March
11 The Cerebus Era Ends

Cerebus #300

Wednesday, Cerebus #300 hit shelves. And with it the completion of one of the most ambitious comics projects ever. Cerebus began in 1977, when Canadian artist Dave Sim came up with a homage to the early 1970s Conan comics of Barry Windsor-Smith that starred an aardvark barbarian named Cerebus. Sim wrote, drew and ended up publishing the book himself after getting orders from the major distributors that reportedly totaled 2,000 copies. Before long, it became apparent the series could continue indefinitely, and Sim decided to make the series his life's work, announcing it would be a 300-issue series that would chronicle the life of this strange character and end with Cerebus' death. At the time, few seemed to think he could do it. Sim immediately took the book into unusual territory, adding people like the Marx Bros., Oscar Wilde and Ernest Hemingway to the mix. He ventured into politics with his first novel-length graphic novel, High Society, which ran 26 issues to a total of more than 500 pages. That was followed by a 60-issue storyline called Church & State, in which Cerebus became the pope and further allowed Sim and his new inking collaborator Gerhard to add religion to their series. Cerebus' popularity seems to have hit its apex during the storyline Jaka's Story, a heartfelt story of the life of Cerebus' true love that had more than a little controversy in its shocking ending. The true turning point for the book came with issue #186, at the end of a storyline that had combined a text story/essay with the comic book tale and expounded on the nature of relationships, art and the souls of women. The controversial essay alienated many of the book's fans and even some of Sim's personal friends. Cerebus began to be ignored in many ways by the larger comics community, which had seemed to write Sim off as some kind of kook. But he kept at it, turning out an issue month after month and setting the standard for comicbook self-publishing. Sim and Gerhard retain complete control of their work and pioneered the program that keeps the entire series in print through a series of trade paperback editions so thick they are commonly referred to as "phone books." They've allowed little to no licensing of the series, have no interest in Hollywood, and have espoused more convincingly than anyone else the case for writers and artists to retain creative control of their stories and characters.

The personal nature of the series for Sim deepened in the latter years, with much of the comic turned over to lengthy essays, letters and Sim's discussions of his personal spiritual beliefs.

Cerebus Book One

Now that the final issue has hit the stands and Cerebus is, indeed, dead, the series deserves a closer look. Sim and Gerhard have demolished the previous record for consecutive issues by a single creative team, which was the first 102 issues of Fantastic Four created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. What exactly Sim plans to do next, if anything, is uncertain. The final issue contains a prayer Sim uses daily and an ad for an upcoming fanzine called Following Cerebus that promises to analyze and discuss the series and its impact and features new covers by Sim and Gerhard as well as new content from them in each issue. Though Cerebus prompted plenty of controversy and Sim was something of a lightening rod in the industry, the scope of his achievement deserves recognition, despite the varied, heated opinions of its creative merit.