Cerebus #37 (1982)

Oh shit. This is the issue where Elrod draws little bunnies, isn't it?!

Not for the first or last time, Dave Sim turns Cerebus into a satirical memoir this issue. It's time for Petuniacon, Iest's political equivalent of Comic-Con. At least how I remember it. Here I go again! Trying to comment on the story by relying on my terrible memory of the previous several times I've read it! I suppose I could have started this review by reviewing Deni's "A Note from the Publisher" but I've grown bored of bashing her editorial for no reason. I'm sure she was doing the best she could with the little time afforded her after all the Cerebus publishing work she had to do. For regular readers, I should probably make clear that that wasn't sarcastic. I'm sure Deni did at least as much as Dave did to make Cerebus an independent comic book sensation. And knowing enough artists myself, I have to believe she did a hell of a lot more than Dave on the business side. Deni was almost certainly the Richard Pini of early Cerebus except without ever getting much of the credit. At least historically. Maybe at the time, it was well known.

I don't know what Astoria is mad about this time.

There are two ways to think about Astoria being mad all of the time and which one you believe it is probably says something about you as a person. You either think she's a bitter nag trying to manipulate and control Cerebus. Or you think she's a frustrated woman in a world where women can't gain any real power so they have to play puppeteer to some aggravating man. And also she's dealing with fucking Cerebus. That jerk's a handful.

Either way though, why's she always so fucking mad?! Oh wait, sorry. I didn't mean to expose myself as the first type of jerk!

Hmm. Maybe both ways of thinking about Astoria are correct. She's a complicated woman! While Cerebus is pretty simple. Astoria nails his entire character here and he can't argue with it. Especially after how he just treated Jaka.

The next morning, Astoria and Cerebus arrive at Petuniacon where everybody is in a tizzy to meet Elrod (and maybe get one of his bunny sketches). Nobody wants to see Cerebus. Probably because they heard how often Cerebus beats the shit out of people who look at him funny or refuse to look at him funny or try to both not look at him funny and look at him funny at the same time so as not to get the shit beaten out of them. Discovering that nobody seems to know where Cerebus is doing his sketches, Astoria storms off to verbally berate the shit out of some of the hotel staff. Is this how Deni and Dave acted at conventions?! Probably. I'm a dim-witted reader so I can't separate the author from the main character and the author's wife from the unbearable shrew.

I don't know why I just called Astoria an unbearable shrew. She's one of my favorite characters! That must have been the character me I was writing saying that and not the actual me.

Bran Mak Mufin stops by to pretend he's a strong advisor who won't kill himself at the slightest hint of the Earth-Pig Born losing all of his power. He plants the seed of running for Prime Minister in Cerebus's fertile power hungry synapse. It's Cerebus's third largest part of his brain after the part that wants to drink alcohol and the part that wants to kill Elrod. Astoria enters the room and Cerebus kicks out Bran because Cerebus is afraid of being scolded by Astoria for having a weird friend.

I'm a little bit disappointed in Astoria for not realizing this before the aardvark-obsessed rube named after a fast food breakfast sandwich.

Astoria was probably too blinded by her need to destroy her ex-husband Lord Julius in political battle to realize Cerebus should have higher aspirations than Ranking Diplomatic Representative of Palnu. But now that her hot little tush is focused on a higher goal . . . I mean her smart and elegant and savvy tush, she's going to make Cerebus a God. Sort of. Eventually.

Cerebus makes a joke about potato salad and then makes a joke about signing his autograph and suddenly he's the hit of Petuniacon! Everybody wants a Cerebus signature. But that's because Elrod hasn't begun sketching his cute little bunnies yet. Bunnies are way better than trees.

Oh whoops! I guess I wasn't supposed to know Astoria had been married to Lord Julius until just now!

Lord Julius hired the artist who painted pornographic pictures of apocalypse beasts fucking to sell sketches with subliminal "Vote for Elrod" messages in them. But it turns out nobody wants to pay for his non-pornographic propaganda when they can get an Elrod bunny for free. Somehow it's Cerebus's fault for sketching that stupid tree when his quill broke.

And that's how it ends. We don't even get to see an appearance by Elrod. I guess it doesn't matter if Cerebus put on a better performance than Elrod with all the political representatives because Astoria is steering their campaign in a new direction.

Cerebus #37 Rating: B. The original Cerebus #37 came with a bunny Elrod rub-on tattoo. Or it should have. Anyway, this was a terrible review/commentary/memoir. Please disregard it. I'm still posting it though or else anybody interested will wonder, "What happened to the review of Cerebus #37?!" And while the obvious answer is "I'm an idiot and a terrible writer is what happened," I'd rather pretend that nobody has come to that conclusion on their own and needed it explained to them.