The Cerebus Re-Read Challenge
Cerebus can be purchased in its entirety from
http://www.cerebusdownloads.com/index2v16s.html
even better, Volumes 1 and 2 are free!
My commentaries on the Re-Read itself, Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4, Vol 5, Vol 6, Vol 7, Vol 8, Vol, 9, Vol 10, Vol 11, Vol 12, Vol 13, Vol 14, Vol 15, Vol 16
Guys: Inside Sim's Man-Cave
The final third of Cerebus kicks off with Guys. Similar to Jaka's Story and Melmoth, Guys takes place on a small set with a small cast of central players. Almost all of the periphery bit-characters are in-joke tributes to other self-publishers. This is Sim settling back down to earth and using his book to have some laughs with his buddies. The Guys.
Issue # 202 proclaims this intention to shut back off from the world and put everything into the book.
From here on out Sim is just inviting us to share in his personal collection of interests. During Guys the letter column gives way to essays like "My Chat With Neil," "Comics and the Mass Medium," and a titanic interview with Alan Moore about From Hell.
Note From The President is eventually replaced with
in which Sim shares passages from other writings.
This change in back-matter remains consistent for the rest of the run, so from here on out I will mostly just share and comment on statements/ideas that stuck out to me, for whatever reason.
issue #214:
Has Sim revised his opinion in this matter as the technology improved, tablets entered the market, etc.?
I agree that there are things going on in almost all paintings that a screen will never capture. Painting happens in layers, and often has physical thickness. But, drawings, especially pen-and-ink drawings, are not usually three-dimensional enough for me to be interested in seeing the original over a to-scale reproduction. In fact, I often prefer high resolution scans because they reveal all kinds of interesting microscopic details invisible to the naked eye. Also, as someone who has done a lot of moving in his life (about an average of once a year since 2007) I really appreciate being able to carry a library of thousands of books around on a half-pound (at the most) external drive.
From issue # 118, during the Alan Moore interview:
Sim's assessment of Blake reads a lot like some of the negative writings I have seen directed at Sim. As soon as Sim inserts himself fully into the work there are a lot of these eery bits of foreshadowing. Almost like Sim has gained an ability to warp reality around him.
Issue # 219 confirms that Sim does in fact view Cerebus as a means of obtaining revelation and wrestling with Truth.
At this point he still sees the revelation as coming from his unconscious mind. I suspect that if he revisited this statement now it would say something like "...that GOD was telling ME something in the course of telling the story."
The Art:
