Cerebus

Cerebus the Aardvark or more simply Cerebus is a cartoon car-published created by the Canadian Dave Sim (joined then by its Gerhard compatriot) in 1977 which tells the stories of a " oryctérope" on 300 episodes, developing quantity of sets of themes such as the female condition, the religion, or time.

Finished in March 2004, this series longest is published by only one team in English, with 300 numbers and more 6 000 pages. Its creator considers that the series constitutes a Roman graph of 6000 pages.

The character of Cerebus

The main character is a biped oryctérope misanthropist which is related to the various events religious and political of the imaginary Monde of Estarcion and which becomes, during the various episodes, mercenary, Prime Minister, pope, holding of bar or Messiah. Cerebus speaks about itself with the third anybody while being indicated by his name (with some exceptions in the first episodes). Its name comes from an accidental deformation of Cerbère ( Cerberus in English).

Cerebus is a character with morality turbid, sometimes sympathetic nerve and sometimes pitiless. It is often coarse and vulgar, has a vicious temperament and likes to find drunk, so much so that one can regard it as alcoholic. In spite of its little of morality, it is brave, courageous and can show a real affection with those which it considers the equal ones or towards which it tests feelings. It is also gifted in Tactique and Stratégie, expert in combat with naked hands, gifted to improvise when it must be left painful situations. It finally lays out of some magic competences .

One of the recurring gags of the first episodes related to the fact that when its fur is wet, it releases a terrible stink that itself could hardly tolerate.

History of the series

Difficult to classify, Cerebus is car-published by Sim under its label Aardvark-Vanaheim, Inc. During the first years, the publication is ensured by the boyfriend of Sim, Deni Loubert (they marry then divorce throughout the series).

Inspired on certain points by the character of Howard the Duck , the first numbers of Cerebus take to the form of a parody of Conan the barbarian. The series develops quickly to reach a certain originality and artistic sophistication. For example, Sim makes any possible sound to turn over the pages vertically, introduced many passages of narration between the drawings and reveals many real characters deaths or alive (including itself) in the course of the history, the whole with an aim of freeing itself as much as possible from the conventions used in the North-American cartoon.

In 1979, Sim, which is then a regular consumer of Cannabis, starts to take LSD at such a frequency that it must be hospitalized. Following this event Sim announces to have enough inspiration to produce Cerebus for 300 months. The episodes move away then more and more from the world of the Heroic fantasy and the 25e episode marks a turning in the history, making slip the scenario towards a complex Satire political. Sim is joined by Gerhard starting from episode 65.

In the Years 1990, Sim becomes a burning defender of the rights of the creators in the world of the cartoon and uses the leading pages of Cerebus to make the promotion of the autoreporting. He becomes also an important member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund by giving to this association the totality of his profits acquired during his work on the 10th episode of the series Spawn of Todd McFarlane.

Jaka' S Story (numbers 114 to 136), a tragic study on the feelings, the relations man-women and the political suppression of any form of art, is generally regarded as the top of the series on the narrative level. However, the last episodes of this series tend to become very personal and disappoint some of the readers, in particular the women. In episode 186 is a long text attacked by certain readers and critics as being pure misogyny (whereas Sim describes it like " anti-féminisme"). Influenced by authors such as Norman To net, Sim is opposed so that he regards as the basic principles of feminism, defending a theory according to which the traditional values are described as " masculines" whereas the feelings and the emotions are " féminins" , opposing the " creative light masculine" (“creative male light”) with the " emotional vacuum féminin" (“emotional female void”). This episode will be followed by number 265 (called " Tangent") still more virulent in which Sim identifies a " center feminist and homosexuel" that he opposes to the traditional and rational values of the company. He suggests in this episode that the husbands should have the statutory duty to beat their wife and described the women like " beings inférieurs". This standpoint causes its withdrawal of the public life and its marginalisation by its pars.

Sim itself seems a character of Cerebus , particularly for réprimander its creation in the episode Minds . The idea of a writer entering his own universe of fiction is not a concept that Sim can claim to have invented (see for example Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Four Fantastic , Kurt Vonnegut in Breakfast off Champions , Paul Auster in New York Trilogy and Grant Morrison in Animal Man ), although he claims of to have had the idea as of 1979, then ten years before carrying it out.

It breaks practically all relations with its family and her colleagues (except for Gerhard) to devote itself to the series, except for several businesses where it is caught some publicly in Terry Moore, Jeff Smith or Gary Groth.

Sim is also known for its religious convictions. First of all atheistic, Sim claims to have found the faith during research for an episode. However, rather than to follow a religion, Sim in particular believes that the Judaïsme, the Christianisme and the Islam are all equal. It follows religious practices drawn from the three religions although it describes itself, in a leading article, like " mainly musulman". In an interview given to a magazine in 2004, Sim recites a prayer which it itself composed (published in the back of episode 300) and that it says to recite five times per day. In this same interview, he says to have sold the majority of his goods to make gifts with different charity works.

The publication, in March 2004 of the 300e episode does not wake up any echo in the world of the cartoon. On this occasion, Sim confirms in an interview that after its death and that of Gerhard, Cerebus will fall into the public domain. While waiting, it offered a general license authorizing any author who wishes it to use the character of Cerebus for his own use.

Collections of Cerebus

(These collections are known by the fans under the name of " phon books" in reference to their size)

Cerebus (ISBN 0-919359-08-6) episodes 1-25 (1977-1981)
High Society (ISBN 0-919359-07-8) episodes 26-50 (1981-1983)
Church and State I (ISBN 0-919359-09-4) episodes 52-80 (1983-1985)
Church and State II (ISBN 0-919359-11-6) episodes 80-113 (1985-1988)
Jaka' S Story (ISBN 0-919359-12-4) episodes 114-136 (1988-1990)
Melmoth (ISBN 0-919359-10-8) episodes 139-150 (1990-1991)
Flight ( Mothers and Daughters vol. 1) (ISBN 0-919359-13-2) episodes 151-162 (1991-1992)
Women ( Mothers and Daughters vol. 2) (ISBN 0-919359-14-0) episodes 163-174 (1992-1993)
Reads ( Mothers and Daughters vol. 3) (ISBN 0-919359-15-9) episodes 175-186 (1993-1994)
Minds ( Mothers and Daughters vol. 4) (ISBN 0-919359-16-7) episodes 187-200 (1994-1995)
Guys (ISBN 0-919359-17-5) episodes 201-219 (1995-1997)
Rick' S Story (ISBN 0-919359-18-3) episodes 220-231 (1997-1998)
Going Home ( Going Home vol. 1) (ISBN 0-919359-19-1) episodes 232-250 (1998-2000)
Form and Void ( Going Home vol. 2) (ISBN 0-919359-20-5) episodes 251-265 (2000-2001)
To lath Days ( To lath Days vol. 1) (ISBN 0-919359-22-1) episodes 266-288 (2001-2003)
The Last Day ( To lath Days vol. 2) (ISBN 0-919359-21-3) episodes 289-300 (2003-2004)

" Collected Letters " (ISBN 0-919359-23-X) is a collection of answers of Sim to letters of readers after the publication of the last episode.

" Collected Letters " Vol. 2

Notes:

the second collection was published before the first.
the collections are printed on same paper as the original versions.
the titles of collections 8 to 11 can be read like a sentence (" women read minds, guys": " the women read the spirits, the gars"), one of the topics of the series.
With large the disappointment of the fans, episode 51 was not included in one of the books of the collection. According to Sim, the reason in is that this episode is a transition which had its place neither in High Society , nor in Church and State I .

Appendices

Documentation

Dave Sim interviewed by Luc Pommerleau, “Discussion with Dave Sim”, in Books of the cartoon n°68, March-April 1986, pp. 70-74.
Thierry Groensteen, “Everyone cannot be oryctérope! ”, in Books of the cartoon n°68, March-April 1986, pp. 75-77.

External bonds

Official site
Site of files

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