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Cerebus #16
The Last Day
Reprinting Cerebus Issues 289-300
260 pages, Paperback
First published March 31, 2004
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189 people want to read
About the author
Dave Sim
1,048 books137 followersDavid Victor Sim is a Canadian comic book, artist and publisher, best known as the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
July 2, 2024
Well it is done. A long 300 issue read. The first 100 issues are amazing. They are funny, entertaining and just damn good. Then the long downhill slide begins as the writer decides to use the comic for political, religious and social commentary. There were some bright spots in the story scattered through the last 200 issues but overall they were a flop to me. Read the first 100 issues and laugh till you cry at the adventures of the main character then STOP. Keep that beautiful memory and don't spoil it by reading any more. This book not recommended. The first 100 issues are highly recommended
October 4, 2018
I originally quit reading Cerebus after Minds, because the series was going sharply downhill and I had lost hope of it correcting itself. But I picked up the last volume because I wanted closure and all I got was confirmation that the title had hit rock bottom while I was gone. Re-reading this was tough, in that it's borderline unreadable. The first forty pages are essentially an ilustrated version of Genesis with commentary by Sim in which he attempts to integrate quantum physics and his "male light/female void" theory into it. However, virtually ever statement he makes starts with "I would assume...", "I'm speculating..." and "I think what's happening here is..." Needless to say, it's not a terribly compelling or well-reasoned theory. But in the introduction (which is equally painful to read), Sim claims he has proposed a legitimate "theory of everything" and believes that the only reason this breakthrough hasn't been widely reported is that the feminists want to keep a lid on his anti-feminist ideas (he really says this). As we know, Sim has schizophrenia. This kind of rambling, bizarre, paranoid theory is the product of the same symptoms that made him decide that it was a good idea to break up his narration by inserting forty pages of random, bizarre, poorly-argued metaphysical theory. The whole things is just kind of sad to read.
The remaining two-hundred pages are dedicated to Cerebus' last day. Cerebus is extremely old, in a lot of pain, argues with himself a lot and it takes him a long time to do simple things. Sim conveys this by spending the vast majority of the volume showing Cerebus complaining about his ailments, arguing with himself and doing simple things very slowly. I guess the point is to accurately convey what old age is like? Congratulations Dave, you've made a comic that's as excruciating to read as it must be to experience extreme old age. No seriously, watching Cerebus take several pages to walk across the room while complaining how much it hurts is hilarious, every singe time you repeated it! Oh, also there's some heavy-handed "social commentary." Cerebus' fortress is surrounded by scantily-cad, smoking women demanding rights for pedophiles. Zing! Take THAT, feminists!
On the plus side, visually it's still good. And it's kind of neat the parallels Sim draws between Genesis and the actual plot of the story. That's it though. Otherwise you're just watching the complete collapse of a once brilliant creator whose mental illness and political obsessions have completely warped his art to the point where he's willing to sacrifice almost all elements of good comics in order to make his Point. If you've already given up on the series, don't come back here looking for the closure you'll never get.
The remaining two-hundred pages are dedicated to Cerebus' last day. Cerebus is extremely old, in a lot of pain, argues with himself a lot and it takes him a long time to do simple things. Sim conveys this by spending the vast majority of the volume showing Cerebus complaining about his ailments, arguing with himself and doing simple things very slowly. I guess the point is to accurately convey what old age is like? Congratulations Dave, you've made a comic that's as excruciating to read as it must be to experience extreme old age. No seriously, watching Cerebus take several pages to walk across the room while complaining how much it hurts is hilarious, every singe time you repeated it! Oh, also there's some heavy-handed "social commentary." Cerebus' fortress is surrounded by scantily-cad, smoking women demanding rights for pedophiles. Zing! Take THAT, feminists!
On the plus side, visually it's still good. And it's kind of neat the parallels Sim draws between Genesis and the actual plot of the story. That's it though. Otherwise you're just watching the complete collapse of a once brilliant creator whose mental illness and political obsessions have completely warped his art to the point where he's willing to sacrifice almost all elements of good comics in order to make his Point. If you've already given up on the series, don't come back here looking for the closure you'll never get.
June 30, 2016
With The Cerebus comics, you only need to read High Society - the rest are just Dave Sims unleashing his inner demons.
March 29, 2018
This is it! The last volume of Cerebus, collecting issues 289 - 300 of the stellar independent series. Cerebus was truly the first breakout independent title, the first comic to go 300 issues with the same writer and artist (I think the only one to come close would be the 190 issues of G.I. Joe written by Larry Hama- and that’s not including the artist). As you read from the volume to volume you can truly take in the growth of the artist. When Cerebus was good, it was the best. When it went downhill, it was still good (art wise) just not as much as it used to be. And while I lambasted the previous volume, I believe this one comes back on track.
It opens with a forty page spread of a new revelation by Cerebus on the creation of the universe. Based on previous biblical text combined with scientific theory, it is a reworking of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. This may sound similar to what I was complaining about in the previous volume, but here he does the execution right. Script with illustration, rather than long blocks of text. The only flaw is the microscopic annotations at the bottom of each page. Which should have included them in the back of the volume along with all the others. Cerebus writes down this revelation and hides it, ala I, Claudius.
It is many many years later, and the sanctuary the three wise guys created is not a fortress. A collective religious shrine, political powerhouse, with the various city states about all tied in a mutual defense pact. The world is on high alert. A new collective of feminist/pedophile/terrorist groups is threatening to destabilize civilization. It sounded farfetched then when it was written in 2004, but now it seems like a lot of these prediction have bloomed. He was called a religious nut and paranoid, but in the end Dave Sim seems to be right about what is coming.
It’s with a heavy heart that I watch our once vibrant antihero descend into decrepitude and senility. Cerebus is a wrinkled incontinent mess, his body on the verge of collapse. Mentally he is gone, his mind a garbage heap of old ideas and incongruent memories. Close to two hundred years old, his one obsession is to see his son again. Shep-Shep as he is called hasn’t been to see Cerebus in close to fifteen years, but the latter cannot remember why they parted.
He is Cerebus’s son with New Joanne, whom we meet at the end of Latter Days. She is the reporter who is talking with Cerebus about his ideas on the Torah and his past with the prophet Rick. She is in fact a dead ringer for Jaka, which is why Cerebus falls for her.
An interesting note about Shep-Shep is that his only resemblance to his father that is he has three toes. A subtle detail that I missed and had to read about it in the annotations. The reunion, as you can guess, is not a happy one. The Judge way back in issue 123 decreed that Cerebus would die, “alone, unmourned, and unloved” and he did not lie.
Shep-Shep is a creepy little shit, full of odd powers, and weird ideas. He has completely sided with his mother and they share an incestuous relationship. Apparently he is destined to be the inspiration for the Sphinx (or his bastard creations are). His purpose in visiting is to taunt his father about his beliefs and his collapsing religious foundation. The Muslims are coming. One of the interesting aspects here is that Shep-Shep’s mother, New Joanne, has inserted herself into Cerebus’s history, rewriting the events to give herself a prominent role. This is reminiscent of feminist rewriting of history to suit their political agendas. It reminds me of Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey, the woman who created the first domestic abuse shelter, but has since nearly been erased from history because she rejected the Marxist ideology that most feminist organizations at the time projected.
After he leaves, Cerebus is in a rage. I will say this for our antihero, he dies with sword in hand, leaping from his bed. But the flesh is weak and he collapses dying alone on the floor. What comes next is a manner of some debate. The light opens, the spirit of Cerebus sees all of the figures from the past, friend and foe, with one exception. Rick is absent. The prophet and messianic figure for Cerebus's religion isn't present, which gives our antihero pause. He then runs, runs from the light. His spirit is yanked and that is that.
This was a quarter of a century long journey. A feat many jealous naysayers claimed would be impossible. The talent of the author cannot be denied, whether or not you agree with what he did with it. Cerebus lived hard and died hard, this was a true and fitting ending for him. An ending that should used a model for others. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this series and I cannot recommend strongly enough for everyone else to read it as well.
It opens with a forty page spread of a new revelation by Cerebus on the creation of the universe. Based on previous biblical text combined with scientific theory, it is a reworking of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. This may sound similar to what I was complaining about in the previous volume, but here he does the execution right. Script with illustration, rather than long blocks of text. The only flaw is the microscopic annotations at the bottom of each page. Which should have included them in the back of the volume along with all the others. Cerebus writes down this revelation and hides it, ala I, Claudius.
It is many many years later, and the sanctuary the three wise guys created is not a fortress. A collective religious shrine, political powerhouse, with the various city states about all tied in a mutual defense pact. The world is on high alert. A new collective of feminist/pedophile/terrorist groups is threatening to destabilize civilization. It sounded farfetched then when it was written in 2004, but now it seems like a lot of these prediction have bloomed. He was called a religious nut and paranoid, but in the end Dave Sim seems to be right about what is coming.
It’s with a heavy heart that I watch our once vibrant antihero descend into decrepitude and senility. Cerebus is a wrinkled incontinent mess, his body on the verge of collapse. Mentally he is gone, his mind a garbage heap of old ideas and incongruent memories. Close to two hundred years old, his one obsession is to see his son again. Shep-Shep as he is called hasn’t been to see Cerebus in close to fifteen years, but the latter cannot remember why they parted.
He is Cerebus’s son with New Joanne, whom we meet at the end of Latter Days. She is the reporter who is talking with Cerebus about his ideas on the Torah and his past with the prophet Rick. She is in fact a dead ringer for Jaka, which is why Cerebus falls for her.
An interesting note about Shep-Shep is that his only resemblance to his father that is he has three toes. A subtle detail that I missed and had to read about it in the annotations. The reunion, as you can guess, is not a happy one. The Judge way back in issue 123 decreed that Cerebus would die, “alone, unmourned, and unloved” and he did not lie.
Shep-Shep is a creepy little shit, full of odd powers, and weird ideas. He has completely sided with his mother and they share an incestuous relationship. Apparently he is destined to be the inspiration for the Sphinx (or his bastard creations are). His purpose in visiting is to taunt his father about his beliefs and his collapsing religious foundation. The Muslims are coming. One of the interesting aspects here is that Shep-Shep’s mother, New Joanne, has inserted herself into Cerebus’s history, rewriting the events to give herself a prominent role. This is reminiscent of feminist rewriting of history to suit their political agendas. It reminds me of Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey, the woman who created the first domestic abuse shelter, but has since nearly been erased from history because she rejected the Marxist ideology that most feminist organizations at the time projected.
After he leaves, Cerebus is in a rage. I will say this for our antihero, he dies with sword in hand, leaping from his bed. But the flesh is weak and he collapses dying alone on the floor. What comes next is a manner of some debate. The light opens, the spirit of Cerebus sees all of the figures from the past, friend and foe, with one exception. Rick is absent. The prophet and messianic figure for Cerebus's religion isn't present, which gives our antihero pause. He then runs, runs from the light. His spirit is yanked and that is that.
This was a quarter of a century long journey. A feat many jealous naysayers claimed would be impossible. The talent of the author cannot be denied, whether or not you agree with what he did with it. Cerebus lived hard and died hard, this was a true and fitting ending for him. An ending that should used a model for others. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this series and I cannot recommend strongly enough for everyone else to read it as well.
July 6, 2008
Starts with Sim's Story of the Origins of Everything. From reading his commentary, he really believes that he has discovered the Grand Unified Field Theory (!!), but that since he's a lowly (and universally despised) cartoonist, it didn't make a splash. The GUT takes the form of scripture, in which God splits off a part of his spirit for no apparent reason, and that Spirit sees the light that God let happen (did not create) and wants to merge with the female light, which of course is a bad thing. Sim attempts to explain physics, the atom and the creation of stars (which are the light/spirit couple's attempt to be like God and recreate the Big Bang) as being not just allegories of, but actual copies of God's spirit, some of whom are repenting and some of whom are not. He also relates the development of the human fetus to this, all cellular activity being small-scale reflections of the relationship of God's spirit, the light, and God. It's... interesting. I'm not a psychiatrist, so I can't say anything more than that with any degree of accuracy. It's amusing to see "the light" being female and good back in Church & State, then male and good in Reads, and now female and bad in Latter Days and The Last Day. I guess you go with what fits your thesis at the time, huh?
The rest of the book shows the last day of Cerebus' life, as he talks to God and tries to see his estranged son. It's a pretty good ending to the series, I'd say. There's a lot of real emotion and mood. The very very very end of the book is actually kind of an interesting event.
The commentary at the end is pretty good, although Sim does his self-pitying heroic thing, which is tiring. Hospitals are Marxist, and medicine is the Adversary's religion. Feminist control of everything is the reason that he is universally hated and everyone wants him to kill himself. Sigh. Some good stuff on the art in the book, though.
There is enough in The Last Day, though, to make me fond of the character and mourn his passing and that of the series. Took me three months to read this time, took Sim twenty-six years to create. Well worth it, in my opinion.
The rest of the book shows the last day of Cerebus' life, as he talks to God and tries to see his estranged son. It's a pretty good ending to the series, I'd say. There's a lot of real emotion and mood. The very very very end of the book is actually kind of an interesting event.
The commentary at the end is pretty good, although Sim does his self-pitying heroic thing, which is tiring. Hospitals are Marxist, and medicine is the Adversary's religion. Feminist control of everything is the reason that he is universally hated and everyone wants him to kill himself. Sigh. Some good stuff on the art in the book, though.
There is enough in The Last Day, though, to make me fond of the character and mourn his passing and that of the series. Took me three months to read this time, took Sim twenty-six years to create. Well worth it, in my opinion.
March 15, 2013
Here we are. The end. It's been a pretty crazy ride, all in all.
Remember when this series was actually about something? Remember when things happened and it made sense and we had interesting characters doing interesting things? I don't. Not anymore. Nothing is left of any of it except a dull bitterness at the time that was wasted trying to get some sense of worth out of these last few books.
The end of the series is so utterly mishandled. Again, my impression is that Dave had tired of writing Cerebus or possibly had just run out of ways to parody existing characters for his own profit. It ends quietly and without fanfare and we are left wondering what the hell happened and why.
There are no real answers to many of the mysteries posed by the series...no real conclusion or satisfying feeling of reaching a particular goal.
Maybe it's me. Maybe there is hidden genius at work here and I'm just too dull to understand it all. But really most of this comes across as an old man who is bitter and hates the world. Which is kind of brilliant in a way, since that is exactly how Cerebus is left at the end here. The reader as well is left bitter and alone at the end, wondering what ever happened to the story of an aardvark barbarian trying to make his way through a world.
Remember when this series was actually about something? Remember when things happened and it made sense and we had interesting characters doing interesting things? I don't. Not anymore. Nothing is left of any of it except a dull bitterness at the time that was wasted trying to get some sense of worth out of these last few books.
The end of the series is so utterly mishandled. Again, my impression is that Dave had tired of writing Cerebus or possibly had just run out of ways to parody existing characters for his own profit. It ends quietly and without fanfare and we are left wondering what the hell happened and why.
There are no real answers to many of the mysteries posed by the series...no real conclusion or satisfying feeling of reaching a particular goal.
Maybe it's me. Maybe there is hidden genius at work here and I'm just too dull to understand it all. But really most of this comes across as an old man who is bitter and hates the world. Which is kind of brilliant in a way, since that is exactly how Cerebus is left at the end here. The reader as well is left bitter and alone at the end, wondering what ever happened to the story of an aardvark barbarian trying to make his way through a world.
December 26, 2007
Disappointing end to the series. In the afterword Dave Sim notes that at this point in his life, Cerebus is basically senile but still very sharp from moment to moment-- he can hold his own in a complex conversation, but forgets what he's doing in the course of a day. Pretty good analogy for the series at this point. It has a few better moments, but by and large it's a poor remnant of what went before.
December 2, 2017
Utter garbage.
Sim's writing is at its most florid, his scriptural analysis is reductive and in sole service of his misogyny, and the hurried ending to what was a thirty year magnum opus exists solely to make a dig at Islam and Feminism.
Trash. Useless.
Great art by Gerhard as always!
Sim's writing is at its most florid, his scriptural analysis is reductive and in sole service of his misogyny, and the hurried ending to what was a thirty year magnum opus exists solely to make a dig at Islam and Feminism.
Trash. Useless.
Great art by Gerhard as always!
February 8, 2015
Confusing and bitter and grumpy, just as it needed to be. Sim makes great comic art despite his troubling ideas.
September 10, 2019
The origin of everything, "Deviant terrorists" and the demise of the last bastion of "righteousness" (all this according to Dave Sim), what a ride!
I will never see eye to eye with Dave's weird ideas but he sure has an interesting framing for them and they're pretty well exposed.
Finally, I have to give kudos to Dave for mixing religion with quantum physics to explain the origin of the Earth instead of doing some bullshit to imply a flat-earth (Dave predicted those idiots).
Fully Recommended, everybody should read the whole Cerebus journey!
I will never see eye to eye with Dave's weird ideas but he sure has an interesting framing for them and they're pretty well exposed.
Finally, I have to give kudos to Dave for mixing religion with quantum physics to explain the origin of the Earth instead of doing some bullshit to imply a flat-earth (Dave predicted those idiots).
Fully Recommended, everybody should read the whole Cerebus journey!
December 25, 2016
Something fell.
I’m conflicted about this one. I remembered it being pretty strong, but on rereading I’m not so sure. It starts with more of Dave’s highly individual theology, as a dreaming Cerebus is vouchsafed the secrets of the universe and the answer to Einstein’s Grand Unified Theory. It is preposterous cobblers, of course, but in stark contrast to the Cerebexegesis, it is beautifully crafted cobblers, fantastically drawn and written in an authentic King James style style (well, authentic to this heathen’s ears, anyway). It also scores over the last part of Latter Days by being published as a single issue (289/290 were published together as one 40 page comic). Do you have any idea how agonising it was to go through that Torah stuff in twenty page instalments a month apart for the best part of a year? Unfortunately, where it comes off second best is in comparison to Dave’s earlier attempts at cosmology. “That’s what’s left of her” is one of my very favourite moments in the whole work, and this is nowhere near that.
Once Cerebus wakes, it’s clear we’ve jumped on again from the end of Latter Days. He is terrifically aged, confined to one room, mumbling and rambling to himself. His body is one long catalogue of aches. The church he leads is splintered and at war with itself. His life is dwindling away, and all his dreams of power, gold and glory have been replaced by the hope that his estranged son will visit him.
This is what I liked about the book. The aged, the lonely, the infirm, these are people who don’t get much screentime in our pop culture. The portrayal of the ancient Cerebus, wracked with pain and wandering in and out of coherence, is handled with terrific empathy, and no little artistic skill. The panel where he’s sat in his chair, wrapped in a blanket, staring vacantly at the rain against the window, lost in his own heartbreak is maybe the most moving image in the whole work.
The plot, though…I’d largely forgotten the storyline of The Last Day, and with good reason. It’s frothing Daily Express tosh of the first order, one long incoherent tantrum about liberals. Compare the thud of this to the tender and moving portrait of the title character, and you’d struggle to believe they came from the same person. Sheshep finally arrives, and outlines his vision to Cerebus. This is excellently done, with a sense of rising tension engendered by the mysterious noises coming from his box. His final revelation, though…I’ve never really been sold on it. In the hands of a lesser artist, it would be silly and bathetic, but Dave just about pulls it off through sheer skill. I’m also inclined to give it a pass for the invocation of Yeats’ Second Coming, but it’s hard to avoid the impression that Dave wanted us all to be properly shocked and horrified, when I’m a bit more “hey, great technique!”.
Anyway, enough of my yakking, we’re all waiting for issue 300. I think Dave steps up right at the last and knocks it out of the park on this one. The end of 299 saw an enraged Cerebus grabbing his sword and vowing to kill Sheshep and New Joanne. For a month we all awaited the return of Cerebus The Barbarian, going down in one last blaze of glory. Instead, the ancient aardvark stumbles, falls, and breaks his neck. At least he gets one final fart in. There’s a great sequence of his life flashing before his eyes, as he dies alone, unmourned and unloved, just as we were told all that time ago. A ghost Cerebus emerges from his body, and gingerly taps away from the corpse (I like that the spirit is depicted in classic costume). A shining light appears, the famous tunnel of light from near death experiences. Waiting for him at the other end is, well, everyone. It’s a lovely double spread, a thank you to the fans. Spirit Cerebus eagerly runs towards to the light (changing into his Rabbi costume along the way, which I did not welcome as much as the waistcoat and medallions) before realising that it’s not quite everyone. Rick, who he believes to have been the holiest man he knew, is not there. What does that mean? Is he right to go to the light? Is he going to Hell? No matter, he can’t escape, and the last we see of him is his hat falling and dwindling off into the distance.
There’s a lot that’s good about The Last Day that has stuck with me over the years, and some less good stuff that I’d let slip. It is streets ahead of its dire predecessor, but it’s still a long way from the heights Cerebus previously reached. I think the last issue is tremendous, but I wish the preceding thirty or so had taken a very different tack. The decision to introduce a version of the Christian religion to a fantasy world was a massive mis-step. Not only is it handled in an extremely dull fashion, it robs us of so many other potentially much more interesting ways for the story to go. The last of Cerebus will always make me wonder what could have been, and that’s a crying shame.
I’m conflicted about this one. I remembered it being pretty strong, but on rereading I’m not so sure. It starts with more of Dave’s highly individual theology, as a dreaming Cerebus is vouchsafed the secrets of the universe and the answer to Einstein’s Grand Unified Theory. It is preposterous cobblers, of course, but in stark contrast to the Cerebexegesis, it is beautifully crafted cobblers, fantastically drawn and written in an authentic King James style style (well, authentic to this heathen’s ears, anyway). It also scores over the last part of Latter Days by being published as a single issue (289/290 were published together as one 40 page comic). Do you have any idea how agonising it was to go through that Torah stuff in twenty page instalments a month apart for the best part of a year? Unfortunately, where it comes off second best is in comparison to Dave’s earlier attempts at cosmology. “That’s what’s left of her” is one of my very favourite moments in the whole work, and this is nowhere near that.
Once Cerebus wakes, it’s clear we’ve jumped on again from the end of Latter Days. He is terrifically aged, confined to one room, mumbling and rambling to himself. His body is one long catalogue of aches. The church he leads is splintered and at war with itself. His life is dwindling away, and all his dreams of power, gold and glory have been replaced by the hope that his estranged son will visit him.
This is what I liked about the book. The aged, the lonely, the infirm, these are people who don’t get much screentime in our pop culture. The portrayal of the ancient Cerebus, wracked with pain and wandering in and out of coherence, is handled with terrific empathy, and no little artistic skill. The panel where he’s sat in his chair, wrapped in a blanket, staring vacantly at the rain against the window, lost in his own heartbreak is maybe the most moving image in the whole work.
The plot, though…I’d largely forgotten the storyline of The Last Day, and with good reason. It’s frothing Daily Express tosh of the first order, one long incoherent tantrum about liberals. Compare the thud of this to the tender and moving portrait of the title character, and you’d struggle to believe they came from the same person. Sheshep finally arrives, and outlines his vision to Cerebus. This is excellently done, with a sense of rising tension engendered by the mysterious noises coming from his box. His final revelation, though…I’ve never really been sold on it. In the hands of a lesser artist, it would be silly and bathetic, but Dave just about pulls it off through sheer skill. I’m also inclined to give it a pass for the invocation of Yeats’ Second Coming, but it’s hard to avoid the impression that Dave wanted us all to be properly shocked and horrified, when I’m a bit more “hey, great technique!”.
Anyway, enough of my yakking, we’re all waiting for issue 300. I think Dave steps up right at the last and knocks it out of the park on this one. The end of 299 saw an enraged Cerebus grabbing his sword and vowing to kill Sheshep and New Joanne. For a month we all awaited the return of Cerebus The Barbarian, going down in one last blaze of glory. Instead, the ancient aardvark stumbles, falls, and breaks his neck. At least he gets one final fart in. There’s a great sequence of his life flashing before his eyes, as he dies alone, unmourned and unloved, just as we were told all that time ago. A ghost Cerebus emerges from his body, and gingerly taps away from the corpse (I like that the spirit is depicted in classic costume). A shining light appears, the famous tunnel of light from near death experiences. Waiting for him at the other end is, well, everyone. It’s a lovely double spread, a thank you to the fans. Spirit Cerebus eagerly runs towards to the light (changing into his Rabbi costume along the way, which I did not welcome as much as the waistcoat and medallions) before realising that it’s not quite everyone. Rick, who he believes to have been the holiest man he knew, is not there. What does that mean? Is he right to go to the light? Is he going to Hell? No matter, he can’t escape, and the last we see of him is his hat falling and dwindling off into the distance.
There’s a lot that’s good about The Last Day that has stuck with me over the years, and some less good stuff that I’d let slip. It is streets ahead of its dire predecessor, but it’s still a long way from the heights Cerebus previously reached. I think the last issue is tremendous, but I wish the preceding thirty or so had taken a very different tack. The decision to introduce a version of the Christian religion to a fantasy world was a massive mis-step. Not only is it handled in an extremely dull fashion, it robs us of so many other potentially much more interesting ways for the story to go. The last of Cerebus will always make me wonder what could have been, and that’s a crying shame.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 26, 2008
I quit reading Cerebus back around the time that Dave Sim developed his obsession with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Having recently acquired my own appreciation for the greatness of F. Scott Fitzgerald, it occurred to me that I should go back and see how the whole Cerebus epic ended (because that's how my mind works). Turns out Dave got religion in the time I was away, and The Last Day starts out with nothing less than an attempt to reconcile the Book of Genesis with the science of big bang theory. I'm already enjoying this a lot more than I expected to, since one of my favorite things to ponder and debate with people about is the wacky notion that evolution and creationism don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. It's going to be fun to see where The Great Curmudgeon goes with all this!
Well, I finished it, and all I can say is... wow... I'm going to be mulling this over for a long, long time before I even begin to know what I think. There are basically three interconnected elements to The Last Day: The unified theory part only takes up about the first 1/8 of the book, but easily outweighs everything else. It's an intricately crafted, thought provoking and thoroughly outrageous piece of work that is guaranteed to shock and offend just about anyone who reads it (which is exactly why you SHOULD read it). If you can hang on to the end of that ecumenical thrill-ride without tossing your cookies or blacking out, next comes the actual story of the last day of Cerebus' life which is a funny, sad and very appropriate send-off for the little gray bastard as he leaves the world he caused so much trouble in (You remember Cerebus don't you, the main character who's name is on the cover? No, not "crazy Dave Sim the evil misogynist", the other main character who's name is on the cover). The Introduction and The Last Annotations bookend the collection, and serve as a sobering and uncomfortable reminder that in its entirety Cerebus is more than "just a comic book"; it's nearly 30 years of one man's life bled out onto thousands of pages in a monumental undertaking that required an obsessive committment to individualism at all costs. Cerebus has always been as much about Dave Sim the real person attempting to organize his thoughts and work through his problems in his own way as it has been about the adventures of a fictional cartoon aardvark, and like the man himself it has changed a lot over the years, entertaining, challenging, exasperating and infuriating readers far beyond what anyone would have expected back at the beginning. I suppose now I'll have to go back and re-read all 6,000+ pages in chronological order, filling in the gaps in my collection as I go. Maybe then I'll be able to form some kind of coherent opinion...
Well, I finished it, and all I can say is... wow... I'm going to be mulling this over for a long, long time before I even begin to know what I think. There are basically three interconnected elements to The Last Day: The unified theory part only takes up about the first 1/8 of the book, but easily outweighs everything else. It's an intricately crafted, thought provoking and thoroughly outrageous piece of work that is guaranteed to shock and offend just about anyone who reads it (which is exactly why you SHOULD read it). If you can hang on to the end of that ecumenical thrill-ride without tossing your cookies or blacking out, next comes the actual story of the last day of Cerebus' life which is a funny, sad and very appropriate send-off for the little gray bastard as he leaves the world he caused so much trouble in (You remember Cerebus don't you, the main character who's name is on the cover? No, not "crazy Dave Sim the evil misogynist", the other main character who's name is on the cover). The Introduction and The Last Annotations bookend the collection, and serve as a sobering and uncomfortable reminder that in its entirety Cerebus is more than "just a comic book"; it's nearly 30 years of one man's life bled out onto thousands of pages in a monumental undertaking that required an obsessive committment to individualism at all costs. Cerebus has always been as much about Dave Sim the real person attempting to organize his thoughts and work through his problems in his own way as it has been about the adventures of a fictional cartoon aardvark, and like the man himself it has changed a lot over the years, entertaining, challenging, exasperating and infuriating readers far beyond what anyone would have expected back at the beginning. I suppose now I'll have to go back and re-read all 6,000+ pages in chronological order, filling in the gaps in my collection as I go. Maybe then I'll be able to form some kind of coherent opinion...
August 12, 2013
The Last Day is, really, just about the best ending I can imagine to a book as rambling, inconsistent, and intermittently brilliant as Cerebus. Dave Sim is still crazy, and his religious beliefs are still headache-inducingly stupid. But at least he's back to utilizing his storytelling skills in their cause, instead of vomiting onto a page and counting on his readers' gullibility to consume it anyway (I admit, as you can see in my review of Latter Days: I fell for it).
The opening gambit is a masterpiece: Sim retells, in the form of a dream Cerebus is having, the origin of the Universe, then the planet, then human life. It's a narrative that attempts to employ the language of the Old Testament to relate a contemporary, scientifically-literate vision (although there are a lot of stretches), and it both reads beautifully and is accompanied by some of the most stunning images and creative compositions in the comic's 300 issue run. One does wonder how a writer so obviously capable of seeing the fault lines in Genesis itself would still put so much stock in the barbaric religion that sourced it; if modern science does, in fact, show so much of monotheism's creation myth to be illiterate pagan nonsense, why trust that religion's ideas about women, gays, and social order? It's okay; if the last 290-odd issues haven't clued you in yet, just don't frickin' look to Dave Sim for internal consistency.
And then Cerebus wakes up, and we see where he's ended up: decrepit and ancient, in a fortified sanctuary, estranged from what might have passed for his family, presumably the most powerful person in his world but nonetheless completely impotent in all practical matters. And his world is awesome. It's like reading any apocalyptic scenario on a fundamentalist Christian webforum, or pages out of that crazy Jehovah's Witnesses magazine, or a Jack Chick tract. Apparently liberal politics lead invariably to scenarios where bestiality is commonplace and people have recreational abortions and genetic science is used to literally invent all of the mythological evils mankind ever dreamed up. It reads like a fever dream, and from Sim's backmatter, lettercols, and essays I get the feeling that he's totally sincere about all this, but it doesn't really matter because, structurally, a fundamentalist fever dream turns out to be a great way to conclude Cerebus' disjointed life.
The art is beautiful, and the innovative storytelling is returned to the forefront of the comic's presentation, and Cerebus dies at the end, so basically Sim has come through on all of his promises.
Mad bastard that he is.
The opening gambit is a masterpiece: Sim retells, in the form of a dream Cerebus is having, the origin of the Universe, then the planet, then human life. It's a narrative that attempts to employ the language of the Old Testament to relate a contemporary, scientifically-literate vision (although there are a lot of stretches), and it both reads beautifully and is accompanied by some of the most stunning images and creative compositions in the comic's 300 issue run. One does wonder how a writer so obviously capable of seeing the fault lines in Genesis itself would still put so much stock in the barbaric religion that sourced it; if modern science does, in fact, show so much of monotheism's creation myth to be illiterate pagan nonsense, why trust that religion's ideas about women, gays, and social order? It's okay; if the last 290-odd issues haven't clued you in yet, just don't frickin' look to Dave Sim for internal consistency.
And then Cerebus wakes up, and we see where he's ended up: decrepit and ancient, in a fortified sanctuary, estranged from what might have passed for his family, presumably the most powerful person in his world but nonetheless completely impotent in all practical matters. And his world is awesome. It's like reading any apocalyptic scenario on a fundamentalist Christian webforum, or pages out of that crazy Jehovah's Witnesses magazine, or a Jack Chick tract. Apparently liberal politics lead invariably to scenarios where bestiality is commonplace and people have recreational abortions and genetic science is used to literally invent all of the mythological evils mankind ever dreamed up. It reads like a fever dream, and from Sim's backmatter, lettercols, and essays I get the feeling that he's totally sincere about all this, but it doesn't really matter because, structurally, a fundamentalist fever dream turns out to be a great way to conclude Cerebus' disjointed life.
The art is beautiful, and the innovative storytelling is returned to the forefront of the comic's presentation, and Cerebus dies at the end, so basically Sim has come through on all of his promises.
Mad bastard that he is.
March 19, 2012
In his introduction to this volume, Sim claims that he has "come up with The Origin of Everything (a.k.a. The Unified Theory which Einstein spent his intellectual life pursuing)," but he has received no attention for this accomplishment because feminists run our society, and if you are not a feminist "it is taken as a given that you are definitely wrong."
In his annotations at the end of the book, Sim declares (among other tirades) that the casualties of the SARS breakout in Toronto "were mostly, if not exclusively, among the faithless."
It doesn't take long, when reading any of Sim's prose, to determine that he is a deeply troubled and conflicted individual, veering on hateful. Which is a great pity because he is a highly talented and innovative cartoonist, and this book, the last of his long-running Cerebus series, has much to offer for any student of the sustained graphic narrative. If a reader has made it this far in the series, however, it seems likely that the reader has either learned to ignore or live with Sim's political and religious opinions (generally expressed in editorial form). The narrative itself is slow-paced, but rewarding for the attentive reader. Particular mention should be made of Sim and his co-artist Gerhard's extraordinary attention to visual detail, extending to the placement of shadows and subtle degrees of shading in many of the panels.
The first 40 pages of this volume (constituting Sim's Origin of Everything) are a revision of the Book of Genesis, and somewhat overwhelming in scope. The bulk of the narrative concentrates on the final day in the life of Cerebus himself, and long-time readers will find at least some emotional resonance in the final pages. I started reading the monthly issues of Cerebus in the mid-1980's and stayed with the series until its conclusion, even amid Sim's increasing antagonism toward his own readers, most of whom he dismisses as "atheists."
Suffice it to say, this is not the place to start for anyone curious about the series, and it's a safe bet that many of Sim's early fans abandoned the series once his opinionated rants began to show up in the back pages of the monthly comic. But despite his personal shortcomings, the 300 collected issues of the series represent an astounding achievement in graphic narrative, all written and drawn by Sim. Though this concluding volume is not quite as resonant as one might hope after such a lengthy, creative series, Sim's cartooning genius shines through these panels and may persuade readers to ignore his personal opinions. Maybe.
In his annotations at the end of the book, Sim declares (among other tirades) that the casualties of the SARS breakout in Toronto "were mostly, if not exclusively, among the faithless."
It doesn't take long, when reading any of Sim's prose, to determine that he is a deeply troubled and conflicted individual, veering on hateful. Which is a great pity because he is a highly talented and innovative cartoonist, and this book, the last of his long-running Cerebus series, has much to offer for any student of the sustained graphic narrative. If a reader has made it this far in the series, however, it seems likely that the reader has either learned to ignore or live with Sim's political and religious opinions (generally expressed in editorial form). The narrative itself is slow-paced, but rewarding for the attentive reader. Particular mention should be made of Sim and his co-artist Gerhard's extraordinary attention to visual detail, extending to the placement of shadows and subtle degrees of shading in many of the panels.
The first 40 pages of this volume (constituting Sim's Origin of Everything) are a revision of the Book of Genesis, and somewhat overwhelming in scope. The bulk of the narrative concentrates on the final day in the life of Cerebus himself, and long-time readers will find at least some emotional resonance in the final pages. I started reading the monthly issues of Cerebus in the mid-1980's and stayed with the series until its conclusion, even amid Sim's increasing antagonism toward his own readers, most of whom he dismisses as "atheists."
Suffice it to say, this is not the place to start for anyone curious about the series, and it's a safe bet that many of Sim's early fans abandoned the series once his opinionated rants began to show up in the back pages of the monthly comic. But despite his personal shortcomings, the 300 collected issues of the series represent an astounding achievement in graphic narrative, all written and drawn by Sim. Though this concluding volume is not quite as resonant as one might hope after such a lengthy, creative series, Sim's cartooning genius shines through these panels and may persuade readers to ignore his personal opinions. Maybe.
October 12, 2012
The Last Day is a hard book to read, not that it is in a foreign language or scrawled in tiny script. As the last of the big trade paperbacks collecting the 6,000 pages of the Cerebus run, it's a cap on a series that showed flashes of brilliance and improvisation that will fuel the next generation of cartoonists.
The Last Day begins with a 40 page sequence where Cerebus is dreaming the word of an Old Testament creator who is telling him the story of creation. It ends with Cerebus facing a bright light. In between, most of the 'action' in the graphic novel has Cerebus going to the door, trying to sit in a tall chair, trying to write out his dream before it slips his feeble mind, and getting back into bed. The once vital young aardvark is now a 300 year old coot who gets heartburn from eating the wrong kind of cheese.
The humor comes from Sim's forcing senility jokes and old vaudvillian routines into the skritchy word balloons. A quick word on the UN and genetic engineering are shoe-horned into the narrative, one as a dull punchline and the other as a narrative dead end. Since Cerebus is the only character seen for much of the story, the pages miss Sim's impressive cartooning skills.
Dave Sim created a one of a kind series with Cerebus. It's just a shame that the closer you get to the end of the epic, the less sense it makes and the farther it gets from it's charming beginnings.
The Last Day begins with a 40 page sequence where Cerebus is dreaming the word of an Old Testament creator who is telling him the story of creation. It ends with Cerebus facing a bright light. In between, most of the 'action' in the graphic novel has Cerebus going to the door, trying to sit in a tall chair, trying to write out his dream before it slips his feeble mind, and getting back into bed. The once vital young aardvark is now a 300 year old coot who gets heartburn from eating the wrong kind of cheese.
The humor comes from Sim's forcing senility jokes and old vaudvillian routines into the skritchy word balloons. A quick word on the UN and genetic engineering are shoe-horned into the narrative, one as a dull punchline and the other as a narrative dead end. Since Cerebus is the only character seen for much of the story, the pages miss Sim's impressive cartooning skills.
Dave Sim created a one of a kind series with Cerebus. It's just a shame that the closer you get to the end of the epic, the less sense it makes and the farther it gets from it's charming beginnings.
November 7, 2010
The final book of Cerebus as the title suggests focuses on his last day of life. The first section is a little prologue (heavily footnoted) of 40 pages that details a book Cerebus writes that is a dream sent to him from God. This section is only moderately interesting and the footnotes are weighty.
After the prologue the story picks up. It is many years past the last book. Cerebus is decrepit and "New Jaka" is old. The book mostly focuses on Cerebus' decrepitude which is a bit tedious. Cerebus has been a beloved companion and we hate to see him this way.
Cerebus' empire is crumbling, so he seeks his son to pass on his book, and his position. Who is this son and will he save the kingdom?
The matter at the back is mostly about Dave Sim's relationship with his mother, and a story about a 13 year old Australian who gets a sex change. It is mildly interesting but not as interesting, though shorter and less boring, as some of the previous back matter.
After the prologue the story picks up. It is many years past the last book. Cerebus is decrepit and "New Jaka" is old. The book mostly focuses on Cerebus' decrepitude which is a bit tedious. Cerebus has been a beloved companion and we hate to see him this way.
Cerebus' empire is crumbling, so he seeks his son to pass on his book, and his position. Who is this son and will he save the kingdom?
The matter at the back is mostly about Dave Sim's relationship with his mother, and a story about a 13 year old Australian who gets a sex change. It is mildly interesting but not as interesting, though shorter and less boring, as some of the previous back matter.
Read
October 22, 2021I can't believe I've finally finished Cerebus. This has been on my bucket list for years. Frankly, the ending was different from what I'd expected, so I guess I didn't manage to spoiler myself as thoroughly as I was worried I had. I was expecting it to hurt, and it did. Sim loves to stick a pin in everything and everyone, so there's no getting out of it without a few good jabs.
I did some poking around today in a bid at establishing roughly when I started getting into comics/graphic novels. My "entry drug" was the Marvel Gargoyles series, specifically Issues 5 and 6, so that would be around mid-1995. I enjoyed those single issues and decided that I'd like to try reading more comics, so I picked up Jeff Smith's Bone, and when I'd finished all the Bone there was at that point, I picked up Church & State I and got into Cerebus. So that's 1995 to 2021, 26 years, and I've only now finished. Coincidentally, that's how long Dave Sim took to write it.
Someone was asking me a while back where I would recommend stopping, if one was to read to a given point but didn't necessarily want to stick it out. I said Minds based on my own preferences and on having reading up through Volume 14. Now that I've read these last two volumes, I think I would still say Minds. It's nicely rounded but open, cosmic, and a little more upbeat/optimistic. Form & Void if you want a tragedy about a character we have known and whose journey we have shared for some time. The Last Day is a horror show of the paranoid and the grotesque, with all of Sim's fears of present and future, old age and death, nominally about Cerebus, but honestly, just *using* Cerebus like a sock puppet, while the story itself feels like a strung out fever dream brought on by too much Jack Chick, not something to be taken seriously. Cerebus as an old sack of coot is interesting, but I really do feel like he died back at the end of Form & Void. Them's my thoughts. Your mileage may vary.
There's a lot to be said about this volume, but I will say again that I was surprised by the ending. I wasn't trying to spoiler myself, but over and over when I had looked up Cerebus online I would see images of So yeah. Oddly enough, not the unmitigated tragic ending that I expected and that Dave Sim probably thinks it is, mostly because I find the punishment suitable to the character, but also because I get a kick out of the company.
Reading the biographical matter at the end of the book is further immersion in an essentially sad and unrelenting mindset. By now Sim feels like the last person who should be giving advice to anyone, let alone Cerebus. Just say no to friends, love, and family. "We all make our own bed" seems to be what he is getting at with his magnum opus, and in his notes he holds up his parents in a similar light (this is the volume you want for Dave's Mommy Issues) but yet again, "Blind spot ahoy!" as yet again Dave Sim becomes his own case in point.
Well, that was interesting, and depressing, but now I get to treat myself. Next up, Cerebus Cover Art Treasury and any and all the online commentaries I want without the fear of spoilers.
I did some poking around today in a bid at establishing roughly when I started getting into comics/graphic novels. My "entry drug" was the Marvel Gargoyles series, specifically Issues 5 and 6, so that would be around mid-1995. I enjoyed those single issues and decided that I'd like to try reading more comics, so I picked up Jeff Smith's Bone, and when I'd finished all the Bone there was at that point, I picked up Church & State I and got into Cerebus. So that's 1995 to 2021, 26 years, and I've only now finished. Coincidentally, that's how long Dave Sim took to write it.
Someone was asking me a while back where I would recommend stopping, if one was to read to a given point but didn't necessarily want to stick it out. I said Minds based on my own preferences and on having reading up through Volume 14. Now that I've read these last two volumes, I think I would still say Minds. It's nicely rounded but open, cosmic, and a little more upbeat/optimistic. Form & Void if you want a tragedy about a character we have known and whose journey we have shared for some time. The Last Day is a horror show of the paranoid and the grotesque, with all of Sim's fears of present and future, old age and death, nominally about Cerebus, but honestly, just *using* Cerebus like a sock puppet, while the story itself feels like a strung out fever dream brought on by too much Jack Chick, not something to be taken seriously. Cerebus as an old sack of coot is interesting, but I really do feel like he died back at the end of Form & Void. Them's my thoughts. Your mileage may vary.
There's a lot to be said about this volume, but I will say again that I was surprised by the ending. I wasn't trying to spoiler myself, but over and over when I had looked up Cerebus online I would see images of So yeah. Oddly enough, not the unmitigated tragic ending that I expected and that Dave Sim probably thinks it is, mostly because I find the punishment suitable to the character, but also because I get a kick out of the company.
Reading the biographical matter at the end of the book is further immersion in an essentially sad and unrelenting mindset. By now Sim feels like the last person who should be giving advice to anyone, let alone Cerebus. Just say no to friends, love, and family. "We all make our own bed" seems to be what he is getting at with his magnum opus, and in his notes he holds up his parents in a similar light (this is the volume you want for Dave's Mommy Issues) but yet again, "Blind spot ahoy!" as yet again Dave Sim becomes his own case in point.
Well, that was interesting, and depressing, but now I get to treat myself. Next up, Cerebus Cover Art Treasury and any and all the online commentaries I want without the fear of spoilers.
February 14, 2024
At this point I guess I'm meant to say something like, what a phenomenal achievement by Dave Sim, or alternatively, well I'm glad I stuck it out, or, what a crazy ride, or something similar.
It's very difficult to do that.
The Last Day collects the last 12 issues of Cerebus. The first two are God revealing the truth about creation to Cerebus, who writes it down. In practice this is more ex cathedra stuff from Dave Sim, presenting what I think is at this point his fourth attempt to reconcile scientific theories of the origins of the universe with religion and gender politics. Third if you don't count the Torah stuff. It includes Sim's stab at a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, which the scientific community has so far ignored, just as Sim predicted.
This part I mostly found sad. I don't think "is Dave Sim mad?" is an especially productive line of questioning, but I have to admit, a few years ago I had to nurse a close relative through a psychotic break and part of it was them convincing themselves they'd uncovered a new theory of gravity. They're now a lot better, but the Sim-does-science stuff feels uncannily similar and I can take no pleasure from even its absurdity.
You then get 7 issues of Cerebus confined to his room, in a compound under military lockdown, arguing through the door with an unseen soldier about whether Cerebus is going to be able to see his estranged son, who apparently wants to visit. This section hammers at two points: Cerebus is really decrepit and can't do anything physical without a lot of pain, and the world outside has gone completely to shit (again).
Some people like the "aged Cerebus" stuff - I think it's mostly crass, a lazy observation and projection of what Sim thinks being very old is like; and even if you think it's poignant it's outrageously padded. The negotiation with the soldier is an excuse for Sim to get spitefully homophobic, with more limp-wrist jokes than you'll see outside a Jim Davidson VHS special. And the world going to shit is a parade of conservative cliches - legalised bestiality and paedophilia in The Future Liberals Want!
The penultimate two issues find Cerebus talking to his son. They're an improvement - Cerebus is a bad dad, whose fond memories of father-son bonding turn out to be remembered very differently by his son. His son is also a nasty piece of work, of course. One last bit of bleak, fairly effective cynicism from Sim.
And the final issue - Cerebus dies, as promised, and we get an ambiguous spiritual ending. If you wanted to only read #300 and call it done, you wouldn't have an awful time and you'd get the point of the whole last book. I can honestly believe #300 would have looked and read like this even if Sim had never found God himself (or decided to go the route he did with Reads).
It's as good an ending as Cerebus the 300 issue novel could ever have had. But in context here, having been dragged through another year's worth of Sim's grudgefulness, paranoia, bigotry and repetition?It's a meagre reward. For this and Latter Days, Sim has seemed burnt out entirely on the story he's telling; only able to get the juices going when he's tackling his private spiritual projects under the Aardvark banner. There was to be no great renaissance, no reminding everyone what a marvellous cartoonist he could be, just a miserable whimper of an end. I read Cerebus and all I got was this lousy sense of regret and relief.
It's very difficult to do that.
The Last Day collects the last 12 issues of Cerebus. The first two are God revealing the truth about creation to Cerebus, who writes it down. In practice this is more ex cathedra stuff from Dave Sim, presenting what I think is at this point his fourth attempt to reconcile scientific theories of the origins of the universe with religion and gender politics. Third if you don't count the Torah stuff. It includes Sim's stab at a Grand Unified Theory of Everything, which the scientific community has so far ignored, just as Sim predicted.
This part I mostly found sad. I don't think "is Dave Sim mad?" is an especially productive line of questioning, but I have to admit, a few years ago I had to nurse a close relative through a psychotic break and part of it was them convincing themselves they'd uncovered a new theory of gravity. They're now a lot better, but the Sim-does-science stuff feels uncannily similar and I can take no pleasure from even its absurdity.
You then get 7 issues of Cerebus confined to his room, in a compound under military lockdown, arguing through the door with an unseen soldier about whether Cerebus is going to be able to see his estranged son, who apparently wants to visit. This section hammers at two points: Cerebus is really decrepit and can't do anything physical without a lot of pain, and the world outside has gone completely to shit (again).
Some people like the "aged Cerebus" stuff - I think it's mostly crass, a lazy observation and projection of what Sim thinks being very old is like; and even if you think it's poignant it's outrageously padded. The negotiation with the soldier is an excuse for Sim to get spitefully homophobic, with more limp-wrist jokes than you'll see outside a Jim Davidson VHS special. And the world going to shit is a parade of conservative cliches - legalised bestiality and paedophilia in The Future Liberals Want!
The penultimate two issues find Cerebus talking to his son. They're an improvement - Cerebus is a bad dad, whose fond memories of father-son bonding turn out to be remembered very differently by his son. His son is also a nasty piece of work, of course. One last bit of bleak, fairly effective cynicism from Sim.
And the final issue - Cerebus dies, as promised, and we get an ambiguous spiritual ending. If you wanted to only read #300 and call it done, you wouldn't have an awful time and you'd get the point of the whole last book. I can honestly believe #300 would have looked and read like this even if Sim had never found God himself (or decided to go the route he did with Reads).
It's as good an ending as Cerebus the 300 issue novel could ever have had. But in context here, having been dragged through another year's worth of Sim's grudgefulness, paranoia, bigotry and repetition?It's a meagre reward. For this and Latter Days, Sim has seemed burnt out entirely on the story he's telling; only able to get the juices going when he's tackling his private spiritual projects under the Aardvark banner. There was to be no great renaissance, no reminding everyone what a marvellous cartoonist he could be, just a miserable whimper of an end. I read Cerebus and all I got was this lousy sense of regret and relief.
December 10, 2024
And so I have finished CEREBUS. All 300 issues/17 volumes. Took me about 4 years.
What a strange and arduous journey it has been.
And yes, it went out more with a whimper than a bang. The character, the author...and the reader...all just crawling to the finish line lol.
I genuinely liked it longer than most people did. Other than a couple lulls...I really liked it up to and including MELMOTH, a good 3 or 4 volumes past when most people have kicked it to the curb.
Even past that, even at its worst, there's something fascinating about the whole thing. You are littlerally seeing a window into a very troubled mind. There is at least one or two really interesting and weird moments per volume, even the last two.
And this really has the ability to shock. I'm pretty jaded. I've read and watched a ton of wild stuff. Violent, surreal, strange...you name it.
There are some moments/pages/panels in this that hit a very primal "whoa". A real shock. A strike right to your subconscious. A type of shock I don't think I've ever encountered. You turn the page and the image there just hits your gut. It's hard to even describe.
Yes, the blatant sexism that creeps in is horrible, and has aged even worse than when it was new. And the really long pages of just txt about academic theories about Bible passages or the secret life of Hemingway or whatever....are really tough to slog through. Near impossible.
But I'd still recommend this as a whole to VERY adventurous readers with strong stomachs. It's a very challenging piece of work in every way. You'll find yourself swimming in some really weird waters.
All in what began as a kookie spoof of CONAN starring a goofy cartoon Aardvark. Damn.
What a strange and arduous journey it has been.
And yes, it went out more with a whimper than a bang. The character, the author...and the reader...all just crawling to the finish line lol.
I genuinely liked it longer than most people did. Other than a couple lulls...I really liked it up to and including MELMOTH, a good 3 or 4 volumes past when most people have kicked it to the curb.
Even past that, even at its worst, there's something fascinating about the whole thing. You are littlerally seeing a window into a very troubled mind. There is at least one or two really interesting and weird moments per volume, even the last two.
And this really has the ability to shock. I'm pretty jaded. I've read and watched a ton of wild stuff. Violent, surreal, strange...you name it.
There are some moments/pages/panels in this that hit a very primal "whoa". A real shock. A strike right to your subconscious. A type of shock I don't think I've ever encountered. You turn the page and the image there just hits your gut. It's hard to even describe.
Yes, the blatant sexism that creeps in is horrible, and has aged even worse than when it was new. And the really long pages of just txt about academic theories about Bible passages or the secret life of Hemingway or whatever....are really tough to slog through. Near impossible.
But I'd still recommend this as a whole to VERY adventurous readers with strong stomachs. It's a very challenging piece of work in every way. You'll find yourself swimming in some really weird waters.
All in what began as a kookie spoof of CONAN starring a goofy cartoon Aardvark. Damn.
June 22, 2020
The last book was ok and way better than Latter days. Still it is far from the high quality of High society and Church & State.
I feel like Dave Sim started out on this journey wanting to tell a story about Cerebus and doing homage and parody of the comic world. As the story progresses more and more of story is used to put Daves ideas into print and less and less is about Cerebus and that world.
I remember reading an interview in which Dave criticised the long runners on Marvel and DC which have switched writers many times and do remakes once in a while (when he said this (in the 90s) it wasn’t THAT often as nowadays) and that if you picked up #9, #90, #190, #290 you couldn’t really see that it was a story about the same character. He proclaimed that Cerebus wasn’t like that. It was one coherent story of 300 issues with one writer. Did he succeed? Well he did the 300 issues but it is far from coherent. I would feel more at home reading #9 and #290 of Spider-Man than with Cerebus.
Already around midway of the 300 issue run I felt like it was getting out of hand. It progressively got harder and harder to get through with Latter Days being the toughest part. The ending to this massive saga could have been a huge disappointment. Actually it should have been, but I just didn’t care anymore.
January 23, 2022
Hated the penultimate volume of Cerebus, so it actually surprised me that this one was actually quite good and has a really fitting ending all things considering. The experience of reading through all of this, through all its highs and lows (both very extreme highs and lows), then getting to a point where it takes this sharp turn, where everything that came before seems truncated and you're met with a withering, extremely old aged Cerebus trying to conjure up fragmented memories of his past adventures, is very intriguing. The whole series was basically going to inevitably end on this point, and it's honestly a pretty good exploration into the effects of old age and mortality. It was always going to end with the death of Cerebus, and there's an interesting emotional effect created, considering just how unlikeable of a character Cerebus is.
Really, even with its flaws, think that sort of effect is enough for me to recommend this one. Fitting end to the series, especially the feeling of "Oh god, when is this bloody aardvark going to die?"
Really, even with its flaws, think that sort of effect is enough for me to recommend this one. Fitting end to the series, especially the feeling of "Oh god, when is this bloody aardvark going to die?"
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 3, 2020
This volume would have scored higher if it hadn't been for the first 40 or so pages where Dave Sim puts forward his origin of the universe and life through his understanding of physics and theology. It is less than a fifth of the whole text but it does really slow down the reading and is not written very well.
The rest of the volume is a brilliant culmination of the whole 6,000 word, 300 page epic that is Cerebus the Aardvark.
The ending is satisfying and feels like a just reward after labouring through the most difficult sections of the narrative.
The rest of the volume is a brilliant culmination of the whole 6,000 word, 300 page epic that is Cerebus the Aardvark.
The ending is satisfying and feels like a just reward after labouring through the most difficult sections of the narrative.
December 21, 2024
Some great art in here and comparatively breezy to the last few volumes.
As an ending this was solid and more of a return to form of the better parts of the series.
This was a challenge to read every volume of Cerebus and I don’t regret it. Jaka’s Story was the last time I truly enjoyed a volume in its whole but even struggling through the back half I did manage to see some great visuals.
As an ending this was solid and more of a return to form of the better parts of the series.
This was a challenge to read every volume of Cerebus and I don’t regret it. Jaka’s Story was the last time I truly enjoyed a volume in its whole but even struggling through the back half I did manage to see some great visuals.
July 28, 2022
An improvement over the previous volume, though that isn't difficult.
Sim winds up the story with an extended whimper which at least looks good and captures the pathos of a long life, lived wastefully.
If that isn't a metaphor for his own career I don't know what is.
Sim winds up the story with an extended whimper which at least looks good and captures the pathos of a long life, lived wastefully.
If that isn't a metaphor for his own career I don't know what is.
November 30, 2024
Gorgeous artwork and lettering. It ended in the best way it could have at this point in the story. Probably the best Cerebus book since Minds(book 10)
May 19, 2025
his is it! The last volume of Cerebus, collecting issues 289 - 300 of the stellar independent series. Cerebus was truly the first breakout independent title, the first comic to go 300 issues with the same writer and artist (I think the only one to come close would be the 190 issues of G.I. Joe written by Larry Hama- and that’s not including the artist). As you read from the volume to volume you can truly take in the growth of the artist. When Cerebus was good, it was the best. When it went downhill, it was still good (art wise) just not as much as it used to be. And while I lambasted the previous volume, I believe this one comes back on track.
It opens with a forty page spread of a new revelation by Cerebus on the creation of the universe. Based on previous biblical text combined with scientific theory, it is a reworking of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. This may sound similar to what I was complaining about in the previous volume, but here he does the execution right. Script with illustration, rather than long blocks of text. The only flaw is the microscopic annotations at the bottom of each page. Which should have included them in the back of the volume along with all the others. Cerebus writes down this revelation and hides it, ala I, Claudius.
It is many many years later, and the sanctuary the three wise guys created is not a fortress. A collective religious shrine, political powerhouse, with the various city states about all tied in a mutual defense pact. The world is on high alert. A new collective of feminist/pedophile/terrorist groups is threatening to destabilize civilization. It sounded farfetched then when it was written in 2004, but now it seems like a lot of these prediction have bloomed. He was called a religious nut and paranoid, but in the end Dave Sim seems to be right about what is coming.
It’s with a heavy heart that I watch our once vibrant antihero descend into decrepitude and senility. Cerebus is a wrinkled incontinent mess, his body on the verge of collapse. Mentally he is gone, his mind a garbage heap of old ideas and incongruent memories. Close to two hundred years old, his one obsession is to see his son again. Shep-Shep as he is called hasn’t been to see Cerebus in close to fifteen years, but the latter cannot remember why they parted.
He is Cerebus’s son with New Joanne, whom we meet at the end of Latter Days. She is the reporter who is talking with Cerebus about his ideas on the Torah and his past with the prophet Rick. She is in fact a dead ringer for Jaka, which is why Cerebus falls for her.
An interesting note about Shep-Shep is that his only resemblance to his father that is he has three toes. A subtle detail that I missed and had to read about it in the annotations. The reunion, as you can guess, is not a happy one. The Judge way back in issue 123 decreed that Cerebus would die, “alone, unmourned, and unloved” and he did not lie.
Shep-Shep is a creepy little shit, full of odd powers, and weird ideas. He has completely sided with his mother and they share an incestuous relationship. Apparently he is destined to be the inspiration for the Sphinx (or his bastard creations are). His purpose in visiting is to taunt his father about his beliefs and his collapsing religious foundation. The Muslims are coming. One of the interesting aspects here is that Shep-Shep’s mother, New Joanne, has inserted herself into Cerebus’s history, rewriting the events to give herself a prominent role. This is reminiscent of feminist rewriting of history to suit their political agendas. It reminds me of Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey, the woman who created the first domestic abuse shelter, but has since nearly been erased from history because she rejected the Marxist ideology that most feminist organizations at the time projected.
After he leaves, Cerebus is in a rage. I will say this for our antihero, he dies with sword in hand, leaping from his bed. But the flesh is weak and he collapses dying alone on the floor. What comes next is a manner of some debate. The light opens, the spirit of Cerebus sees all of the figures from the past, friend and foe, with one exception. Rick is absent. The prophet and messianic figure for Cerebus's religion isn't present, which gives our antihero pause. He then runs, runs from the light. His spirit is yanked and that is that.
This was a quarter of a century long journey. A feat many jealous naysayers claimed would be impossible. The talent of the author cannot be denied, whether or not you agree with what he did with it. Cerebus lived hard and died hard, this was a true and fitting ending for him. An ending that should used a model for others. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this series and I cannot recommend strongly enough for everyone else to read it as well. (Rex Hurst)
It opens with a forty page spread of a new revelation by Cerebus on the creation of the universe. Based on previous biblical text combined with scientific theory, it is a reworking of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. This may sound similar to what I was complaining about in the previous volume, but here he does the execution right. Script with illustration, rather than long blocks of text. The only flaw is the microscopic annotations at the bottom of each page. Which should have included them in the back of the volume along with all the others. Cerebus writes down this revelation and hides it, ala I, Claudius.
It is many many years later, and the sanctuary the three wise guys created is not a fortress. A collective religious shrine, political powerhouse, with the various city states about all tied in a mutual defense pact. The world is on high alert. A new collective of feminist/pedophile/terrorist groups is threatening to destabilize civilization. It sounded farfetched then when it was written in 2004, but now it seems like a lot of these prediction have bloomed. He was called a religious nut and paranoid, but in the end Dave Sim seems to be right about what is coming.
It’s with a heavy heart that I watch our once vibrant antihero descend into decrepitude and senility. Cerebus is a wrinkled incontinent mess, his body on the verge of collapse. Mentally he is gone, his mind a garbage heap of old ideas and incongruent memories. Close to two hundred years old, his one obsession is to see his son again. Shep-Shep as he is called hasn’t been to see Cerebus in close to fifteen years, but the latter cannot remember why they parted.
He is Cerebus’s son with New Joanne, whom we meet at the end of Latter Days. She is the reporter who is talking with Cerebus about his ideas on the Torah and his past with the prophet Rick. She is in fact a dead ringer for Jaka, which is why Cerebus falls for her.
An interesting note about Shep-Shep is that his only resemblance to his father that is he has three toes. A subtle detail that I missed and had to read about it in the annotations. The reunion, as you can guess, is not a happy one. The Judge way back in issue 123 decreed that Cerebus would die, “alone, unmourned, and unloved” and he did not lie.
Shep-Shep is a creepy little shit, full of odd powers, and weird ideas. He has completely sided with his mother and they share an incestuous relationship. Apparently he is destined to be the inspiration for the Sphinx (or his bastard creations are). His purpose in visiting is to taunt his father about his beliefs and his collapsing religious foundation. The Muslims are coming. One of the interesting aspects here is that Shep-Shep’s mother, New Joanne, has inserted herself into Cerebus’s history, rewriting the events to give herself a prominent role. This is reminiscent of feminist rewriting of history to suit their political agendas. It reminds me of Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey, the woman who created the first domestic abuse shelter, but has since nearly been erased from history because she rejected the Marxist ideology that most feminist organizations at the time projected.
After he leaves, Cerebus is in a rage. I will say this for our antihero, he dies with sword in hand, leaping from his bed. But the flesh is weak and he collapses dying alone on the floor. What comes next is a manner of some debate. The light opens, the spirit of Cerebus sees all of the figures from the past, friend and foe, with one exception. Rick is absent. The prophet and messianic figure for Cerebus's religion isn't present, which gives our antihero pause. He then runs, runs from the light. His spirit is yanked and that is that.
This was a quarter of a century long journey. A feat many jealous naysayers claimed would be impossible. The talent of the author cannot be denied, whether or not you agree with what he did with it. Cerebus lived hard and died hard, this was a true and fitting ending for him. An ending that should used a model for others. I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading this series and I cannot recommend strongly enough for everyone else to read it as well. (Rex Hurst)
September 28, 2016
Finally the ending! Cerebus goes to hell! lol!
August 26, 2021
The first 40 pages of this is nonsense, Sim's version of Generis presented as a book Cerebus dreams, and that Sim apparently seriously thinks is the Unified Field Theory "which Einstein spent his intellectual life pursuing." Could a cartoonist who has never studied science come up with an explanation of the order of the universe that eluded Einstein? Well, why not? After all, he allowed himself two whole months to research the subject. Unsurprisingly, the Theory of Everything dovetails exactly with Sim's crackpot theories about women. The rest of the volume recounts in excruciating slow detail Cerebus's last days, combining a lot of obvious old age jokes (incontinence, memory lapses, stiffness) with what is in other ways a chilling depiction of senescence and decay. The contrast between the early stories in the series--when events happened pell-mell--and this final one--when nothing happens for most of the book--is one of many ways in which Sim's development (or at any rate change) as a storyteller is evident when one reads the entire series in close succession. The ending is a mixed success, I would say. On the one hand, the death of Cerebus may be one of the greatest such depictions in comics, as he makes his slow, multi-page fall to the floor, manages to squeeze out one god fart on the way down, and then slowly expires as his life passes before his eyes. On the other hand, Cerebus's confrontation with his son She-Shep ends up not really going anywhere, as the narrative closes with its outcome unresolved (though one can imagine how Sim imagines She-Shep's experiments in genetic mutation will work out), and the post-death sequence, where we are supposed to believe that Rick's absence from the light probably means it isn't Heaven, just clangs. That Sim clearly changed gears from the idea that the religion invented in the story was a crackpot faith derived from the ramblings of a lunatic to the idea that somehow Rick and Cerebus really figured out the meaning of life really doesn't work. Nevertheless, there's lots of great art. I find myself wondering whether Sim deliberately made the Sphinx look more than a little bit like himself, or if that's another example of the gap between what he's actually doing vs what he thinks he's doing. Anyway, this is not an entirely disappointing conclusion to the series, but Cerebus ends as a shadow of its former greatest self.
July 30, 2011
an absolutely fitting end to the series.
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