This is the thread where I try and summarise Cerebus

I like the comics-history portions of Glamourpuss, but the fashion-model parts are alternately creepy and boring.

even the comics history parts are a chore to read, as the greatest, most creative and artful hand-letterer of all time has been replaced by a clod-handed typist who fills square boxes with left-justified text.

I find the comics-history parts very interesting in their crackpot sort of way. Those sections of the first three issues can be read at http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/uploads/glamourpuss/glamourpusshistoricalcommentary.pdf , by the way...

"Judenhass," on the other hand, really is a trainwreck--I laid into it at some length at http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/995/reality-check/ .

thank you for linking to that glamourpuss material, which i'd not read before - the sequence where he analyses the photo of caniff and raymond is insane! i mean, im glad that ppl like raymond and williamson and prentice are still being talked abt, in any context, but because sim so plainly doesn't have the brush skills to match the ppl he's 'reproducing', if you have any kind of familiarity at all with the originals the glamourpuss stuff just comes across as a bad cover version, and it doesn't seem to playing to sim's strengths at all - humour, satire, caricature, etc.

Yeah, I got about two pages into that before deciding it was a big waste of time. Like Ward says, he's an extremely talented artist, but his strengths are characterisation and action, not pretty pictures.

Also the subject matter is just obtusely niche. I'm a comics fan, and I'm not particularly interested.

christ what a complete waste of time and energy

wow terrible

Starting in the late '90s, Dave's writing increasingly assumes that the reader shares his particular political/religious views, which he claims are unique. For obvious reasons, this causes much of his later humor to fall flat.

Because the Internet is a worldwide medium, in the last few years he has found a handful of people to confirm even his most outrageous ideas.

I've learned that the work is best appreciated at a distance.

Pretty much. There are still scattered moments of astounding perceptiveness and beauty even in his full-on batshit phase though, which is what is so frustrating.

Sure, agreed. As a whole, it's still my favorite work in the medium.

the other day I told my daughter she was going to learn an important lesson, that you could get what you want and still not be very happy. unfortunately, this turned out to be true.

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2010/02/cerebus-58.jpg

Cerebus valentines

wonderful!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/18/comics-grow-up-graphic-novels-harvey-pekar

Is this the most mainstream press attention Cerebus has ever got?

pretty sure it's had a two-sentence mention 9 pars down on a blog before

Tom Spurgeon pretty nails it on the Comics Reporter:

These articles are dumb when comics bloggers who barely have two adjectives to rub together write them and they're dumb when writers for the Guardian with a full armory of verbiage at their disposal write them. Despite the fact that a number of examples in his own article repeatedly counter the notion that there's a narrowing of tone or theme in non-mainstream US comic books -- it made me smile to see Cerebus sneak in there -- there's all sorts of convenient examples out there of the range of alt-comics that get passed over that I think it's very fair for him to know about. While I wouldn't expect the writer to be familiar with publishing houses like PictureBox and AdHouse, it's worth noting that his primary examples come from cartoonists associated with Drawn and Quarterly and the big hit for D+Q before its big hit with Dan Clowes' Wilson was Lynda Barry's exuberant and entirely cheerful What It Is. Fantagraphics' big release of the moment is from Jim Woodring, whose work doesn't have much in common at all with Adrian Tomine. I personally think Seth's George Sprott exists in a land far, far away from what, say, Jordan Crane is doing in Uptight, but if you don't, that doesn't mean that in making your point you should get to drop the comics that provided a cleaner break with the "mopey" stereotype.

The article was actually in the print copy of The Guardian.

I know for sure it's had a two-line mention in a major metro "Comics are for grown-ups?!" filler with up-page art pull before ;)

I think that's a decent enough bit of blog filler, and the Todd Solondz line is pretty good.

The argument is pretty old hat though. Apparently SL is a huge comic nerd (according to a friend who knows him), I'm sure he must have heard of Joann Sfar or Tezuka or whatever. They're quite easy to buy in the UK, too.

Posting here to get rid of the phantom bookmark.

But i do have something to say about the article too: I kinda hate in when someone talks about "comics" in general, when he really means "American comics, maybe Canadian and British ones too". Even if the scope of "serious" American comics may see narrow, that isn't the case with comics worldwide, which should be obvious by just reading the non-Anglo stuff that's been translated to English.

which is kinda difficult in America tbh, depending on what yr talking about. sure we can get Tintin and Asterix or Milo Minara books, but try finding a copy of Arzach for example. tons of Manga never make it to English, etc.

The Guardian is not in America tbh

hey Tuomas brought up the America angle, not me

he was talking about a writer in England who discussed American comics

Maybe he's British, but the article falls into the long tradition of texts where the word "comics" is equated with "comics made in the English-speaking countries". If he'd bother to go beyond that (and lot of this stuff is available in English translations, though obviously a lot of it isn't), he'd notice that there's plenty of non-genre and art comics that have little to do with mopey navel-gazing. Just to take the example of French comics, the recent translations of works by various l'Association artists and the stuff released in English by Cinebooks should provide him with a wide array of "serious" comics that are not in the Harvey Pekar tradition.

Mega interview with Gerhard: part 1, part 2, part 3, and a follow-up from the interviewer.

Fantastic interview, thanks for the links. When they were talking (part 2, page 1) about the 2-page spread of the foundry for the golden sphere, I remembered that I had the chance to buy the original art for that for $150 and passed. I could just stab my brain out with a screwdriver when I think about it.

Like.

That Gerhart interview was fantastic!

Dave's right hand has stopped working properly. He says he's just "ill" but he can't hold a pen or use it effectively.

that sounds like a stroke or slow-developing brain hemmorage to me

Aldo, where did he post that?

Having just gone and read the relevant posts on his site i totally take that back, it sounds like arthritis or nerve damage.

there are a couple of posts on the moment of cerebus site

I have to admit the idea of this terrible asshole croaking is deeply upsetting to me. does not sound like it's come to that.

I assume it's just God striking him down

Ugh. He lost me at "I don't believe in medical science."

Eccch. I've had severe nerve damage in my left hand for a few years. He's being an idiot.

(Not that I should be surprised that Dave is taking an oddball, self-destructive angle on something)

Me too, damage in my right elbow affecting my drawing hand. It's mostly better now... except when I try to do things like draw.

Sorry, had been afk. Yeah, there are some posts on AMoC and he faxed a letter which he typed left-handed to the backers of the current Portfolio Kickstarter.

The anti-science bit is where he loses all the sympathy and, you know, sometimes you just need to not do the fucking thing that makes you Ill. I get that he feels a responsibility to the backers, and I'm part of that problem, but I honestly think skipping sigs on CAN3 would alleviate a huge problem for him.

I always forget how irritating Sim's editorial style is, and that he appears to be unaware what quotation marks are for.

Quotation marks a Cirinist plot.

that sounds like a stroke or slow-developing brain hemmorage to me

he had TIA-like symptoms affecting his arm eight years or so ago that lasted several months, which he "successfully" prayed away - his speech was slow and ponderous for several years afterwards.

Sim in hospital.

oh gosh

Bearing in mind his relationship with medicine, I think it must be fairly serious to make him go. He's still refusing pain relief there, apparently.

how old is he?

he didn't check in for the hand thing either, rather for abdominal pain...