Post by Pickle on Jun 12, 2015 13:06:05 GMT -5
I have been aware of Cerebus The Aardvark for a long time, although not because of the character himself. Arguments about the series, and more significantly about its creator, Dave Sim, dominate any discussion of the series.
He arouses passions and opinions which seem to overshadow the book, about sexism, religion, creativity, but most of all, about Sim himself. He's a misogynist! He's a crank! He's a genius! He's psychotic! He's an asshole in that interview on TOS! The comic gets forgotten entirely. In this case, is it simply impossible to separate the man from his work?
Over the course of it's 300 issue run, Cerebus, by all accounts, declines into nigh-incomprehensible screeds which serve as sounding boards for its authors' beliefs on women, spirituality, artists' rights and a host of other topics. But regardless of the quality of the series in it's latter half, the books High Society, Church & State and Jaka's Story are supposedly amongst the most important comic books ever written. Many consider Sim one of the greatest comic book creators of all time because of these books.
I was keen to obtain these books to find out for myself, and try to read through them all. If I couldn't get past the apparently hate-filled issue 186 and the unreadable later books, I could at least enjoy the earlier masterpieces.
To say I was disappointed was an understatement. Trying to get through these books, I felt like I was walking waist deep through wet porridge. I was disheartened to find long, long, interminably long pages of talking heads. I found a quote where Sim says, "If you're going to do a film or a comic book or any other entertainment that doesn't have just two people talking, you're missing the whole essence of what's human."
But if all you're going to have is two people talking (or just as often, one person talking at another person on and on at length), then I think you're missing the myriad visual opportunities comic books actually give you. Meanwhile, Cerebus piles books upon books in exactly the same fashion. I was buried underneath speech bubbles. I was washed away by walls of text. And the story painted on those walls did not engage with me at all. The satire felt shallow and adolescent. Parody characters didn't interest me in the slightest, usually significantly less clever than Sim seems to think.
Less clever than it thinks - that seems to be a fair representation of the entire enterprise.
I couldn't even get excited by the Flaming Carrot making an appearance. So I gave up. I couldn't get anywhere near the supposedly controversial sections of the story, the arguments between Cirinists and Kevilists long since turning my eyes and brain off.
But what's my opinion worth? The whole series was a tremendous undertaking and Sim had the right to create whatever he wanted; it was entirely his own creation and he succeeded in making something that's undeniably his. I just I feel like there's something important I am missing here; like a painting rapturously described as a masterpiece where all I can see is amateur smudge.
If anyone else would like to talk about the series it would be great, and we could see how long it goes before it spirals into an argument about misogyny.
He arouses passions and opinions which seem to overshadow the book, about sexism, religion, creativity, but most of all, about Sim himself. He's a misogynist! He's a crank! He's a genius! He's psychotic! He's an asshole in that interview on TOS! The comic gets forgotten entirely. In this case, is it simply impossible to separate the man from his work?
Over the course of it's 300 issue run, Cerebus, by all accounts, declines into nigh-incomprehensible screeds which serve as sounding boards for its authors' beliefs on women, spirituality, artists' rights and a host of other topics. But regardless of the quality of the series in it's latter half, the books High Society, Church & State and Jaka's Story are supposedly amongst the most important comic books ever written. Many consider Sim one of the greatest comic book creators of all time because of these books.
I was keen to obtain these books to find out for myself, and try to read through them all. If I couldn't get past the apparently hate-filled issue 186 and the unreadable later books, I could at least enjoy the earlier masterpieces.
To say I was disappointed was an understatement. Trying to get through these books, I felt like I was walking waist deep through wet porridge. I was disheartened to find long, long, interminably long pages of talking heads. I found a quote where Sim says, "If you're going to do a film or a comic book or any other entertainment that doesn't have just two people talking, you're missing the whole essence of what's human."
But if all you're going to have is two people talking (or just as often, one person talking at another person on and on at length), then I think you're missing the myriad visual opportunities comic books actually give you. Meanwhile, Cerebus piles books upon books in exactly the same fashion. I was buried underneath speech bubbles. I was washed away by walls of text. And the story painted on those walls did not engage with me at all. The satire felt shallow and adolescent. Parody characters didn't interest me in the slightest, usually significantly less clever than Sim seems to think.
Less clever than it thinks - that seems to be a fair representation of the entire enterprise.
I couldn't even get excited by the Flaming Carrot making an appearance. So I gave up. I couldn't get anywhere near the supposedly controversial sections of the story, the arguments between Cirinists and Kevilists long since turning my eyes and brain off.
But what's my opinion worth? The whole series was a tremendous undertaking and Sim had the right to create whatever he wanted; it was entirely his own creation and he succeeded in making something that's undeniably his. I just I feel like there's something important I am missing here; like a painting rapturously described as a masterpiece where all I can see is amateur smudge.
If anyone else would like to talk about the series it would be great, and we could see how long it goes before it spirals into an argument about misogyny.
