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[joe-the-english-otter]

Cerebus The Aardvark: Issues #201-#300. Final Thoughts (Repost)

Here’s the final part of the three part saga about my opinions on Cerebus The Aardvark. As with before, if you’re starting here I suggest you read the two previous posts I made, otherwise you’ll be quite lost. (Originally posted to FA on  January 24th 2023) I finally got round to finishing off Cerebus and well, it's certainly a thing and I'll get into the various details shortly. But the various flaws that were already present, reach their absolute peak here, so brace yourself for some of Dave Sim's insane points of view and for some extremely questionable narrative choices. Issues #201-#219: We continue from where we last left off with Cerebus eventually making his way to a bar, which is basically ends up being a place where loads parodies of famous people come and go in a sort of revolving door, as Cerebus remains at the bar and eventually comes to own it. Very little happens in the first part as it's just set up for later on in the story arc. Issues #220-#231: Rick eventually shows up at the bar, now much older and a heavy drinker, also showing the mental and physical scars from being imprisoned, which have had a huge impact on his mental sanity, as this is the set up for Rick creating a religion based around his visions and hallucinations from his mental trauma, which include Cerebus as a holy figure. This serves as a good point to bring up one of the more questionable story decisions Dave Sim did in the previous arc. See, at this point Rick and Jaka are no longer together as a couple, as while they were both imprisioned and interrogated, it is discovered that while Jaka was pregnant with Rick's child, she intentionally took something that caused her to have an abortion, because she was worried that having a child would make her ugly (Yes, seriously) and make her work as a dancer impossible. It's during that revelation, that Rick seperates from Jaka and is freed from prison, though the whole ordeal has shaken them both up. Issues #232-#265: Towards the end of issue #231, Jaka shows up and Cerebus decides to leave the bar, wanting to run off with her as he still deeply loves her. Most of this part of the arc is spent with Cerebus and Jaka as they travel around, with the intention of Cerebus wanting to see his parents again, though various things delay them (Mainly Jaka wanting to do loads of shopping and public appearances, because Dave Sim can't write female characters well anymore), they eventually make their way onto a boat that will take them in the direction they need to go. (Caution warning: Suicide Mention) It's here that they meet F. Stop Kennedy, who is 100% a parody version of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who Jaka is almost tempted to leave with after the relationship with her and Cerebus starts to fall apart. Eventually the boat drops them off and they continue towards Cerebus's home, along the way they meet Ham and Mary Ernestway, less parody-versions and more analogues of Ernest Hemingway and his wife Mary. As they make their way across the now snow covered land, Mary tells Cerebus and Jaka of Ham's safaris in Africa (Yes, seriously Africa is shows to be a real place in the world of Cerebus) and is pretty close to Hemingway's real life journal about his last journey into Africa. Though this is written more in a way to describe Mary as an antagonist and is implied to be one of the reasons why Ham takes his own life. Cerebus panics, thinking Mary killed Ham, so he and Jaka flee, almost dying in a severe snow storm. They eventually make their way to Cerebus's home, only to find that his parents died only a few days ago and that he's been shunned by the local community because of his seemingly apparent abandonment of his parents. Cerebus then snaps at Jaka, telling her to "Scram!" and blaming her for the journey taking so long, leaving Cerebus alone once again. Issues #266-#288: This is the second to last arc, as Cerebus plans to head north, he is kidnapped by the Three Stooges (Yes, seriously) as they await some kind of religious revelation from him. This happens because Rick's religious works have grown into a very powerful movement and Cerebus is now considered an important figure within the relgious movement. Most of this arc is used as a way for Dave Sim to spout his religious thoughts and beliefs about the Torah, with Cerebus even becoming a rabbi for a portion of the arc. Eventually Cerebus gives the needed revelation, which inspires Rick's religious movement to overthrow the tyrants controlling Iest and the various other states and nations, along with re-ordering of society, which really shows Dave Sim's thoughts on certain people, but we'll get to that shortly. (Caution warning: General Homophobia, Anti-Feminism and Sexism) Issues #287-#300: Time jumps forward a fair bit after Cerebus wakes from a dream (Which is more of Dave Sim spouting his theorlogical beliefs) and he is now much older and decrepit. Through this arc, we learn that Cerebus eventually had a son called Shep-Shep and that Shep-Shep's mother has taken control of the religion, with her group of "feminist-homosexualist" idealists change society into being pro-Pedophilia, pro-Zoophilia, pro-juvenile drug use and pro-Lesbian motherhood, among other things, which has led to society quickly collapsing. Cerebus tries to have a heart-to-heart coversation with his son, Shep-Shep is unmoved and is completely in line with his mothers beliefs. But pushing it even further as it turns out that Shep-Shep has been conducting genetic experiments. Horrified by this, Cerebus plans to attack his son, but as he grabs a knife and leaps towards the door his son went through, Cerebus trips and breaks his neck, dying alone, unmourned, and unloved. We get a few flashbacks as Cerebus slowly dies, before a bright white light appears and shows nearly everyone Cerebus has known is waiting for him on the other side, but as Cerebus gets closer, he sees that Rick isn't among them and quickly realizes that he is being taken to hell, he begs and prays to god, but is soon dragged off into the light and into hell. Extras: With the 300 issues came a few well drawn slides of animation of what I can only assume would've been pitched as either a film or tv series, though either the pitch was dropped or never finalized, so you're just left with what could've been. Besides that there are a few issues of various comic and graphic novel creators inserting Cerebus into their works, which include both Spawn and the original TMNT comics, I can assume those were done before Dave Sim completely burnt his bridges with nearly everone he knew. Good bits; The art is still absolutely fantastic, despite everything Dave Sim is still able to do some really good stuff and I have no idea how Gerhard managed to put up with him for so long, though I fully understand why he sold his stake in Aardvark-Vanaheim, to get the hell away from Dave Sim. The rest: Dave Sim is an absolute gob-shite, never have I gone from being excited to read the next part to being so relieved that I finished it. I am extremely glad that someone (Possibly Dave Sim himself) uploaded everying onto Archive. org, because I would've regretted giving him any of my money. My final thoughts are; Read from issue #26-#52, the rest you can absolutely ignore. Dave Sim is a very talented person and does deserve his place, along with Cerebus, in both comic book history and late 20th century literature history, but I say that with a huge asterisk as he is possibly one of the most sexist and homophobic people I have ever seen. I do still like Cerebus as a character, though he is going to be forever tainted by Dave Sim's fuckery. I read the full series here: https://archive.org/details/cerebus.....Cerebus%20001/ It contains every issue and the extras I mentioned above. Maybe in the next 30-40 years, Cerebus will get a re-evaluation and be given it's proper place, out of the bin of obscurity, but it's unlikely to happen while Dave Sim continues to be an arsehole. Thank you for reading and possibly joining me on this journey. If I'm factually wrong or have said something you disagree with, do let me know via a comment or DM me on either here or Twitter. Cheers.

#cerebus the aardvark #dave sim #comics #90s comics #00s comics #cerebus #aardvark #opinion #critique #comic review #review

[joe-the-english-otter]

Cerebus The Aardvark: Issues #101-#200. Continued Thoughts (Repost)

This is the second part of the three part saga of my opinions on Cerebus The Aardvark. I suggest you read the first part that I posted a few days ago, if you have no idea what’s going on or need some context. (Originally posted to FA on January 17th 2023) So I've continued reading Cerebus and yeah, the previous flaws that might've shown a bit in the previous issues really start to ramp up here and get worse the closer we get to issue #200. (I did mention in the previous journal about Dave Sim's anti-feminist views and I'll get into even more of his... Interesting views later on) Issues #101-#113: This is a continuation of the previous arc, though more story elements are added in as previous echoes, that were hinted at earlier in the story arc, start to build up properly and add weight to the story as Cerebus ascends (In a literal and metaphorical sense) to where he meets the Judge who.... Well, judges the many people of the world. After a long speech which developes the world building a bit more, he tells Cerebus that he's destined to die "alone, unmourned and unloved", that his empire has collapsed to an invading army and that the vast majority of his followers are dead. Issues #114-#150: After Cerebus literally falls back down to earth, he walks around the mostly ruined city that he once ruled, before eventually running into Jaka and her new husband Rick. Cerebus stays with them for a bit as a houseguest and there's a bit of tension as Cerebus does his best to try and split Jaka and Rick up, still showing that he loves her deeply and is heartbroken that she's found someone else. This part of the story is lightly pushed down as the character Oscar is introduced, who is 100% written as Oscar Wilde, he plays a major part in the story as he starts writing a story based on Jaka's life, without Jaka knowing. Cerebus leaves to go do a basic errand and while he's gone, Jaka, Rick and Oscar are captured by the new dictatorship controling the region (The dictatorship being mostly big burly women and one of the higher ups being Margaret Thatcher... Seriously). The latter half of this arc deals with the last days of Oscar's life, after being severely scarred by his time in prison. It also deals with Cerebus who is deeply shell shocked, believing that Jaka is dead. Issues #151-#200: This is probably one of the longest arc's in the series. In is part, we get more details on two other aardvarks that exist in this world; Cirin (Leader of the new dictatorship) and Suenteus Po (An extremely powerful philosopher who has lived through several incarnations of himself). There's a lot of mind games as Cerebus, Cirin and Astoria (She's back now) try to change things to their own ideologies, with Po trying to prevent things from going to complete shit. In the third part of the arc, the viewer is shown parts of an in-universe essay, which basically describes a theory on the sexes using a female void (Which focuses on feelings and emotions) and a male void (Which focuses on reason and logic). This honestly reads like it's Dave Sim's thoughts and it mostly comes out of nowhere, like it holds a bit of relevance to the story arc but it just feels very tacked on in my opinion and it's one of the first major times Dave Sim would throw his thoughts and opinions into the story. This story arc starts to reach it's end as Cerebus, Cirin, Astoria and Po finally meet together. Po is able to talk Astoria out of fighting Cerebus and Cirin, helped by the fact that Astoria is worn out by the constant violence. Astoria and Po then leave after they're unable to talk down Cerebus and Cirin, leaving them to fight and good god is their fight violent as hell, leaving them both covered in blood, but alive. Eventually they're both shot up into space by "god" (Who turns out to be called Dave and is 100% a self-insert of Dave Sim) and they're slowly split apart, this leaves Cerebus alone with his thoughts and we get a good look at some moments from his past. (Caution warning: Censored Homophobic Slur Mentions) It's also during this time that Cerebus is left alone with his thoughts and he starts praying to Tarim (The none Dave Sim god), at first being thankful for being saved and then out of nowhere, starts thanking Tarim for not minding him being a f*ggot, while also loudly trying to drown out those thoughts by chanting "Shut Up" as he unintentionally brings up a few moments of him being aroused by men, while also repeatedly using the word f*ggot, mentioning that he hates f*ggots and that being a f*ggot is a sin. Now this is all brought up because it's mentioned in the third part that Cerebus is a hermaphrodite and has or had the ability to reproduce by himself if need be, that really troubles Cerebus and is what caused his outburst. I understand that in medieval fantasy, there is some carry over of what the laws were in the irl medieval era, but there are way better ways to handle it and doing it in such a way where the character is disgusted by these thoughts and saying that they're morally wrong, is really hard to take, especially considering they're the main character. But anyway, back to the story; Eventually Cerebus meets "god" who is shown in word balloon text as he changes various things while speaking in Cerebus's mind, proving that he is a supreme being in some sense. "god* then shows Cerebus the destiny that he was supposed to have followed, but that he screwed it up royally and is now set on a path of self-destruction, he then shows Cerebus two possible realities in which he lives with Jaka, neither of which end well for either of them. The arc ends after Cerebus is stuck on a small planet for a while, as a type of penance, before he is sent back to earth. So, here are the good bits: The art is fantastic, both Dave Sim and Gerhard (He was the main background artist from issue #65 onwards) did a brilliant job. The writing can be very good at times, like the converstations between characters as they argue and discuss topics can be really interesting. Now for my main gripe: Dave Sim's thoughts and opinions bleeding into the story. It's now reached a point where it's gone from being fairly balanced, into just full on "This is what I think and you're going to have to deal with it" and it's really hurting the story. Nearly every female character is now an antagonist or is really watered down character-wise (Even more than before). It's also clear that his anti-LGBTQA+ opinions are showing and it's only gonna get worse from here as he goes deeper into has ramblings in the comments section, which at times takes up more space than the actual story he's making. I will continue reading this series as there's only 100 issues left and a few extras that I might comment on. Overall, I stand by that Dave Sim is a fucking arsehole and someone with some serious personal issues that he didn't resolve. He's talented, but that does not excuse the hate he spews from his gob. Thank you for reading. As before, if I'm factually wrong or have said something you disagree with, do let me know via a comment or DM on either here or on Twitter. Cheers.

#cerebus the aardvark #dave sim #80s comics #90s comics #cerebus #comics #aardvark #opinion #critique #comic review #review

[joe-the-english-otter]

Cerebus The Aardvark: Issues #1-#100. My thoughts so far (Repost)

I'm gonna be reposting my thoughts on Cerebus The Aardvark onto Tumblr, mainly so it's easier to read and is much more accessible this way. This will be a three part saga, the next two parts will be posted over the next few days. I will also be putting caution warnings for specific things at some points in these posts, so if you see one that warns of content that might upset you, please do turn away.

(Originally posted to FA on January 9th 2023)

So, in late December, I discovered a now relatively obscure graphic novel series called; Cerebus The Aardvark. In a general sense, the series is about the life and times of an aardvark barbarian as he slowly climbs the ladder of power while everything collapses around him, sometimes very literally.

The series started in 1977 as a Conan The Barbarian parody and was an independently made and published series, made by a grand total of two-to-three people throughout it's near 26 year run, with the series ending on it's 300th issue. So you'd think a really long running and at times, very critically acclaimed, independent comic series would be talked more or at least be mildly well known, well I'll get to why it isn't later. First I'll give my thoughts on each major chapter/story arc of the series thus far:

Issues #1-#25: Fairly decent stuff, remains a parody of Conan for a good chunk of the first couple issues, along with parodies of other comic or fantasy characters of the time, such as; Elrod of Melvinbone, who is a light parody of Elric of Melnibone. Artemis Roach, A.K.A The Roach, who is used as a parody of whichever male DC/Marvel superhero is popular at the time.

Also introduced is Lord Julius, who is 100% written and drawn as Groucho Marx, though the character is portrayed as a comedic character, with a mind like a steeltrap and a skilled political master mind, which comes into play in the second story arc and throughout the rest of the story. This also introduces the trend of having parodies of various celebrities occasionally showing up and playing minor roles within the story as a whole. There are other characters that're introduced throughout the first arc, but most of them aren't hugely important to the story just yet, so I'll get to them when need be.

But yeah, it continues on it's parody path for quite a while as Cerebus goes from one-shot adventure to the next and we start to get an understanding of his character. He's not just your basic barbarian character-type, he is a full blown "Glorious-Bastard" type character (A Glorious Bastard, is basically a main character who has no redeeming qualities, at all, but you end up supporting them, because of them being surrounded by idiots, being stuck in a situation they can't escape from or you're awaiting to see their downfall. E.G. Edmund Blackadder in Blackadder) and as the series goes on, you slowly see how he gets corrupted almost completely by the want and need for gold.

Eventually the one-shot stories are phased out for an actual story that lays the ground work for the rest of the series, lots of world building and the start of character development.

Issues #26-#55: Honestly, some of the best stuff I've read. The writing and art style improve dramatically. This is where it turns from a straight forward parody, into a well crafted political drama and satire. It still has plenty of parody in it, but it definitely makes a shift towards the serious and it pays off, it's hear where we see the more "human" side of Cerebus, showing that he has complex emotions and is shown off when he finally find his love interest Jaka (Who was introduced towards the middle of the first arc) and the many people who're trying to take advantage of him as he becomes Prime Minister and trys to hold onto it when everything goes tits up.

This is where minor characters who were introduced early in the series get more fleshed out and given proper character arcs. Namely; Bran Mac Mufin, who was a throw away, off-screen warlord character, who turns out to be a civilized person and becomes a mysterious ally of Cerebus, talking about things to come in the most vague ways possible.

Another character that plays an important role in this arc, is Astoria, who basically tries to use Cerebus as a political puppet, but is unable to control him as she tries to use him for her own ends and to get back at Lord Julius (Who happenes to be her ex-husband). It should also be worth mentioning that Elrod and Roach occasionally show up throughout the series as comic relief, though they do both each play a somewhat important role in this arc as well.

Lots of tense moments, character drama and angry aardvark moments, highly recommended.

Issues #56-#100: This is where things take a darker tone for the series. The art style is still really fantastic and it continues to just get better. The writing can be very up and down in parts, it mainly starts to go down the closer it reaches issue #100. The character drama is still there, though it moves more into the religious area as Cerebus becomes Pope and abuses that power to it's most extreme lengths.

This is also where the character Adam Weisshaupt (who was introduced way early on and becomes Cerebus's political rival) becomes the series antagonist for the next couple issues, as he tries to control Cerebus as Prime Minister, but fails as Cerebus is made pope suddenly scrapping his plans and basically making Cerebus the most politically powerful person.

Obviously, this sudden rise in power makes Cerebus even more corrupt and his character is on the tight line between Glorious-Bastard and straight up villain throughout this arc and one particular moment really pushes it, though I'll mention that point shortly.

There's still a few more issues in this specific arc, so I haven't finished it just yet, but my thoughts thus far are; It's alright, there's some good moments, some bad moments and one really uncomfortable moment.

(Caution Warning: Character Sexual Assult Mention)

Right, now I'm going to talk about the thing most people will skip straight to; The controversy about the comics creator, Dave Sim. He is without question, an extreme sexist. For context (For what little I can give): The series started of as a Conan parody, so there was going to be the smallest amount of sexism in it, however the sexism really starts to ramp up as the series goes on and it really rears it's ugly head towards issue #100, when Cerebus basically rapes Astoria, after she threw her panties at him, implying that she was asking for it (Fucking ew).

Not only that, but the general treatment of female characters starts to get worse and worse, like, Astoria was initially written as a complex political chess master, whose trying to lead a political movemnt but over the course of a few issues, she becomes a generic feminist strawman, written from the perspective of someone who holds feminists in low regard.

Any other female characters who had any ounce of interesting developement, are watered down or are sidelined. The only female character that has some level of depth is Jaka and she's rarely seen throughout the series thus far.

Some of you are probably thinking at this point. Well that's bad sure, but that doesn't mean he's sexist. I'd like to refer you to two well written articles on Dave Sim: https://comicsalliance.com/tribute-dave-sim/

https://literatemachine.com/2020/08/28/cerebus-misogyny-and-madness/ There are spoilers in those articles for those that are still interested in reading Cerebus. I was warned beforehand about his sexism and how the last 100 or so issues of the complete 300 issue series, basically devolves into Dave Sim ranting about feminism and anything else that he doesn't agree with, framing it in the context of Cerebus The Aardvark.

I will continue reading the series as I'm already in too deep and I need to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. I will post the next update when I've finished issue #200.

Thank you for reading. If I'm factually wrong or have said something you disagree with, do let me know via a comment or DM me on either here or Twitter. Cheers.

#cerebus the aardvark #dave sim #comics #80s comics #cerebus #aardvark #opinion #critique #comic review #review