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Cerebus #3
Church and State I
Reprinting Cerebus Issues 52-80
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Dave Sim
1,029 books133 followersDavid Victor Sim is a Canadian comic book, artist and publisher, best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
February 26, 2017
This volume consists mainly of Cerebus running around as Tarim(god)-incarnate, the pope, and trying to hoard all of his subjects' gold.
The pacing of this one is much quicker than the previous books; to the point where I would be upset to follow this monthly as some issues take seconds to read. But, reading this as a large volume, I think the quick pace is superior. (I think many comics would be more like this if it weren't for the limitations of publishing - comics are usually published monthly with 22 pages or so. Writers are forced to pack a lot of story into just 22 pages to satisfy the buyers. Even with digital comics, which surprisingly have not killed off hard-copy comics, its hard to justify an artist spending days of his life on a small amount of actual narrative content.) I think Dave Sim, at this point, gleaming in his success, was egotistical enough (in a good way, all writers need that self confidence) to predict that his readers would continue to pay $2 (a bit more actually, if we factor in inflation) for a couple minutes of reading.
I would definitely recommend reading this to fans of the previous volumes. And to people not yet into Cerebus, I've so far read up to here and I plan to continue, but I'm not sure this is for everyone.
The art is much improved with the addition of a background artist. I'm surprised more comics don't do an art team (I suppose Marvel/DC do that essentially with its writer to pencilist to inker to colorist set-up). Sim's character drawings are fantastic. I love the nuances he squeezes out of each pose of Cerebus.
Also, I find it very humorous that Sim is able to express the split-personalities of "Moon Roach" better than Marvel has their "Moon Knight's".
The pacing of this one is much quicker than the previous books; to the point where I would be upset to follow this monthly as some issues take seconds to read. But, reading this as a large volume, I think the quick pace is superior. (I think many comics would be more like this if it weren't for the limitations of publishing - comics are usually published monthly with 22 pages or so. Writers are forced to pack a lot of story into just 22 pages to satisfy the buyers. Even with digital comics, which surprisingly have not killed off hard-copy comics, its hard to justify an artist spending days of his life on a small amount of actual narrative content.) I think Dave Sim, at this point, gleaming in his success, was egotistical enough (in a good way, all writers need that self confidence) to predict that his readers would continue to pay $2 (a bit more actually, if we factor in inflation) for a couple minutes of reading.
I would definitely recommend reading this to fans of the previous volumes. And to people not yet into Cerebus, I've so far read up to here and I plan to continue, but I'm not sure this is for everyone.
The art is much improved with the addition of a background artist. I'm surprised more comics don't do an art team (I suppose Marvel/DC do that essentially with its writer to pencilist to inker to colorist set-up). Sim's character drawings are fantastic. I love the nuances he squeezes out of each pose of Cerebus.
Also, I find it very humorous that Sim is able to express the split-personalities of "Moon Roach" better than Marvel has their "Moon Knight's".
January 31, 2018
Like the the previous two Cerebus books in microcosm, this begins rather unimpresively: dumb superhero parodies, then awful jokes about domesticity and mother-in-laws (if I wanted those, there're probably plenty of terrible sitcom re-runs out there), then increasing political intrigue, but this time not so fresh and surprising as the political shift in High Society. Meanwhile, the demands of the comic issue production cycle begin to take their toll as more an more detail disappears from the backgrounds without even a winking reference to the "coal mine suite" at the hotel to explain away all the void spaces. Could the series be running out of steam already? But no: midway sees the appearance of the series' indefatigable background artist Gerhard and the introduction of truly lavish architectural and environmental detail, and after coiling up the plot for a few more hundred pages everything ramps up into some higher order of operation for the last handful of issues: cosmic uncertainty, unexpected pathos, a brilliant two-issue dream sequence, partial revelations and greater mysteries in rapid succession, a surreal gag interlude followed by the the message "meanwhile back in the storyline..." and sudden startling plot turns. Alright, you win. You have me for at least another volume.
It's impossible to write about Dave Sim's work without noting that his views become really insufferable later on, but that just makes what came before all the more tragically bright. Here, you can see the pull of the inevitable future, but there's still a kind of equilibrium, and he brings too much complexity to his work to create anything simply discardable.
It's impossible to write about Dave Sim's work without noting that his views become really insufferable later on, but that just makes what came before all the more tragically bright. Here, you can see the pull of the inevitable future, but there's still a kind of equilibrium, and he brings too much complexity to his work to create anything simply discardable.
July 25, 2011
Not as godlike as I remembered, but still good. I think the two principle problems I had with High Society are even more in force here.
The first is decompression. I'm of the type that tends to decry this in modern comics, and a lot of that trend originated here. While it allows the writer to tell more nuanced, layer stories (instead of being limited by how much you can cram into one issue), a lot of it smacks of laziness. You could still tell a story just as nuanced and layered in fewer issues if you didn't rely on decompression. It just seems like an excuse to endlessly spread things out. And despite this volume hitting nearly 600 pages, not a whole lot happens. Too many scenes take whole issues when they really only needed a few pages if he had just made the panels smaller. Entire pages used just to set up a simple sight-gag. And frankly, Cerebus having a cold isn't really funny enough to take up the space allotted to it.
In his defense though, Sim utilizes a huge number of story-telling techniques and artistic experiments to fill that space. It's stunning how many different ways Sim can portray even the most straight-forward of scenes.
The second is that Sim still seems to think he's explaining things better than he is. In the forward, he mentions the hundreds of pages of notes he has on the various religions and politics that play out in these pages. We the readers are not privy to those notes. And while Sim may understand the underlying mechanics of the events that take place in this volume, the reader often doesn't. Since these things are so clear to Sim, maybe he forgets that he hasn't relayed some of the essential facts, or maybe doesn't realize what facts we might need to know? In my first reading of this during college, I really enjoyed being confused, but that's because I was approaching it like a mystery and assumed there would be a full explanation later in the series. In most cases, that explanation never comes.
So those are the down-sides. But as with High Society, they are more than compensated for by the up-sides. It's still a really involving, well told story, with memorable characters and more than a few hilarious moments (the scene with the Pope and the baby is my favorite). Watching everything unfold is a wonder, and it's hard not to admire Sim's ambitiousness.
Of special note is the art. About halfway through, Gerhard steps in with his ultra-detailed background art, leaving Sim doing just the figures (as well as the layouts and lettering). Before that, you could see Sim getting a bit lazier with his art, especially in regards to the backgrounds, and having Gerhard doing those leaves Sim with even more time to spend on the rest. Everything looks better than ever, and it's really amazing how well Gerhard's realist backdrops mix with Sim's cartoonish figures. It seems like it shouldn't work, but it's a fantastic combination.
The first is decompression. I'm of the type that tends to decry this in modern comics, and a lot of that trend originated here. While it allows the writer to tell more nuanced, layer stories (instead of being limited by how much you can cram into one issue), a lot of it smacks of laziness. You could still tell a story just as nuanced and layered in fewer issues if you didn't rely on decompression. It just seems like an excuse to endlessly spread things out. And despite this volume hitting nearly 600 pages, not a whole lot happens. Too many scenes take whole issues when they really only needed a few pages if he had just made the panels smaller. Entire pages used just to set up a simple sight-gag. And frankly, Cerebus having a cold isn't really funny enough to take up the space allotted to it.
In his defense though, Sim utilizes a huge number of story-telling techniques and artistic experiments to fill that space. It's stunning how many different ways Sim can portray even the most straight-forward of scenes.
The second is that Sim still seems to think he's explaining things better than he is. In the forward, he mentions the hundreds of pages of notes he has on the various religions and politics that play out in these pages. We the readers are not privy to those notes. And while Sim may understand the underlying mechanics of the events that take place in this volume, the reader often doesn't. Since these things are so clear to Sim, maybe he forgets that he hasn't relayed some of the essential facts, or maybe doesn't realize what facts we might need to know? In my first reading of this during college, I really enjoyed being confused, but that's because I was approaching it like a mystery and assumed there would be a full explanation later in the series. In most cases, that explanation never comes.
So those are the down-sides. But as with High Society, they are more than compensated for by the up-sides. It's still a really involving, well told story, with memorable characters and more than a few hilarious moments (the scene with the Pope and the baby is my favorite). Watching everything unfold is a wonder, and it's hard not to admire Sim's ambitiousness.
Of special note is the art. About halfway through, Gerhard steps in with his ultra-detailed background art, leaving Sim doing just the figures (as well as the layouts and lettering). Before that, you could see Sim getting a bit lazier with his art, especially in regards to the backgrounds, and having Gerhard doing those leaves Sim with even more time to spend on the rest. Everything looks better than ever, and it's really amazing how well Gerhard's realist backdrops mix with Sim's cartoonish figures. It seems like it shouldn't work, but it's a fantastic combination.
May 9, 2022
[Church And State is one story split into two volumes, and while there’s a sense in which the break point works - I is mostly Cerebus as Pope; II is mostly the Ascension - I’m going to review both of them together, twice, concentrating on Sim’s writing this time and Sim/Gerhard in II. Average out the scores.]
There are no great jumping on points for new readers in Cerebus (and a lot of great jumping off points for old ones), but every issue might be someone’s first and my first was the episode, a little over halfway through Church And State, where Cerebus meets Prince Mick and Prince Keef.
It was not love at first read. I only dimly understood who the Rolling Stones were, I had no idea why Cerebus was talking to them, and Dave Sim’s attempt at a British accent was indecipherable. Sheer bad luck - if my friend had bought the issue before we’d have got the Secret Wars/Dark Knight parody, and that would have hooked us.
This read of Church And State might be the first time I’ve enjoyed the Mick n Keef stuff. It’s ultra-broad drug humour but the rhythms of Mick’s speech are a delight and the elegance of how Sim draws him, a languid swan of a creature like a Jules Feiffer dancer, is beautiful. It’s Sim having fun, and not really at anyone else’s expense, which is relaxing in a story in which mothers in law, fat women, skinny men, feminists, babies, peasants, artists and anyone else Sim likes are the butt of the broad, vengeful and (yes) often funny jokes, adding to the long established targets of politicians, bureaucrats, snobs, girlfriends, ex girlfriends, comics creators, characters and fans.
We aren’t yet at the stage at which Sim starts to grab the reader by the collar and yell that some of these obvious jokes and barroom observations are actually a philosophy of life (and one of Sim’s recurring jokes, effectively used in Church And State, is that offhand comments turn into philosophies, and accidents into traditions, an awful lot). So Church And State’s structure is a collection of comic or psychedelic or action riffs, like the Mick and Keef sequence, from a few pages to a few issues long, interspersed by moments of sudden seriousness.
The seriousness of these moments in the rush of riffs makes them extremely effective - “Go to hell”; “Boom”; “It *is*”; Something fell”; “Alone unmourned and unloved” - as does the way the frequency of these beats increases until the final sequence (mostly a four issue monologue) gets an uncanny narrative weight from the rising momentum that’s led up to it.
But they also create an illusion, that Church And State is a coherent story in the conventional, three-act way High Society was. And it’s not, or at least it doesn’t work that way for me. The serious moments aren’t the spine of plot, they’re just a different kind of riff in the ever crescendoing tumble of events.
When I first read Church And State I thought it was “the one about religion” in the way High Society is “the one about politics”. And it kind of is, but not in the way I would have meant then. Cerebus’ antics as Pope are a satire of religion in the way Mick and Keef are a satire of rock stars, i.e a comic bit based on already existing stereotypes the readers have about “evangelists” and “rock stars” so Sim can turn that stuff up to 11. That’s already a difference from High Society, which even though it bears no relation to ‘real’ politics provides quite a subtle portrait of what it’s like to get caught up in it.
The other major contrast goes deeper, into the difference between religion and politics. Cerebus may have been written by (at the time) an atheist, but it’s a comic and a world in which supernatural agency clearly exists but is not necessarily comprehensible. So in High Society the drama and plot partly comes from the fact that politics has rules, and we as readers can intuit those rules (and get them explained to us when we can’t), and we get to understand the extent to which Cerebus can and can’t break the rules.
In Church And State, the supernatural or divine also has rules, but Cerebus doesn’t know what they are, and we don’t either, and the characters who think they do (like Weisshaupt or Fred/Ethel) tend to be proved fatally wrong. We have no way of telling which set of characters, caricatures, weird happenings, strange encounters, dreams, and so on is important, and nobody in the comic has a reliably better handle on that stuff.
As readers we’re forced to read the story from a position of faith (that this stuff will make sense). We’re like a soothsayer with a set of entrails, looking for patterns among the chaos, and the most obvious pattern we latch onto is tone - the serious stuff must matter more and be truer because it’s serious. If you had to sit down and describe what happens in the story of Church And State you’d rapidly have to admit that it doesn’t make a lot of linear sense - actions and outcomes are evident but causal mechanisms aren’t: that’s religion for ya! What you’re left with is an experience - a sense that something meaningful *has* occurred. And this is not, or mostly not, down to Sim’s ideas or his writing…
There are no great jumping on points for new readers in Cerebus (and a lot of great jumping off points for old ones), but every issue might be someone’s first and my first was the episode, a little over halfway through Church And State, where Cerebus meets Prince Mick and Prince Keef.
It was not love at first read. I only dimly understood who the Rolling Stones were, I had no idea why Cerebus was talking to them, and Dave Sim’s attempt at a British accent was indecipherable. Sheer bad luck - if my friend had bought the issue before we’d have got the Secret Wars/Dark Knight parody, and that would have hooked us.
This read of Church And State might be the first time I’ve enjoyed the Mick n Keef stuff. It’s ultra-broad drug humour but the rhythms of Mick’s speech are a delight and the elegance of how Sim draws him, a languid swan of a creature like a Jules Feiffer dancer, is beautiful. It’s Sim having fun, and not really at anyone else’s expense, which is relaxing in a story in which mothers in law, fat women, skinny men, feminists, babies, peasants, artists and anyone else Sim likes are the butt of the broad, vengeful and (yes) often funny jokes, adding to the long established targets of politicians, bureaucrats, snobs, girlfriends, ex girlfriends, comics creators, characters and fans.
We aren’t yet at the stage at which Sim starts to grab the reader by the collar and yell that some of these obvious jokes and barroom observations are actually a philosophy of life (and one of Sim’s recurring jokes, effectively used in Church And State, is that offhand comments turn into philosophies, and accidents into traditions, an awful lot). So Church And State’s structure is a collection of comic or psychedelic or action riffs, like the Mick and Keef sequence, from a few pages to a few issues long, interspersed by moments of sudden seriousness.
The seriousness of these moments in the rush of riffs makes them extremely effective - “Go to hell”; “Boom”; “It *is*”; Something fell”; “Alone unmourned and unloved” - as does the way the frequency of these beats increases until the final sequence (mostly a four issue monologue) gets an uncanny narrative weight from the rising momentum that’s led up to it.
But they also create an illusion, that Church And State is a coherent story in the conventional, three-act way High Society was. And it’s not, or at least it doesn’t work that way for me. The serious moments aren’t the spine of plot, they’re just a different kind of riff in the ever crescendoing tumble of events.
When I first read Church And State I thought it was “the one about religion” in the way High Society is “the one about politics”. And it kind of is, but not in the way I would have meant then. Cerebus’ antics as Pope are a satire of religion in the way Mick and Keef are a satire of rock stars, i.e a comic bit based on already existing stereotypes the readers have about “evangelists” and “rock stars” so Sim can turn that stuff up to 11. That’s already a difference from High Society, which even though it bears no relation to ‘real’ politics provides quite a subtle portrait of what it’s like to get caught up in it.
The other major contrast goes deeper, into the difference between religion and politics. Cerebus may have been written by (at the time) an atheist, but it’s a comic and a world in which supernatural agency clearly exists but is not necessarily comprehensible. So in High Society the drama and plot partly comes from the fact that politics has rules, and we as readers can intuit those rules (and get them explained to us when we can’t), and we get to understand the extent to which Cerebus can and can’t break the rules.
In Church And State, the supernatural or divine also has rules, but Cerebus doesn’t know what they are, and we don’t either, and the characters who think they do (like Weisshaupt or Fred/Ethel) tend to be proved fatally wrong. We have no way of telling which set of characters, caricatures, weird happenings, strange encounters, dreams, and so on is important, and nobody in the comic has a reliably better handle on that stuff.
As readers we’re forced to read the story from a position of faith (that this stuff will make sense). We’re like a soothsayer with a set of entrails, looking for patterns among the chaos, and the most obvious pattern we latch onto is tone - the serious stuff must matter more and be truer because it’s serious. If you had to sit down and describe what happens in the story of Church And State you’d rapidly have to admit that it doesn’t make a lot of linear sense - actions and outcomes are evident but causal mechanisms aren’t: that’s religion for ya! What you’re left with is an experience - a sense that something meaningful *has* occurred. And this is not, or mostly not, down to Sim’s ideas or his writing…
November 3, 2013
It's a pity that the most read Cerebus volumes are the first two ones, because that means that most people never even get to see Gerhard's beautiful artwork. This is also why most people think of "Cerebus" as the comic book in which the characters stand around in white voids or black blots a lot. Which is, of course, wrongwrongwrong. Except for the first 60something issues. And the first 30something issues. Because in-between those the tight monthly schedule that Dave Sim imposed on himself eventually took its toll and it's very evident that he found it tough to keep up with. (Creating 20 pages a month all alone IS a punishingly hard task after all.) And it wasn't really until halfway through the "High Society" storyline that backgrounds became more and more... well... "economical", with them barely even there in the first third of "Church and State" save for a few occasions. I mean, just look at page 268. Really, just LOOK at it! This is "Cerebus" at its worst looking and at its least confident. Sim knew something had to change, so he went looking for someone who could deliver all the backgrounds and allow him to focus entirely on the script and the characters. And found Gerhard on a whim. Who, as it turned out, was able to come up with the most breathtakingly beautiful artwork one could imagine. And who, from that point onwards, got even better and better - which is almost impossible to imagine when you reach the end of this book. It really is that astonishing! We could be arguing about those later volumes all day, but they truly are a sight to behold.
So what about the actual story of "Church And State", or at least the first half of it? Well, it must be said, but it does come across a bit like "High Society – Redux". Some characters might be different, but at its core the structure of the story is the same. Cerebus becomes president again, gets manipulated all around the town while the smart folks are busy playing their mind games. But it's pulled off far more convincing and interesting than in the preceding volume. (There's even another meet-up with Jaka that plays out rather similar to the one in "High Society", just that this one is slightly longer and even better.) Halfway through the book however a key twist happens, one that sets this book far apart from the previous one. In believing that he has the most perfect sockpuppet in Cerebus, Weisshaupt plays one mind game too many and makes the aardvark pope. A grave mistake, because Cerebus quickly finds out that he's now in a position in which he has to answer to no one and can quite literally do as he pleases. So he takes his chances and "pays back" to all his manipulators... and everyone else. Literally everyone else. Which causes everyone to panic and everything fall into chaos, not least because Cerebus announced the end of the world.
There are mainly two reasons why "Church and State" is so much more enjoyable than "High Society". The first one is the aforementioned Gerhard, not just because of the ensuing eyecandy that is dripping all over the pages, but also because he allows Sim to concentrate on other areas, like wild panel techniques and rather adventurously assembled pages. You always heard about Dave Sim love for mad experimentation? Well, this is where it’s finally starting to happen. The highlight in this volume is without a doubt the long dream sequence that occurs near the end. No matter how long and hard I try to remember, I can’t think of any other dream sequence in comics that has been pulled off as well as this one.
And then there's the case of Sim approaching the plot more loosely and not imposing a "I have to finish the storyline in 25 issues, no matter what!"-task upon him (or at least so it appears). Not having a definitive deadline in his head it allows him to explore the characters and the world they inhabit much more deeply, and you don't get the sense that things get cut a bit short the way it tends to happen in "High Society" a lot (especially in its later stages). However, not saying that there’s not a bad side to this would be lie, because occasionally it does result in some arsing around. The whole bit about Cerebus getting stuck in a crack of a wall is bafflingly pointless (And Sim seems to think so too, since the caption that follows says "Meanwhile back at the storyline". Heh.), but luckily those moments are just far and between, so I don’t mind them as much.
Since this volume contains only the first half of "Church And State" it ends on a (very literal) cliffhanger. Ironically though it’s one of the least well executed pages in the whole book. I think it tries to be dramatic and to create tension, but it just falls flat. Ah well, can’t have everything, I suppose.
Anyway, on to book #4!
So what about the actual story of "Church And State", or at least the first half of it? Well, it must be said, but it does come across a bit like "High Society – Redux". Some characters might be different, but at its core the structure of the story is the same. Cerebus becomes president again, gets manipulated all around the town while the smart folks are busy playing their mind games. But it's pulled off far more convincing and interesting than in the preceding volume. (There's even another meet-up with Jaka that plays out rather similar to the one in "High Society", just that this one is slightly longer and even better.) Halfway through the book however a key twist happens, one that sets this book far apart from the previous one. In believing that he has the most perfect sockpuppet in Cerebus, Weisshaupt plays one mind game too many and makes the aardvark pope. A grave mistake, because Cerebus quickly finds out that he's now in a position in which he has to answer to no one and can quite literally do as he pleases. So he takes his chances and "pays back" to all his manipulators... and everyone else. Literally everyone else. Which causes everyone to panic and everything fall into chaos, not least because Cerebus announced the end of the world.
There are mainly two reasons why "Church and State" is so much more enjoyable than "High Society". The first one is the aforementioned Gerhard, not just because of the ensuing eyecandy that is dripping all over the pages, but also because he allows Sim to concentrate on other areas, like wild panel techniques and rather adventurously assembled pages. You always heard about Dave Sim love for mad experimentation? Well, this is where it’s finally starting to happen. The highlight in this volume is without a doubt the long dream sequence that occurs near the end. No matter how long and hard I try to remember, I can’t think of any other dream sequence in comics that has been pulled off as well as this one.
And then there's the case of Sim approaching the plot more loosely and not imposing a "I have to finish the storyline in 25 issues, no matter what!"-task upon him (or at least so it appears). Not having a definitive deadline in his head it allows him to explore the characters and the world they inhabit much more deeply, and you don't get the sense that things get cut a bit short the way it tends to happen in "High Society" a lot (especially in its later stages). However, not saying that there’s not a bad side to this would be lie, because occasionally it does result in some arsing around. The whole bit about Cerebus getting stuck in a crack of a wall is bafflingly pointless (And Sim seems to think so too, since the caption that follows says "Meanwhile back at the storyline". Heh.), but luckily those moments are just far and between, so I don’t mind them as much.
Since this volume contains only the first half of "Church And State" it ends on a (very literal) cliffhanger. Ironically though it’s one of the least well executed pages in the whole book. I think it tries to be dramatic and to create tension, but it just falls flat. Ah well, can’t have everything, I suppose.
Anyway, on to book #4!
March 15, 2013
The books continue to be entertaining and cohesive. Being a fairly outright atheist, it is quite a delight to see the religious machinations put on display as politics with a higher power then most can comprehend.
Put simply, religion was created to control those scared about dying. It has always been used for that purpose and Dave does a great job in this and the following book showing that. This does lead to some moments near the end of the series where you wonder where the hell this author disappeared too and who the new guy is who replaced him is doing.
Cerebus is still acting like Cerebus, which is nice and Dave does a fairly good job pulling in older characters and using them effectively. Though the reappearance of Thrunk really threw me off because I couldn't for the life of me remember who the giant stone statue was supposed to be. Though that may have been more on me then the writer.
Put simply, religion was created to control those scared about dying. It has always been used for that purpose and Dave does a great job in this and the following book showing that. This does lead to some moments near the end of the series where you wonder where the hell this author disappeared too and who the new guy is who replaced him is doing.
Cerebus is still acting like Cerebus, which is nice and Dave does a fairly good job pulling in older characters and using them effectively. Though the reappearance of Thrunk really threw me off because I couldn't for the life of me remember who the giant stone statue was supposed to be. Though that may have been more on me then the writer.
September 13, 2014
A truly fun and interesting graphic novel. One of my frat brothers used to get this comic and I'd always hear about it. Warrior aardvark Cerebus becomes prime minister and then pope of the one true church of Tarim.
September 22, 2024
In High Society, Dave Sim pulled off the ambitious task of writing an actual graphic novel, one concerned with politics and the abuse of power and at a length almost unknown when he began serializing the story in 1980. With Church and State he attempted something even more ambitious as he examined religion. The story is so mammoth, running to 1,220 pages, that it required two volumes to gather it.
With Cerebus the aardvark having become Prime Minister of Iest in High Society, he suffers the same fate again. This time, wiser and more cynical, he is most reluctant, and has to be forced into accepting the post by the manipulative President Weisshaupt. Before you know it, the Machiavellian machinations are coming thick and fast, and the book moves into religious territory, when, in an attempt to undermine Weisshaupt, his enemies nominate Cerebus as Pope. Unfortunately, this sets Cerebus off on one, and he demands that everyone gives him all their gold or perish as a divine consequence. Then hints occur that his prophecy could be self-fulfilling. And that’s when things start to get really strange.
However, it’s not all political intrigue and metaphysical weirdness, Sim also excels at comedy, whether it’s Marx Brothers-style satire or the broader parody of Wolveroach. This prompted a ‘cease and desist’ order from Marvel, something that earlier parodies – of Moon Knight and Captain America – hadn’t.
In one of the many great scenes Cerebus exhorts the masses to give him all their gold, and to illustrate the point that you can get what you want and still not be happy, he blesses someone’s child and then tosses it into the distance like an American football. This upset some readers. So Cerebus later kicks a crippled old man off a roof. The lesson: one less mouth to feed is one less mouth to feed. Many of these scenes provide some of the finest comedy in the book, with Cerebus showing what an imaginative, vindictive and greedy little bastard he can be.
This volume ends on a literal cliffhanger, with Cerebus, much like the aforementioned baby, being tossed into the air by Thrunk, a giant orange rock-monster (sound familiar?) that Cerebus had encountered back in the early Conan-parody days. This was to be a recurring theme in Cerebus, with characters who’d appear to be mere throwaways returning to become important elements in Cerebus’s life. Nowhere is this more true than with Jaka, the aardvark’s one true love. She abruptly reappears and Cerebus is ready to drop everything and go with her, but, as is so often the case, it’s not quite that simple. That moves us onto another topic, unrequited love, which is among the themes explored in detail in the next novel: Jaka’s Story.
Gerhard, who, like Prince or Madonna, apparently only has one name, came on board during this book to assist Sim with backgrounds, tints and the like. After some experimentation he settled on a distinctive style that would be an invaluable contribution, and some of his artwork is superb. By this stage Sim was an accomplished artist and writer, as adept at comedy as drama, constantly pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in comics, both in form and content.
If nothing else, this may be the biggest book in comics, in terms of sheer size. It is often challenging, and makes no attempt to wrap things up neatly. For that, you’ll have to read the conclusion: Church and State 2.
With Cerebus the aardvark having become Prime Minister of Iest in High Society, he suffers the same fate again. This time, wiser and more cynical, he is most reluctant, and has to be forced into accepting the post by the manipulative President Weisshaupt. Before you know it, the Machiavellian machinations are coming thick and fast, and the book moves into religious territory, when, in an attempt to undermine Weisshaupt, his enemies nominate Cerebus as Pope. Unfortunately, this sets Cerebus off on one, and he demands that everyone gives him all their gold or perish as a divine consequence. Then hints occur that his prophecy could be self-fulfilling. And that’s when things start to get really strange.
However, it’s not all political intrigue and metaphysical weirdness, Sim also excels at comedy, whether it’s Marx Brothers-style satire or the broader parody of Wolveroach. This prompted a ‘cease and desist’ order from Marvel, something that earlier parodies – of Moon Knight and Captain America – hadn’t.
In one of the many great scenes Cerebus exhorts the masses to give him all their gold, and to illustrate the point that you can get what you want and still not be happy, he blesses someone’s child and then tosses it into the distance like an American football. This upset some readers. So Cerebus later kicks a crippled old man off a roof. The lesson: one less mouth to feed is one less mouth to feed. Many of these scenes provide some of the finest comedy in the book, with Cerebus showing what an imaginative, vindictive and greedy little bastard he can be.
This volume ends on a literal cliffhanger, with Cerebus, much like the aforementioned baby, being tossed into the air by Thrunk, a giant orange rock-monster (sound familiar?) that Cerebus had encountered back in the early Conan-parody days. This was to be a recurring theme in Cerebus, with characters who’d appear to be mere throwaways returning to become important elements in Cerebus’s life. Nowhere is this more true than with Jaka, the aardvark’s one true love. She abruptly reappears and Cerebus is ready to drop everything and go with her, but, as is so often the case, it’s not quite that simple. That moves us onto another topic, unrequited love, which is among the themes explored in detail in the next novel: Jaka’s Story.
Gerhard, who, like Prince or Madonna, apparently only has one name, came on board during this book to assist Sim with backgrounds, tints and the like. After some experimentation he settled on a distinctive style that would be an invaluable contribution, and some of his artwork is superb. By this stage Sim was an accomplished artist and writer, as adept at comedy as drama, constantly pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in comics, both in form and content.
If nothing else, this may be the biggest book in comics, in terms of sheer size. It is often challenging, and makes no attempt to wrap things up neatly. For that, you’ll have to read the conclusion: Church and State 2.
October 28, 2019
Fifth printing = December 1993
I actually read this HULK in under a day which I'm glad I could pull off- I spent way too long trying to interpret all the ins, outs and what-have-yous that were so tightly jammed into the last omnibook. All the intrigue is much easier to understand in this one directly because of the last book so I wouldn't read this on it's own.
He officially Woody Allened (in his own words) Cerebus by going for the depth and skimping on the laughs too proportionally. His need to flex his "serious" storytelling muscles is appreciated and applauded but without enough laughs an aardvark megalomaniac isn't appropriately entertaining.
Almost all writers can't write their own stuff without alluding to other works or storytelling in allegory of the real world if they expect to be published. He self-published all this which gave his tremendous leeway BUT it annoys me when I can't tell what is purely his and what is parody/allegory. Most of the latter is obvious but I can tell that there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of story in here that's PURELY Sim but not knowing what it is exactly, coupled with the knowledge that I'm also missing associations that I might find funny or brilliant, are the most frustrating parts of reading beyond the first omnibook of Cerebus.
I get more out of correlations that aren't so heavily stacked on top of each-other- the world he built is LAVISHLY complicated in technicalities. It's hard to explain but I would enjoy it MUCH more if he didn't leave so many topics open-ended at the same time.
I actually read this HULK in under a day which I'm glad I could pull off- I spent way too long trying to interpret all the ins, outs and what-have-yous that were so tightly jammed into the last omnibook. All the intrigue is much easier to understand in this one directly because of the last book so I wouldn't read this on it's own.
He officially Woody Allened (in his own words) Cerebus by going for the depth and skimping on the laughs too proportionally. His need to flex his "serious" storytelling muscles is appreciated and applauded but without enough laughs an aardvark megalomaniac isn't appropriately entertaining.
Almost all writers can't write their own stuff without alluding to other works or storytelling in allegory of the real world if they expect to be published. He self-published all this which gave his tremendous leeway BUT it annoys me when I can't tell what is purely his and what is parody/allegory. Most of the latter is obvious but I can tell that there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of story in here that's PURELY Sim but not knowing what it is exactly, coupled with the knowledge that I'm also missing associations that I might find funny or brilliant, are the most frustrating parts of reading beyond the first omnibook of Cerebus.
I get more out of correlations that aren't so heavily stacked on top of each-other- the world he built is LAVISHLY complicated in technicalities. It's hard to explain but I would enjoy it MUCH more if he didn't leave so many topics open-ended at the same time.
January 6, 2020
Dull 101 level observations of the state and religion. Lame gags and attempts at humor on the level of an angry 4 year old. The story has no page turning quality and I found zero interest in the characters. I only persevered in the hopes of some "aahhh" moment. Never came. I have read a number of 4 star reviews here yet they detail endless problems with the series as well as the author, what gives? Is the high rating for the sheer size of the work?
April 12, 2015
I'd heard this was one of the good Cerebus volumes, fitting into the time period between the uneven early comics and the messy later ones. Perhaps if I read the earlier volumes rather than starting with the third I might have appreciated this one more. Keep that in mind when reading this review.
Cerebus was self-published, and while that doesn't sound incredible in today's world it was almost unheard of back then. It inspired plenty of writers, including Terry Moore and Jeff Smith, the latter of whom wrote and drew a comic series by the name of Bone which I consider to be my favorite modern fantasy series (as of February 7th, 2015).
But however influential the series was, I wasn't terribly impressed by this volume. The writing isn't bad-characters sound different and can easily be identified simply by how they speak-but it is unfocused. Characters have long conversations about politics that could have been cut short had the author simply demonstrated their points rather than have them talk at length. It seems to me that the story could have been paced a little quicker, at least in the first half.
The second half is a little better because the plot has sped up a bit but for all the machinations I still had no idea as to what the end goal was supposed to be. It felt like everyone was just running around, doing a bunch of things, running some errands here and there, but not moving in any concrete direction. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfactory. My opinion of certain characters changed over the course of the story, but these moments of development seemed unimportant and, on one occasion, incompatible with what had come before. I also found Dave Sim's commentary on religion to be unoriginal. It is not too caustic and/or insulting to alienate religious readers but neither is it original or insightful enough to introduce a new point into an old debate.
The author is not bad at writing dialogue but his book doesn't have the swift pace necessary for an exciting adventure or the insight that drives character-driven meditations and satires. I was actually more impressed with Gerhard's artwork, though for the first half of the book characters have a disturbing tendency to exist in scenes without backgrounds (and their faces would, on occasion, disappear).
Overall, I found Church and State part 1 to be decent. Well-drawn with good dialogue, but it's not something that I'd recommend and if you were to skip it I don't think you'd be missing much.
Cerebus was self-published, and while that doesn't sound incredible in today's world it was almost unheard of back then. It inspired plenty of writers, including Terry Moore and Jeff Smith, the latter of whom wrote and drew a comic series by the name of Bone which I consider to be my favorite modern fantasy series (as of February 7th, 2015).
But however influential the series was, I wasn't terribly impressed by this volume. The writing isn't bad-characters sound different and can easily be identified simply by how they speak-but it is unfocused. Characters have long conversations about politics that could have been cut short had the author simply demonstrated their points rather than have them talk at length. It seems to me that the story could have been paced a little quicker, at least in the first half.
The second half is a little better because the plot has sped up a bit but for all the machinations I still had no idea as to what the end goal was supposed to be. It felt like everyone was just running around, doing a bunch of things, running some errands here and there, but not moving in any concrete direction. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfactory. My opinion of certain characters changed over the course of the story, but these moments of development seemed unimportant and, on one occasion, incompatible with what had come before. I also found Dave Sim's commentary on religion to be unoriginal. It is not too caustic and/or insulting to alienate religious readers but neither is it original or insightful enough to introduce a new point into an old debate.
The author is not bad at writing dialogue but his book doesn't have the swift pace necessary for an exciting adventure or the insight that drives character-driven meditations and satires. I was actually more impressed with Gerhard's artwork, though for the first half of the book characters have a disturbing tendency to exist in scenes without backgrounds (and their faces would, on occasion, disappear).
Overall, I found Church and State part 1 to be decent. Well-drawn with good dialogue, but it's not something that I'd recommend and if you were to skip it I don't think you'd be missing much.
September 14, 2015
After the triumph of "High Society", Sim upped the ante with an 1,100 page-plus storyline in which Cerebus finds himself appointed Pontiff of the Eastern Church of Tarim. "Church and State" is the largest and most ambitious story arc yet in the Cerebus saga, and the one which takes the storyline into the realm of the metaphysical. It's also the point where the book and the central character take a very dark turn and the comedy becomes pitch-black, if not downright mean-spirited.
This volume is only the first half of the story and about halfway through (issue #64) Sim is joined by his only real collaborator in the entire run of Cerebus, a young artist known only as Gerhard. Gerhard would draw beautifully rendered backgrounds for the reminder of the monthly run of the book and, over the next 236 issues, he and Sim would create some of the best comic book art in the history of the medium (I do not exaggerate).
A masterpiece (well the first half of one, anyway).
This volume is only the first half of the story and about halfway through (issue #64) Sim is joined by his only real collaborator in the entire run of Cerebus, a young artist known only as Gerhard. Gerhard would draw beautifully rendered backgrounds for the reminder of the monthly run of the book and, over the next 236 issues, he and Sim would create some of the best comic book art in the history of the medium (I do not exaggerate).
A masterpiece (well the first half of one, anyway).
March 29, 2018
In this volume we add the Canadian born artist Gerhard to the mix. Beginning with issue 65 “Anything Done for the First time is a Demon”, he provided background art for the series over which Sims added his characters. The transformation of the series artistically is immediate. It becomes more alive, more detailed, more real. The two styles blend together perfectly, one complimenting the other. It is quite possible that if you weren’t told there were two artists at work here, you may not have realized.
These also contain the issues which Marvel threatened a lawsuit over. The area of contention was in the Roach character, who is a constantly shifting parody of various comic book characters. He eventually morphed into the Wolveroach, an obvious take on Wolverine- who at the time was swiftly becoming Marvel’s most popular hero. So cease and desist letters were sent to the author, along with a significant amount of saber rattling.
Of course the law was against comic giant. A similar case being wrapped up in the 50s between DC and EC when they parodied Superman in their new comic Mad. The Superdooperman case ruled in favor of Educational Comics claiming that a parody was protected speech. And there was no doubt that the Wolverroach was a parody, the character previously lampooning Batman, the Hulk, Captain America, and Moon Knight. Eventually the case went nowhere, but it had to be noted that Sims dropped Wolveroach pretty quick. While they wouldn’t win, Marvel could drain his bank account in protracted legal proceedings if they wanted. And, from what former employees have said, they were vicious.
Marvel gained some revenge by then parodying Cerebus in the form of the demon S’ym, who appears in various X-Men and New Mutants comics and was one of the chief antagonists in their Inferno story arc. The name is derived from the author Dave Sim’s own and the character refers to himself in the third person, a trait shared by Cerebus. S'ym also has the same purple-grey coloration as Cerebus and the same vest.
This volume also contains the infamous baby throwing scene. While Cerebus is delivering a speech, a woman keeps shoving a baby at him, demanding that he bless it. Cerebus takes the baby blesses it and throws it high into the crowd. He claims this was to illustrate the point that, “You can get what you want and still be unhappy.”
Our anti-hero begins an extended stay with a character known as the Countess, a complex character. She holds the attributes of the motherly nurturer, but wants her independence, so that she will not cohabitate with someone on a permanent basis.
Here we see the Cerebus-as-pawn theme emerging once again. Despite, or because of, his celestial significance, he is always being used. Cerebus is manipulated by the Weisshaupt, a machiavellian politician, into becoming Prime Minister of the City State of Inest again, which he only agrees to in order to obtain a divorce from his former barbarian paramore Red Sophia whom he had married in a drunken state. Realizing that he has no actual power, Cerebus goes with the flow and endures, doing whatever he’s told to do.
The Church of Tarim was in crisis having had to execute the last three popes due to heresy. The Eastern sect, which dominates the Western, nominates Cerebus to be the new pontiff, believing based on his recent non-activites that he will be as pliable a pope as he was a prime minister. This is a mistake.
While the sophisticated educated people may scoff at religion and see as a necessary evil, Cerebus peasant upbringing allows to understand the power just handed to him. To those who believe, most of the common, he is the voice of the god. And once given that amount of power, Cerebus will not be bound to anyone.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” and our anti-hero is no exception to the rule. The returned religious fanatic Bran Mak Morn who enables Cerebus’s worst traits of arrogance and greed.
One of his first acts is to announce that the god Tarim would destroy the world in fire in nine days if the people do not give him all of their gold. This is a lampoon of the well known televangelist Oral Roberts who in 1987 broadcast to his flock that if they didn’t raise 8 million dollars in thirty days God was going to “call him home”, ie. kill him. Cerebus command results in a run on available gold and collapses the economy, causing the government to attack the church.
Sniffing around on the story’s edges, we see the supernatural element with constant hints that a major event is brewing on a celestial level. Connected with the church and the Aardvark. The nature of Tarim is twofold and relates to the God and the prophet of the faith, and when the returned Bran Mak Morn uncovers a gold coin minted by the prophet, it begins to attract the other coins and meld them into a sphere. This and a series of dreams all foreshadow the ascension which will occur in the next volume. And that will lead to the great confrontation, as Cerebus discovers that there are two other Aardvarks (which in this setting magnify the events around them and set the psychic agenda for their world).
Finally we see the return of Jaka, the eternal love interest, now married and pregnant. She is the one who always gets away and this encounter is no different. . In a sense, besides different genders, she is Cerebus’s polar opposite. Born into privilege, she gives it all up and refuses all help because she wants to “make it on her own”. She says in a poor position despite everyone around her attempt to raise her up. Cerebus, born poor and with no aid, is constantly crawling his way up to the top, while everyone is attempting to drag him down. Rarely do they see eye-to-eye but their attraction is enflamed by the struggle and misses. Now once again, they reject each other, but only with great sadness.
These also contain the issues which Marvel threatened a lawsuit over. The area of contention was in the Roach character, who is a constantly shifting parody of various comic book characters. He eventually morphed into the Wolveroach, an obvious take on Wolverine- who at the time was swiftly becoming Marvel’s most popular hero. So cease and desist letters were sent to the author, along with a significant amount of saber rattling.
Of course the law was against comic giant. A similar case being wrapped up in the 50s between DC and EC when they parodied Superman in their new comic Mad. The Superdooperman case ruled in favor of Educational Comics claiming that a parody was protected speech. And there was no doubt that the Wolverroach was a parody, the character previously lampooning Batman, the Hulk, Captain America, and Moon Knight. Eventually the case went nowhere, but it had to be noted that Sims dropped Wolveroach pretty quick. While they wouldn’t win, Marvel could drain his bank account in protracted legal proceedings if they wanted. And, from what former employees have said, they were vicious.
Marvel gained some revenge by then parodying Cerebus in the form of the demon S’ym, who appears in various X-Men and New Mutants comics and was one of the chief antagonists in their Inferno story arc. The name is derived from the author Dave Sim’s own and the character refers to himself in the third person, a trait shared by Cerebus. S'ym also has the same purple-grey coloration as Cerebus and the same vest.
This volume also contains the infamous baby throwing scene. While Cerebus is delivering a speech, a woman keeps shoving a baby at him, demanding that he bless it. Cerebus takes the baby blesses it and throws it high into the crowd. He claims this was to illustrate the point that, “You can get what you want and still be unhappy.”
Our anti-hero begins an extended stay with a character known as the Countess, a complex character. She holds the attributes of the motherly nurturer, but wants her independence, so that she will not cohabitate with someone on a permanent basis.
Here we see the Cerebus-as-pawn theme emerging once again. Despite, or because of, his celestial significance, he is always being used. Cerebus is manipulated by the Weisshaupt, a machiavellian politician, into becoming Prime Minister of the City State of Inest again, which he only agrees to in order to obtain a divorce from his former barbarian paramore Red Sophia whom he had married in a drunken state. Realizing that he has no actual power, Cerebus goes with the flow and endures, doing whatever he’s told to do.
The Church of Tarim was in crisis having had to execute the last three popes due to heresy. The Eastern sect, which dominates the Western, nominates Cerebus to be the new pontiff, believing based on his recent non-activites that he will be as pliable a pope as he was a prime minister. This is a mistake.
While the sophisticated educated people may scoff at religion and see as a necessary evil, Cerebus peasant upbringing allows to understand the power just handed to him. To those who believe, most of the common, he is the voice of the god. And once given that amount of power, Cerebus will not be bound to anyone.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely” and our anti-hero is no exception to the rule. The returned religious fanatic Bran Mak Morn who enables Cerebus’s worst traits of arrogance and greed.
One of his first acts is to announce that the god Tarim would destroy the world in fire in nine days if the people do not give him all of their gold. This is a lampoon of the well known televangelist Oral Roberts who in 1987 broadcast to his flock that if they didn’t raise 8 million dollars in thirty days God was going to “call him home”, ie. kill him. Cerebus command results in a run on available gold and collapses the economy, causing the government to attack the church.
Sniffing around on the story’s edges, we see the supernatural element with constant hints that a major event is brewing on a celestial level. Connected with the church and the Aardvark. The nature of Tarim is twofold and relates to the God and the prophet of the faith, and when the returned Bran Mak Morn uncovers a gold coin minted by the prophet, it begins to attract the other coins and meld them into a sphere. This and a series of dreams all foreshadow the ascension which will occur in the next volume. And that will lead to the great confrontation, as Cerebus discovers that there are two other Aardvarks (which in this setting magnify the events around them and set the psychic agenda for their world).
Finally we see the return of Jaka, the eternal love interest, now married and pregnant. She is the one who always gets away and this encounter is no different. . In a sense, besides different genders, she is Cerebus’s polar opposite. Born into privilege, she gives it all up and refuses all help because she wants to “make it on her own”. She says in a poor position despite everyone around her attempt to raise her up. Cerebus, born poor and with no aid, is constantly crawling his way up to the top, while everyone is attempting to drag him down. Rarely do they see eye-to-eye but their attraction is enflamed by the struggle and misses. Now once again, they reject each other, but only with great sadness.
April 24, 2016
Collecting issues # 52–80 of Dave Sim's 300 issues limited series Cerebus the Aardvark and being the first half of the Church & State story arc, this volume picks up Cerebus' story in the aftermath of his career as prime minister of Iest in the second phonebook volume High Society. Continuing the political intrigue in the fictional Estarcion and primarily in Iest, this deals with Cerebus resuming his duties as prime minister only to be elevated to pope, streching the political plots into including problems concerning religious doctrine. With a cast of recurrent characters (including a new identity for the Cockroach) and the addition of Gerhard on background illustrations, Dave Sim delivers another amazing piece of Cerebus narrative here.
January 23, 2014
After reading the first Cerebus phonebook and High Society, I decided to pick up both books of Church & State, which my sources tell me are the best in Dave Sim's saga.
While I have yet to read the second book, Church & State I definitely lives up to the hype. It's in this volume that the incredible Gerhard makes his debut, doing excellently rendered backgrounds. Sim continues to shine as he not only uses the same storytelling techniques he did in the first books, but even continues to improve upon them! The story itself too, this time involving Cerebus becoming the pope of a church, is superior and quite a contrast from the early days of the series.
Church & State I is worth reading!
While I have yet to read the second book, Church & State I definitely lives up to the hype. It's in this volume that the incredible Gerhard makes his debut, doing excellently rendered backgrounds. Sim continues to shine as he not only uses the same storytelling techniques he did in the first books, but even continues to improve upon them! The story itself too, this time involving Cerebus becoming the pope of a church, is superior and quite a contrast from the early days of the series.
Church & State I is worth reading!
September 27, 2015
I can't help feeling guilty liking this book as Cerebus goes from anti-hero to reprehensible in this exploration of the nature of power and religion. This guilt is further reinforced by the fact that Dave Sim is still an asshat.
The arrival of Gerhard on issue 66 y help with the backdrop really makes this graphic novel shine.
The arrival of Gerhard on issue 66 y help with the backdrop really makes this graphic novel shine.
January 24, 2015
A continuation of the high society story line, in a way, but the sides are better drawn and the comedy holds up better too.
May 11, 2015
Fantastic fantasy/comedy comic. Basically a parody on Conan and many other fantasy characters. Highly Recommended
January 28, 2023
O komiksech obvykle nepíšu… přece jen, je to moje práce a když už člověk narazí na něco dobrého, tak si to nechá sám pro sebe, pro případné vydání. Ale občas se objeví věc, u které jsem si stoprocentně jistý, že ji nevydáme… a tak na devadesát procent, že ji nevydá ani nikdo jiný, takže si nebude stěžovat, že mu kritizuju jeho projekt.
Takže tady je Cerebus.
Cerebus byl jednou z prvních sérií, kterou si autor vydával sám – a otevřel tím dveře mnohým dalším tvůrcům. Tak je to pořádný epos, má to nějakých 300 sešitů a knihy, ve kterých vychází série vychází souhrně, jsou pořádné špalky. Celé to začalo jako parodie na Conana ve stylu Želv nindža. Cerebus je totiž válečník, barbar… a mravenečník. Ne, moc ho nepřipomíná, ale to neřešte. V první knize hrdina ještě bojuje s příšerami, autor imituje styl Windsora-Smithe, do děje vstupuje „Red Sophia“ a „Elrod z Melbinbone“, ale postupně se celá ta řada začal proměňovat a z čiré parodie se stala nejdříve politická satira, až pak něco vyloženě existencionálního, teologického, biografického (v sérii se odráží osudy existujících lidí) a osobního (v dobrém i ve zlém).
Je to zvláštní mix pubertální komedie, grotesky a intelektuálního mudrování. Hodně se tam mluví, ale zároveň je důraz na kresbu, groteskní mimiku a gagy. Mně si série získala v okamžiku, kdy na scénu přichází mocný lord Julius, což je prostě Groucho Marx – a dokonce i ty vtipy jsou ve jeho stylu. A žádný komiks, ve kterém je Groucho, nemůže být špatný – Dylan Dog je toho jasným důkazem.
Třetí kniha, která jsem právě pročetl, obsahuje polovinu příběhu, ve kterém se egoistický, popudlivý a ustavičně opilý Cerebus stává hlavou církve, což okamžitě využije k prohlášení, že je Bůh velmi naštvaný, a pokud Cerebus nedostane všechny peníze, tak zničí zemi. Jenže, tady nastává problém, (který - dlouho po Simovi - napadl i Kevina Smithe). Pokud je papež vyslancem boha a všechno, co řekne, je pravdivé, tak pokud nedostane všechny peníze, Bůh opravdu zničí svět.
Cerebus je věc, kterou řadím mezi zajímavé – a hodně jí pomohl i to, že k sérii nastoupil Gerhard, které dělá k Simovým postavám vážně úžasná pozadí. Sim má cit pro mimiku a hodně pracuje s groteskními situacemi a komediálními momenty… a do toho zase věci tlačí dolu a přináší celé hodně statické díly, ve které někdo jen odvypráví, jak probíhal nějaký spor. Sim experimentuje i s výtvarnou podobou. A věčně nakrknutý Cerebus je zábavná postava - zvláště když hází s miminy.
Asi sérii nedotáhnu do posledního dílu (ono, jak jsem slyšel, tak pozdní díly už jsou hodně textové a spočívají v polemikách s kritiky jeho anti-feministických názorů), ale zatím pořád ta zábavná stránka převažuje. Až začne s kázáním, potichu sérii opustím.
Takže tady je Cerebus.
Cerebus byl jednou z prvních sérií, kterou si autor vydával sám – a otevřel tím dveře mnohým dalším tvůrcům. Tak je to pořádný epos, má to nějakých 300 sešitů a knihy, ve kterých vychází série vychází souhrně, jsou pořádné špalky. Celé to začalo jako parodie na Conana ve stylu Želv nindža. Cerebus je totiž válečník, barbar… a mravenečník. Ne, moc ho nepřipomíná, ale to neřešte. V první knize hrdina ještě bojuje s příšerami, autor imituje styl Windsora-Smithe, do děje vstupuje „Red Sophia“ a „Elrod z Melbinbone“, ale postupně se celá ta řada začal proměňovat a z čiré parodie se stala nejdříve politická satira, až pak něco vyloženě existencionálního, teologického, biografického (v sérii se odráží osudy existujících lidí) a osobního (v dobrém i ve zlém).
Je to zvláštní mix pubertální komedie, grotesky a intelektuálního mudrování. Hodně se tam mluví, ale zároveň je důraz na kresbu, groteskní mimiku a gagy. Mně si série získala v okamžiku, kdy na scénu přichází mocný lord Julius, což je prostě Groucho Marx – a dokonce i ty vtipy jsou ve jeho stylu. A žádný komiks, ve kterém je Groucho, nemůže být špatný – Dylan Dog je toho jasným důkazem.
Třetí kniha, která jsem právě pročetl, obsahuje polovinu příběhu, ve kterém se egoistický, popudlivý a ustavičně opilý Cerebus stává hlavou církve, což okamžitě využije k prohlášení, že je Bůh velmi naštvaný, a pokud Cerebus nedostane všechny peníze, tak zničí zemi. Jenže, tady nastává problém, (který - dlouho po Simovi - napadl i Kevina Smithe). Pokud je papež vyslancem boha a všechno, co řekne, je pravdivé, tak pokud nedostane všechny peníze, Bůh opravdu zničí svět.
Cerebus je věc, kterou řadím mezi zajímavé – a hodně jí pomohl i to, že k sérii nastoupil Gerhard, které dělá k Simovým postavám vážně úžasná pozadí. Sim má cit pro mimiku a hodně pracuje s groteskními situacemi a komediálními momenty… a do toho zase věci tlačí dolu a přináší celé hodně statické díly, ve které někdo jen odvypráví, jak probíhal nějaký spor. Sim experimentuje i s výtvarnou podobou. A věčně nakrknutý Cerebus je zábavná postava - zvláště když hází s miminy.
Asi sérii nedotáhnu do posledního dílu (ono, jak jsem slyšel, tak pozdní díly už jsou hodně textové a spočívají v polemikách s kritiky jeho anti-feministických názorů), ale zatím pořád ta zábavná stránka převažuje. Až začne s kázáním, potichu sérii opustím.
February 21, 2017
Man, what the hell even *was* Cerebus? And all of the controversy its author (understandably) brought upon himself. I mean, talk about a catastrophic meltdown with lasting consequences for one's career! Lol.
For those who don't know, Cerebus author/artist/creator Dave Sim published an extremely misogynistic screed midway through his career and the completion of Cerebus as a series with the ambitious end goal of 300 issues, which ultimately took him around 25 years to do so; and not only did his readership decline along with critics such as Gary Groth publicly distancing themselves from him, but his behavior seemed to grow more and more erratic, and the series turned into these bizarre examinations of obtuse theological questions which apparently also center around his objections to feminism and the male-female duality that has been present in all of human history - really! It's really, really, really weird. If you ever bother to read it (and I really don't blame you if you don't, I kind of regret it), he's just so obsessed with the roles in which women are customarily forced in society (motherhood in particular, though he also strongly objects to governmental funding of child care? figures he'd be a libertarian) and with the perceived loss of status on the part of men as arbiters and rulers of society and the nuclear family, the "ones driving the car" in his words. Throw in some gratuitous and inexplicable homophobia (I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm often really surprised that these seemingly separate issues are so often related) and there you are, that's one man's misogynistic temper tantrum, years before we'd start to see the exact same thing play out on the internet, seemingly every day. Maximum lulz. Or at least it would be funny if so much of his readership hadn't been women, and if the quality of the series hadn't dropped off so dramatically afterwards, and if there hadn't been something kinda cool and appealing about it from the beginning. Alan Moore maintained that in spite of everything, Cerebus was still to comics what Helium is to the periodic table, though you can take that with a grain of salt as well, I guess, considering how rapey Moore's serieses tend to be. Fucking hippie.
But it's not as though Cerebus as a series doesn't have its own misogynistic overtones even at this point, and in light of the drama which unfolded it's even harder to ignore them than it might've been in 1983. I mean, what the fuck is a character such as Astoria (she was named after a hotel, oh my god lol) if not an embodiment of every male chauvinist's worst nightmare, an independent woman who doesn't give a shit about them! Jesus. Also hard to ignore is the influence of Sim's mental illness in the introduction of Suentius Po and all of the uncanny aspects involving split personalities or alternate selves or whatever. I mean, for its time I'm sure this was incredible, and there's a lot I find impressive about it, but at the same time it seems like Sim's motives as an author were pretty transparent - to deal with personal issues surrounding his own mental anguish and broken relationships (i.e. his divorce, which I might've mentioned sooner but in any case I'll go into greater detail in a bit, since it seems to be pretty important), and the all too common feeling people have that they're just different from everyone around them somehow, like how Cerebus is a cartoon aardvark in a world of human beings & so naturally he stands apart from everyone else for that; and also that other all too common symptom of mental illnesses, the feeling that all the events happening around you at the same time center around you in some way. At the time I'm sure it seemed really clever and fourth-wall-breaking on behalf of Sim to do that, but now it also seems like a very roundabout way to deal with personal issues when you want to enlist people's sympathy but don't want to have to confront the unsavory aspects of yourself at the same time, like you almost certainly would be made to if you talked about it candidly. There's a reason why "autobiographical" comics caught on (interestingly enough these were also spearheaded by Canadian artists, at least one of whom made reference to Sim in their own works, but none of them are as unhinged as Sim is), and it's partially because people can be more effective in their self-serving machinations - no, wait, I mean, it's because the reader can be the judge of whether or not the artist is being honest with themselves and respond accordingly in the form of letters or other correspondence, back in the days before the internet, or now with reviews and discussions on websites. And people are a lot more canny to this kind of bullshit when they're able to get together and discuss it. I don't mean to presume that readers in 1983 didn't also see the problems I've seen in it, or that people are really that much smarter in general as a result of having the internet, but discussions of popular media are a lot more open, active and fervent. And the relationship of content/series creator to their audience has changed as a result. Also as a result of increased societal discourse abetted by the internet is an increased accountability expected of artists and media creators not to cater exclusively to male audiences, like it seems like Sim is doing even relatively close to the outset of his series.
But, like, is it still funny? Is it still compelling? Well, the character of Cerebus seems to be the only one who's well-rounded at all, and to be honest he's a huge asshole & I have a hard time sympathizing with his motives, considering how petty and selfish they often are. I think this series might be comparable to Rick & Morty, whose main character (or one of its two main characters) is a similar total asshole with no regard for anyone else, except that character seems to be omnipotent and whatever sympathy we're supposed to have for them is even more obscure (at least in my case). But the similarities are there, they're both the same kind of "lovable asshole who isn't really lovable, people just think they're funny because they play to the baser elements of their sense of humor" character that I kind of hate. Justin Roiland is apparently a similar total fuckwad to Dave Sim, but at least he doesn't seem to be as unstable, whereas this entire series seems to be an outgrowth of Sim's instability at times.
But like, yeah, in some obscure way it still is funny, and its ambition combined with a flair for design and embellishment can be really impressive at times. I admit, there is some kind of ineluctable appeal here that seems to be rare in popular media. But in spite of that, it's also kind of dated, drawing on cultural references and using the types of gags that used to be prevalent in the media at the time of its creation but which seem really tame and quaint now. I'm not sure it was ever going to date well, and the general "political fantasy" theme is so overdone anymore and has been done numerous times since this series in more convincing ways. It's a relic of its time, ultimately, and it also kind of represents a specter of comics long past (not to mention male chauvinism) that may be interesting or edifying to comics fans in the present, but I don't think needs to be revived.
The best laid plans of aardvarks and men? Sorry, that was really corny
For those who don't know, Cerebus author/artist/creator Dave Sim published an extremely misogynistic screed midway through his career and the completion of Cerebus as a series with the ambitious end goal of 300 issues, which ultimately took him around 25 years to do so; and not only did his readership decline along with critics such as Gary Groth publicly distancing themselves from him, but his behavior seemed to grow more and more erratic, and the series turned into these bizarre examinations of obtuse theological questions which apparently also center around his objections to feminism and the male-female duality that has been present in all of human history - really! It's really, really, really weird. If you ever bother to read it (and I really don't blame you if you don't, I kind of regret it), he's just so obsessed with the roles in which women are customarily forced in society (motherhood in particular, though he also strongly objects to governmental funding of child care? figures he'd be a libertarian) and with the perceived loss of status on the part of men as arbiters and rulers of society and the nuclear family, the "ones driving the car" in his words. Throw in some gratuitous and inexplicable homophobia (I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm often really surprised that these seemingly separate issues are so often related) and there you are, that's one man's misogynistic temper tantrum, years before we'd start to see the exact same thing play out on the internet, seemingly every day. Maximum lulz. Or at least it would be funny if so much of his readership hadn't been women, and if the quality of the series hadn't dropped off so dramatically afterwards, and if there hadn't been something kinda cool and appealing about it from the beginning. Alan Moore maintained that in spite of everything, Cerebus was still to comics what Helium is to the periodic table, though you can take that with a grain of salt as well, I guess, considering how rapey Moore's serieses tend to be. Fucking hippie.
But it's not as though Cerebus as a series doesn't have its own misogynistic overtones even at this point, and in light of the drama which unfolded it's even harder to ignore them than it might've been in 1983. I mean, what the fuck is a character such as Astoria (she was named after a hotel, oh my god lol) if not an embodiment of every male chauvinist's worst nightmare, an independent woman who doesn't give a shit about them! Jesus. Also hard to ignore is the influence of Sim's mental illness in the introduction of Suentius Po and all of the uncanny aspects involving split personalities or alternate selves or whatever. I mean, for its time I'm sure this was incredible, and there's a lot I find impressive about it, but at the same time it seems like Sim's motives as an author were pretty transparent - to deal with personal issues surrounding his own mental anguish and broken relationships (i.e. his divorce, which I might've mentioned sooner but in any case I'll go into greater detail in a bit, since it seems to be pretty important), and the all too common feeling people have that they're just different from everyone around them somehow, like how Cerebus is a cartoon aardvark in a world of human beings & so naturally he stands apart from everyone else for that; and also that other all too common symptom of mental illnesses, the feeling that all the events happening around you at the same time center around you in some way. At the time I'm sure it seemed really clever and fourth-wall-breaking on behalf of Sim to do that, but now it also seems like a very roundabout way to deal with personal issues when you want to enlist people's sympathy but don't want to have to confront the unsavory aspects of yourself at the same time, like you almost certainly would be made to if you talked about it candidly. There's a reason why "autobiographical" comics caught on (interestingly enough these were also spearheaded by Canadian artists, at least one of whom made reference to Sim in their own works, but none of them are as unhinged as Sim is), and it's partially because people can be more effective in their self-serving machinations - no, wait, I mean, it's because the reader can be the judge of whether or not the artist is being honest with themselves and respond accordingly in the form of letters or other correspondence, back in the days before the internet, or now with reviews and discussions on websites. And people are a lot more canny to this kind of bullshit when they're able to get together and discuss it. I don't mean to presume that readers in 1983 didn't also see the problems I've seen in it, or that people are really that much smarter in general as a result of having the internet, but discussions of popular media are a lot more open, active and fervent. And the relationship of content/series creator to their audience has changed as a result. Also as a result of increased societal discourse abetted by the internet is an increased accountability expected of artists and media creators not to cater exclusively to male audiences, like it seems like Sim is doing even relatively close to the outset of his series.
But, like, is it still funny? Is it still compelling? Well, the character of Cerebus seems to be the only one who's well-rounded at all, and to be honest he's a huge asshole & I have a hard time sympathizing with his motives, considering how petty and selfish they often are. I think this series might be comparable to Rick & Morty, whose main character (or one of its two main characters) is a similar total asshole with no regard for anyone else, except that character seems to be omnipotent and whatever sympathy we're supposed to have for them is even more obscure (at least in my case). But the similarities are there, they're both the same kind of "lovable asshole who isn't really lovable, people just think they're funny because they play to the baser elements of their sense of humor" character that I kind of hate. Justin Roiland is apparently a similar total fuckwad to Dave Sim, but at least he doesn't seem to be as unstable, whereas this entire series seems to be an outgrowth of Sim's instability at times.
But like, yeah, in some obscure way it still is funny, and its ambition combined with a flair for design and embellishment can be really impressive at times. I admit, there is some kind of ineluctable appeal here that seems to be rare in popular media. But in spite of that, it's also kind of dated, drawing on cultural references and using the types of gags that used to be prevalent in the media at the time of its creation but which seem really tame and quaint now. I'm not sure it was ever going to date well, and the general "political fantasy" theme is so overdone anymore and has been done numerous times since this series in more convincing ways. It's a relic of its time, ultimately, and it also kind of represents a specter of comics long past (not to mention male chauvinism) that may be interesting or edifying to comics fans in the present, but I don't think needs to be revived.
The best laid plans of aardvarks and men? Sorry, that was really corny
May 27, 2021
High Society is still probably my overall favourite volume, but this is where Sim really began to kick it into high gear. I can remember when this was being serialized, Cerebus was the consistently most-anticipated book in the rather large pile of monthlies I was buying then. Sim's growth (aided by Gerhard, who came on board during this volume) is almost exponential, with dizzying visual experimentation and a complex, sprawling narrative. I am still not convinced it really makes any sense, though I need to get through volume 2 before really passing judgement, but it's still frequently hilarious, visually stunning, and far more complex and thoughtful than just about any other comic of the time was. Sim's interest, especially, in the contingent and subjective nature of truth is becoming central here. Sim is also beginning to move towards some of his besetting sins (e.g. grinding the story to a halt for long info-dumps, though what we see here in that vein is nothing to what is to come later), and one can certainly see evidence of the troubling obsession with feminism that will come to dominate the strip (there's even arguably the first appearance of Yoo-Whoo, though whether even Sim knew it at the time is debatable). However, it is also fair to say that Sim nevertheless creates some of the meatiest and most interesting female characters in comics, and that his art, if not his ideology, is pretty clear on showing the profound failure of masculine ideologies, as well. Plus, we get Wolveroach, arguably the most-underused of the Roach's persona, but and one of the funniest. Much of this is so memorable that even though I haven't read any of it in over twenty years, I remembered some of it quite vividly.
Read
August 2, 2021Just finished book three in the Great Cerebus Reread. Church & State volume I is a weird one on several levels, not least because it was my original entry point for the series. I had read the first three volumes of Bone and was casting around for another title that might be interesting. The big black and white phonebooks with the character who looked like ALF seemed interesting, but the first two weren’t on shelf the day I actually decided to make a purchase, so I took a chance on book three. This is good in a way because C&E is doing so much that, even without knowing all the random characters that kept popping up, it just made me want to start from the beginning instead of making me back off the series altogether. The funny bits are funny, the pathos unexpected (at the time) but not unwelcome. The layouts are dynamic and of course the art becomes more and more excellent.
That’s the good.
Unfortunately, this is the volume that I read the most often as a teen and my associations are so vivid, even 20+ years later, that it mucked with the pacing. The first half of the book was fine, probably because the prose/plotting was denser, but as I went on the unexpected was not unexpected, the dramatic high points felt more scripted because my brain was supplying the script, and the dream sequences and other, er, “wordless” sequences read a little too quickly as my brain elided them. I ended up pausing part way through “Odd Transformations Part II” and rereading a chunk from the on, which helped.
That’s the good.
Unfortunately, this is the volume that I read the most often as a teen and my associations are so vivid, even 20+ years later, that it mucked with the pacing. The first half of the book was fine, probably because the prose/plotting was denser, but as I went on the unexpected was not unexpected, the dramatic high points felt more scripted because my brain was supplying the script, and the dream sequences and other, er, “wordless” sequences read a little too quickly as my brain elided them. I ended up pausing part way through “Odd Transformations Part II” and rereading a chunk from the on, which helped.
June 30, 2020
The artwork on this volume is far superior to that of volume one and of High Society. As a whole, you get the sense that Dave Sim is settling into his stride and the faster pacing of the issues included in this volume make it a much easier read although, as Sim points out in his introduction, it does not find itself at a neat ending leading into Church and State II.
Whereas High Society provided withering political satire, Church and State begins the task of tackling much wider questions relating to a person's place in history and the society around them. The main conflict that I feel coming out is that between Cerebus' sense of being able to do anything he wishes whilst also being trapped by the pressures of those around him as well as the complexities of his own feelings of trying to find himself. Cerebus is no hero and even to use the term anti-hero feels like an oversimplification. He is a more complex character than a surface reading would allow for and we get a startling glimpse of that whenever Cerebus interacts with Jaka or Suentus Po and the Illusionist movement. Any of the issues, throughout the run so far, which have dealt with those things have been stand out issues.
Church and State I leaves you wanting more and, for that reason alone, encourages you to seek satisfaction in further reading.
Whereas High Society provided withering political satire, Church and State begins the task of tackling much wider questions relating to a person's place in history and the society around them. The main conflict that I feel coming out is that between Cerebus' sense of being able to do anything he wishes whilst also being trapped by the pressures of those around him as well as the complexities of his own feelings of trying to find himself. Cerebus is no hero and even to use the term anti-hero feels like an oversimplification. He is a more complex character than a surface reading would allow for and we get a startling glimpse of that whenever Cerebus interacts with Jaka or Suentus Po and the Illusionist movement. Any of the issues, throughout the run so far, which have dealt with those things have been stand out issues.
Church and State I leaves you wanting more and, for that reason alone, encourages you to seek satisfaction in further reading.
May 19, 2024
The more Cerebus I read the more the world makes sense. Sim is a mad man, true original. Yes, it is unwieldy. So what? You're seeing someone stretch the limits of a medium. It's not gonna be pretty. Could certain issues be reworked, paired down, clarified? Sure. Does it inhibit the reading beyond mild annoyance? Not really.
To the untrained eye the art work is excellent, at times moving. This is the trade off for a uncompromising piece. Feel sorry for the poor bastards who had to follow along in real time waiting for new releases. Maybe that soured perception -- author related controversy aside -- in regards to people getting frustrated re: lack of payoff. Personally, I see each volume up to this point as satisfying in a way that is self evident, so to hell with that crowd.
Church & State is where Cerebus becomes a true villain. Mask off, as the kids say. He's learned the limits of bureaucracy can be dispensed with wholesale by a diety and wastes no time doing so. In these pages, dense and bleak as they are we somehow get a more vulnerable hero(?). Even stranger, I think the jokes are more evenly dispersed. The Jaka character, however brief, gets her best treatment, and I think the new characters and bit parts are more memorable. What more can you ask for?
To the untrained eye the art work is excellent, at times moving. This is the trade off for a uncompromising piece. Feel sorry for the poor bastards who had to follow along in real time waiting for new releases. Maybe that soured perception -- author related controversy aside -- in regards to people getting frustrated re: lack of payoff. Personally, I see each volume up to this point as satisfying in a way that is self evident, so to hell with that crowd.
Church & State is where Cerebus becomes a true villain. Mask off, as the kids say. He's learned the limits of bureaucracy can be dispensed with wholesale by a diety and wastes no time doing so. In these pages, dense and bleak as they are we somehow get a more vulnerable hero(?). Even stranger, I think the jokes are more evenly dispersed. The Jaka character, however brief, gets her best treatment, and I think the new characters and bit parts are more memorable. What more can you ask for?
July 11, 2024
A parody of televangelism, this volume features more coherent storytelling, but with fewer comic elements. At least, fewer comic elements that hit for me.
Read today, Cerebus could also represent certain politicians who rally the masses to their cause without actually caring about any of them.
There's a secondary through-line of stereotypically dysfunctional relationships. Cerebus and his wife, Cerebus and his mother-in-law, and Cerebus and the "true love" of his life. Also, the Countess and Cerebus, and the Countess and Artemis early in the volume.
The art continues to get better, especially as Gerhard begins to take over the background art in this volume.
Read today, Cerebus could also represent certain politicians who rally the masses to their cause without actually caring about any of them.
There's a secondary through-line of stereotypically dysfunctional relationships. Cerebus and his wife, Cerebus and his mother-in-law, and Cerebus and the "true love" of his life. Also, the Countess and Cerebus, and the Countess and Artemis early in the volume.
The art continues to get better, especially as Gerhard begins to take over the background art in this volume.
June 1, 2019
This story is when the reader is introduced to the Cirinist and the entire philosophy followed by with the overall political factionalism is put to the fore. As far as the entities marking the universe is concerned, the major turning point here is that Cerebus becomes the bishop of the Feldar federation, and marks the clearly indifferent nature of our protagonist. Cerebus is at best, an antihero, and the character is explored as such.
The philosophy of Dave Sim, especially in terms of universe building, is front and center in this work. A worthwhile venture overall, especially for readers.
The philosophy of Dave Sim, especially in terms of universe building, is front and center in this work. A worthwhile venture overall, especially for readers.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2020
Dave Sim and his wife Deni had parted ways, and Dave was evidently embittered by the whole thing...as the series proves.
Cerebus finds himself still forcibly involved with the city's politics, first as a puppet president, then forced to become pope. In this position, Cerebus brutalizes the populace through fear of damnation, getting them to give him all their gold. But then he changes his plans from military conquest to casting a sphere using the gold to travel to the Moon...but what awaits him there? Things do not take a turn for the better.
Cerebus finds himself still forcibly involved with the city's politics, first as a puppet president, then forced to become pope. In this position, Cerebus brutalizes the populace through fear of damnation, getting them to give him all their gold. But then he changes his plans from military conquest to casting a sphere using the gold to travel to the Moon...but what awaits him there? Things do not take a turn for the better.
August 20, 2017
ovvero cerebus e il potere assoluto, e come questo possa dare alla testa. il tutto nello stile di sim, capace di passare dall'umorismo al dramma (certe vignette oniriche sono spettacolari!) con una facilità incredibile. gli appassionati di fumetti ghigneranno assai per wolveroach e vedranno in sofia quello che potrebbe accadere se le figure femminili alla frank franzetta fossero più "realistiche"...
March 22, 2018
Truly witty work, parodying political infighting, super-heroes, Mick & Keith, and anything else that strikes Sim's fancy. I'm continually amazed by how great his cartooning is, with wildly creative and subtle page layouts that really move the story forward. Terrific work, although a slightly confused and not 100% satisfying ending. But the first 1200 pages are SUPERB.
August 18, 2018
Dave get's even more political and philosophical in Church and State. Without losing the comedic sharpness of previous stories it also introduces a lot of solemn moments of introspection. The fact that you can take seriously a comic with an antropomorphic Aardavark pope married to a Red Sonja parody who has a "female Hulk" mother shows how great Sim is.
Gerdhard art is astonishing.
Gerdhard art is astonishing.
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