefs are. I believe the Suenteus Po Cerebus spoke with in his drug coma turns out not to be the real Po. That one was just one of many people pretending to be Po to live lives of drug-laced hedonistic pleasure. The actual Po plays chess or something and is an aardvark. He may or may not be a nihilist but this evidence that he created a spell to end the world suggests he might be. We'll discover all that later! For now, let's get back to this story which, I believe, ends in the first death by fucking in any comic book ever (unless Robert Crumb did it first. I would not be surprised. Probably some tiny main character crushed to death in the thick legs of some monstrous beauty).
And on to the story!
Cerebus has decided to hang around with Professor Charles X. Claremont on his mission to summon the Apocalypse Beast (also known as Woman-Thing) to end the world. Professor X learned the spell to destroy the world from a book of children's fairy tales written by Suenteus Po. I can't quite remember what, ultimately, Suenteus Po's philosophical beliefs are. I believe the Suenteus Po Cerebus spoke with in his drug coma turns out not to be the real Po. That one was just one of many people pretending to be Po to live lives of drug-laced hedonistic pleasure. The actual Po plays chess or something and is an aardvark. He may or may not be a nihilist but this evidence that he created a spell to end the world suggests he might be. We'll discover all that later! For now, let's get back to this story which, I believe, ends in the first death by fucking in any comic book ever (unless Robert Crumb did it first. I would not be surprised. Probably some tiny main character crushed to death in the thick legs of some monstrous beauty).
"Whatever knows fear burns at the touch of the Man-thing" was the slogan of Marvel's original creation.
Professor X explains that his Woman-thing isn't the first Apocalypse Beast. As he pointed out to Cerebus, the first one destroyed everybody who knew nothing. That's a pretty scary word to fill in because what's the cut off of knowing nothing?! Would my 7th grade report on glaciers be enough to keep me from burning?! Hmm, probably not because I copied it verbatim from an old encyclopedia.
One of the masters of the Apocalypse Beast chose the word "me" to finish the spell. That seems like a dick move. Professor X has chosen Marvel's word: fear. He figures it'll be a pretty good feedback loop to kill nearly everybody. First the fearful then those with fear induced by seeing the fearful killed and so on. I guess it's a good plan if your stupid good plan is for human genocide.
Professor X and Cerebus, on their way to destroy everybody, come across an enormous castle from the "Black Tower Dynasty." I'm not sure what that is but could it have something to do with a previous ascension?
One of the masters of the Apocalypse Beast chose the word "me" to finish the spell. That seems like a dick move. Professor X has chosen Marvel's word: fear. He figures it'll be a pretty good feedback loop to kill nearly everybody. First the fearful then those with fear induced by seeing the fearful killed and so on. I guess it's a good plan if your stupid good plan is for human genocide.
Professor X and Cerebus, on their way to destroy everybody, come across an enormous castle from the "Black Tower Dynasty." I'm not sure what that is but could it have something to do with a previous ascension?
The black rocks the castle is built upon contain faces much like the black tower that grows and launches Cerebus into his ascension.
Professor X's plan to take over the tower is to lure the owner to Woman-thing which the sight of will frighten him so badly that he'll burn. Except the owner of the castle isn't afraid of Woman-thing at all. He's mesmerized by the workmanship and artistry. The owner of the castle is an artist and/or pornographer. Sure his paintings have loads of female nudity but they're in service to a greater message about humanity's struggle with its own existence!
Sim's jokes are a good gauge for reader maturity.
If you love the first 25 issues the best, you're a randy teenager enjoying all the boob jokes and violence. If you love the next 25 of "High Society," you're probably in college raging against the political system. If you find the next sixty "Church & State" issues the funniest, you're humor is balanced by having become dispossessed with the status quo meanings of life and the terrible ennui of religious dogma. If "Jaka's Story" is your favorite, you're showing definite signs of becoming a fully mature adult, mostly because you put up with all those stupid words with so many fewer pictures. If you find "Melmoth" funny, you've gone too far into "maturity" and entered "diagnoses psychosis." If you find "Mothers & Daughters" hilarious, you probably hate your mother. If you've been reading Cerebus since you were a randy teenager, by the time you get along to "Guys," you're probably going through a second childhood or a midlife crisis which makes "Guys" just as funny as you remember the first 25 issues being. Finding "Rick's Story" funny means you've never been successful at love and I pity you (although I'd never say that because saying "I pity you" to somebody's face is possibly the worst thing you can do. I'd rather look somebody in the eyes just before sliding a dagger into their belly). I've only read "Going Home," "Form and Void," "Latter Days," and "The Last Day" the one time so I can't remember what kind of sense of humor you need to find those funny. I think you need to love Hemingway, hate Fitzgerald, love the Three Stooges, and love/hate Woody Allen to get any laughs out of those. You might also find them super funny if you think women ruin everything. I'm not saying Dave is a misogynist, remember, but, hoo boy these last few stories don't help!
In one of the artist's paintings, Professor X recognizes Lord Roth-Sump's Thing. Ha ha. Get it? The Sump Thing? Swamp Thing?! Try to, I say, try to keep up!
In one of the artist's paintings, Professor X recognizes Lord Roth-Sump's Thing. Ha ha. Get it? The Sump Thing? Swamp Thing?! Try to, I say, try to keep up!
Dave Sim understands he's writing for people who don't always get the first, subtle joke so he makes sure to bold face it later for them.
I don't know who would be reading Cerebus who didn't have a comprehensive knowledge of mainstream comic books but if those people existed, I'm sure they could get a little chuckle out of an Apocalypse Beast called a "Something."
After bringing Sump Thing to life, the two Apocalypse Beasts begin wrestling with each other with Professor X caught between them. Eventually they fuck and Professor X is little more than love juice. The artist feels so guilty about the death of Cerebus's friend that he gives Cerebus eight bags of gold and several other treasures. By the end of Issue #25, Cerebus is, once again, loaded. By the beginning of the next issue, you'd expect him to be drunk and broke again. But I think this time, he's drunk and living in the Regency Hotel in Iest.
Except I'm reading the Bi-weekly issues of Cerebus so there's a bonus issue first! We'll get to that next time.
The Single Page features an Eddie Campbell comic and some other person's work with ugly men and beautiful women. Unless the women aren't supposed to be beautiful and I'm just easily aroused. Um, engorged. Er, amused?
Cerebus #25 Rating: A. This issue is really good because it gets us one issue closer to the Regency Elf. It also features a person smashed between two monsters fucking. Not on panel, of course! This isn't Heavy Metal! It's also the end of what could be the First Age of Cerebus. These were his barbarian years, his wanderer years, his meeting a bunch of random characters, getting rich, and drinking away his loot years. For better or worse, Cerebus becomes a little more sophisticated in the upcoming issues.
After bringing Sump Thing to life, the two Apocalypse Beasts begin wrestling with each other with Professor X caught between them. Eventually they fuck and Professor X is little more than love juice. The artist feels so guilty about the death of Cerebus's friend that he gives Cerebus eight bags of gold and several other treasures. By the end of Issue #25, Cerebus is, once again, loaded. By the beginning of the next issue, you'd expect him to be drunk and broke again. But I think this time, he's drunk and living in the Regency Hotel in Iest.
Except I'm reading the Bi-weekly issues of Cerebus so there's a bonus issue first! We'll get to that next time.
The Single Page features an Eddie Campbell comic and some other person's work with ugly men and beautiful women. Unless the women aren't supposed to be beautiful and I'm just easily aroused. Um, engorged. Er, amused?
Cerebus #25 Rating: A. This issue is really good because it gets us one issue closer to the Regency Elf. It also features a person smashed between two monsters fucking. Not on panel, of course! This isn't Heavy Metal! It's also the end of what could be the First Age of Cerebus. These were his barbarian years, his wanderer years, his meeting a bunch of random characters, getting rich, and drinking away his loot years. For better or worse, Cerebus becomes a little more sophisticated in the upcoming issues.
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