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
Melmoth:
I find it hard to say much about Melmoth, probably because it was my favorite volume of the re-read. The first time I read Cerebus it was all of the heady outer-space philosophy and theology that attracted me. This time around the humbler volumes are the ones that speak to me and Melmoth is the most touching of them all. It is a deeply introspective and focused volume. The book speaks for itself.
Issue #150 marks the middle of the series and the turning point in what Sim has called the Masculine and Feminine halves of the story. So this volume, with it's focus on death, functions much like the Death card in the tarot, as a transition period.
Sim continues to match the mood of the books in the back matter. It is almost like he has closed himself off into a cocoon to prepare for the transition ahead.
The absence from the letter columns begun during Jaka's Story continues.
His Notes From the President come across as depressed,
and nihilistic,
It was refreshing to hear someone else express these sentiments. They are the kinds of things I have had to learn to keep to myself while in public. Picking up on Sim's reasoning, and the topic of abortion I would like to ask why I have never heard anyone talk about the morality of signing another human-being up for sixty to one-hundred-or-so years of life. Seems like an important piece of the puzzle to leave out.
The photographs of Sim on the back covers take on a haunting, withdrawn look.
Gerhard still looks happy, though, book-boner and all.
To coincide with the closing off of the first half of the series Sim lets go of the company's full-time assistant,
This decision to take the reins of the business fully into his own hands is the first sign of what will be the most dramatic and immediate change of Sim persona between volumes, as we will see with issue #151 and the beginning of Women.
The Art:
