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A review by pinkmooon
Cerebus by Dave Sim
2.0
I picked up this series through a humble bundle sale. Cerebus was a series I knew through its influence than any direct recommendation. In fact, nobody recommends it. It is the series famous for not being recommended.
It made its impression on me through tvtropes, the website which was closest to being my friend when I was a struggling thirteen year old. Cerebus was famous for two things - 'Cerebus Syndrome' and 'Creator Breakdown.'
It started off as a comedy, and slowly became more dramatic until its comedic elements seemed to disappear entirely. This was appealing to me at thirteen, because this seemed to mirror what life was like.
Its writer began to divert himself from the 'story' to share his mystic and esoteric religious beliefs. Cool. He also began going on rants about how women are spiritually and morally inferior to men, and other such delightful misogynies that is a lot less quirky in 2024 than in the 80s or whereever.
(This is also why I have The Cantos on my shelf, mostly unread.)
For some reason or another, perhaps to put this lingering influence of an adolescent perception of maturity to rest, I picked up this series. So far, so mediocre. This volume covers the early comics, where the story is still ostensibly a parody of 'classic' sword-and-sorcery fantasy...a genre that basically only exists in parody now. I have no connection to Conan or Red Sonja or 1st edition DnD. It's all like Star Trek to me—it's got the nerd stink that never washes off, despite how mainstream nerd shit is now. So although I like the art and find aspects of the general vibe amusing, it's not a funny story at all, and is so far, completely inessential. Luckily, I'm more interested in reading it 'when it gets bad', than when it won its acclaim, so I'll keep going.
It made its impression on me through tvtropes, the website which was closest to being my friend when I was a struggling thirteen year old. Cerebus was famous for two things - 'Cerebus Syndrome' and 'Creator Breakdown.'
It started off as a comedy, and slowly became more dramatic until its comedic elements seemed to disappear entirely. This was appealing to me at thirteen, because this seemed to mirror what life was like.
Its writer began to divert himself from the 'story' to share his mystic and esoteric religious beliefs. Cool. He also began going on rants about how women are spiritually and morally inferior to men, and other such delightful misogynies that is a lot less quirky in 2024 than in the 80s or whereever.
(This is also why I have The Cantos on my shelf, mostly unread.)
For some reason or another, perhaps to put this lingering influence of an adolescent perception of maturity to rest, I picked up this series. So far, so mediocre. This volume covers the early comics, where the story is still ostensibly a parody of 'classic' sword-and-sorcery fantasy...a genre that basically only exists in parody now. I have no connection to Conan or Red Sonja or 1st edition DnD. It's all like Star Trek to me—it's got the nerd stink that never washes off, despite how mainstream nerd shit is now. So although I like the art and find aspects of the general vibe amusing, it's not a funny story at all, and is so far, completely inessential. Luckily, I'm more interested in reading it 'when it gets bad', than when it won its acclaim, so I'll keep going.