did cerebus ever get good again?

*might*

The last issue I bought - Cerebus imagines a future for himself as shepherd - was quite engaging.

I expect the final few issues (due next year) to be astonishing, but I've been wrong before.

The last issue I bought - Cerebus imagines a future for himself as shepherd - was quite engaging.

I think you've already made my claim, then.

That issue and the ones just after it are GRATE, particularly after the introduction of the Three Stooges. The last five has been Sim reading the bible out loud and interpreting it as an allegory of why women are always wrong. It is incalculably worse than it sounds.

It's also strange that there is no way back to most of the earlier stuff: between the issue after that, and the one 4-5 issues later, 60 years passes. Unless something really contrived has happened, that means that Lord Julius, Astoria, pretty much everyone died off-panel.

That said, I'm glad I'm reading it. It's fascinating to read a work of this scope and shamelessness that really forces me to step back and say exactly WHY it is wrong. Unlike most comics, it's genuinely art. You can feel the self-expression in it. It's just a shame he's so obsessed with ripping on women. Plus his ego has swelled enormously somewhere down the line.

I'll probably buy the last two books just to see what happens. I'm basically with Douglas on this one.

hooooooooooooooooooooo boy

Erase "unlike most comics."

*(MOST ANNOYING ARGUMENT EVER on the old comics newsgroups.)

I've fallen away from comics/graphic novels/etc quite substantially over the past few years anyhow. I don't know whether that's a change of my own priorities or just general crappiness throughout the industry since the whole Diamond fiasco. It seems the ones I keep coming back to are titles like Love and Rockets and anything new by Jay Stephens. It's probably me.

That leaves you with "It's genuinely art. You can feel the self-expression in it." which is still worth a "hooooooooooooooooooooo boy"...

And yes, Julius/Astoria/the entire supporting cast died off-panel within the last year's worth of issues--there's a tossed-off reference to the squabbling between Julius's heirs, which when I noticed it gave me a shock. We can assume that Serna is probably still alive--and maybe Suenteus Po?--but that's about it.

I think Cerebus went irrevocably wrong once he started putting his own rants into the body of the comic - e.g. all that male light female voice shite.

I think if you read Cerbus from the first compilation up to the end of Jaka's Story you would think you were reading one of the best comics series' ever published. It's a shame that he's blown it since then - that he has produced his life's work, and it's crap.

Seconded on starting with High Society, unless you have the stamina to get through the first phonebook just for background.

the first book is great crack. If nothing else it introduces loads of key characters. and it's pretty funny. I mean, come on, the first appearence of the Roach, for fuck's sake.

The first episode features the best ever frame ever to appear in a comic.

[errrrrr, don't cross reference this thread with any other one where I have made a similar but contradictory claim]

all my cerebus's are 2900 miles away right now but i really want to read them again. the used bookstore has jaka's story for 10 bucks so maybe i'll go buy that for my birthday.

(probably has something to do with the proliferation of "personalized font" programs, i should think)

yah, sean, kochalka and brian ralph and ron rege and all those ft. thunder/minicomics regressives. i think a lot of it is great, but its a rather hard sell for the "next generation" as bagge/clowes/hernandez/etc. or even seth/joe matt/chester brown.

the bit where the guy looks at his stump.

He was always pretty arrogant, I think - I met him a number of times, and hung out some, as a fanboy.

For me the jump the shark moment came when Sim challenged Jeff Smith to a fight.

(also: missing an issue here and there makes it incredibly confusing)

I really like Cerebus but he's not exactly Tintin. I have to really be in the proper mindset to sit down and enjoy Sim's work but when I am he's fucking amazing. From the first book all the way through Minds (issues 1-200) I think it's just amazing. So far the last third of the storyline has been disappointing, however - less inventive and too concerned with tying up loose ends. If Douglas' spoilers are any indication (I try to avoid following the goings-on until the reprint edition comes out) then I'm likely to be quite pissed with the last book or two. Oh well. We'll always have "CEREBUS WEE-WEES IN THE SINK".

They're probably half-aware of the movie, at least.