The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 10: Mothers & Daughters 4: Minds

Oh, Neverminds

Cerebus: Minds

Issues 187-200

October 1994-November 1995

286 pages

Although Pluto has been kicked out of the solar system’s exclusive Planet Club, it still serves as a great locale for sorting out one’s thoughts.  Minds continues exploring dichotomies (actions and consequences) and maintains the mythic grandeur present in the previous Cerebus volumes.  Throughout this reading, surprise arose by the discovery that Minds fits the footsteps of a hero’s journey, and fulfills a role of myths according to Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces where myths can “touch and inspire deep creative centers dwells in the smallest nursery fairy tale –as the flavor of the ocean is contained in a droplet or the whole mystery of life within the egg of a flea” (4).

 

Summary: In this final installment of Mothers & Daughters, many of the lingering secrets about Cerebus receive explanation. It concludes one aspect of the aardvark’s life and sets him up for a new direction. 

Readers meet Cerebus and Cirin floating in space on a small chunk of rock.  They argue until the chunk of rock splits in two and sends each aardvark floating in opposite directions.

Readers follow Cerebus who engages his creator, Dave, in conversation. Dave answers Cerebus’s questions about his medallions and destiny to rule world (the earth-pig missed his chance).  The origins of Cirin and the Motherhood is explained (a sibling betrayal, a co-opting of identity and unhealthy heaps of denial resulted in the intolerant viciousness of the current Motherhood).  Jaka is revealed to Cerebus to be living and Dave shows that every possibility of Cerebus and Jaka getting together ends in disaster.  Such knowledge depresses Cerebus and, after some eye surgery, he ends up stranded on Pluto until Dave returns and transports Cerebus to a tavern at the Wall of Tsi. 

Response: Reading Minds feels like unleashing the two streams Heracles rerouted to sluice through Augeas’ stables.  This volume cleansed the muck of questions and massive supporting story elements that gathered around Cerebus in his previous186 issues. This refreshing narrative simultaneously gave the larger Cerebus arc a sense of enlarged possibility and imparted a sense of excitement and a strong dose of the unknown about the future narrative.

The structure of Minds occupies itself with images (compared to the Reads’s, the previous volume, preference to words).  Metacommentary again works its way, to the advantage of the story, into the narrative.  There are stunning celestial renderings of space, Jupiter, Saturn, and the surface of Pluto sprawl across pages and convey the mythic element of Cerebus better than any paragraph.  Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle provides a clarification that enlarges the purpose and setting for the celestial environment of Minds. 

After a prolonged study of mythology, Carl Jung, and many others the scholar of comparative myth and religion Joseph Campbell, derived a pattern for the trials and situations through which a protagonist progressed in mythology.  Campbell framed it as a hero on a quest.  Applying Campbell’s vague definition of “hero” (“the man [to be understood as human being] of self-achieved submission” on page 16) to Cerebus and looking more closely at a trial of a hero,  Cerebus’s environment in Minds acquires greater significance.

Of a trial endured by a hero, Campbell writes “And so it happens

that if anyone—in whatever society—undertakes for himself the perilous journey into the darkness by descending, either intentionally or unintentionally, into the crooked lanes of his own spiritual labyrinth, he soon finds himself in a landscape of symbolic figures (any one of which may swallow him) which is no less marvelous than the wild Siberian world of the pudak [differing obstacles] and sacred mountains. …this is the process of dissolving, transcending, or transmuting the infantile images of our personal past…forms we may see reflect[] not only the whole picture of our present case, but also the clue to what we must do to be saved” (on page 101).

Space is Cerebus’s spiritual labyrinth, a symbolic landscape (and what better than the cold vacuum of space to represent Cerebus’s current ethical and moral state).  His journey through space and time on Pluto stands for his reflection and metamorphosis. 

In space and on Pluto Cerebus confronts his distasteful self and recognizes a change is needed in his actions. He resolves to make an effort at change, and he is whisked from the planet named after the Roman ruler of the dead “to  the little tavern at the Wall of Tsi—just below Castle Wallis” (Minds 282).  The voice of Dave gives clues to what Cerebus must do to be saved.

Though hesitant to suggest the idea, Cerebus’s eye patch could read as a parallel to Odin trading his eye for wisdom; perhaps this momentary loss of the eye and self-assessment give Cerebus, and readers, the sense that things are going to change around here, in the pages of Cerebus.

The choice of situating Cerebus’s spiritual trial on Pluto (named after the Roman god of the underworld) is a masterful stroke that reinvigorates a conventional trope.  The journeys to the underworld by Gilgamesh, Orpheus, Odysseus, and Aeneas, and even Percy Jackson are repeated when Cerebus gets a clue about what to do with his life on the surface of a dead planet.  Cold, dark,

and silent and far removed from the warmth of the sun, Pluto mirrors the sensations and perceptions experienced by the self examination Cerebus undertakes to discover that many many MANY abhorrent aspects of his personality.  Cerebus himself is like a ghost in that he is immune to any physical discomfort and is alone aside from his thoughts and a single psychic phone call to Aardvark-Vanaheim Publishing. 

The setting also clarifies the plethora of panels and pages bereft of words.  Space is vast, silent, and replete with solitude, in space, no one can hear you soliloquize.  Outer space is a perfect setting for self reflection, or intense intimate one-on-one conversation for those who don’t want to be interrupted or distracted from this thinking process.

While Reads promoted readers to think and examine their reads to arrive at their own conclusions, Minds gives another example of a locale and method on how to set about thinking and arriving at conclusions.

Minds ends with Cerebus jumping to his selected destination and with an amused Dave viewing the comic book page where his aardvark protagonist falls to his fate. Dave’s classification as Cerebus as an “ultra-maroon” promises the presence of future hijinks before concluding with a full page heralding the next story arc of Guys.  With the promise of free alcohol, and no last call, readers can mirror Cerebus in following the final imperative Dave gives Cerebus, “So jump already” to arrive at the next tale.  Cerebus falls into the next step of his hero’s journey.

 

The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 9: Mothers & Daughters 3: Reads

Form & Content: What Are You Thinking? What Are You Feeling?

Cerebus: Reads

Issues 175-186

October 1993-September 1994

247 pages

 

“Everything is a tale…What we believe, what we know, what we remember, even what we dream. Everything is a story, a narrative, a sequence of events with characters communicating an emotional content. We only accept as true what can be narrated. Don’t tell me you’re not tempted by the idea. (Carlos Ruiz Zafon, 145, The Angel’s Game).

Summary: Reads contains two stories. The Cerebus story (told in the standard comic-book style with pages divided into panels filled with pictures and words) concerns itself with the  three potential rulers: Cirin, Cerebus, and Astoria. Each one hears the prophecy and history spoken by the warlord-turned-philosopher  Suenteus Po who emphasizes contentment with one’s own desires and the worries and strains that accompany power. With these four empirical contenders, Suenteus Po and Astoria step away for less grand, but more self-rewarding choices. From hard-learned experience, Po discovers life is more fulfilling when he plays chess. Astoria (whose motivations are always complex and secretive) renounces her empirical ambitions due to Po’s speech. Astoria trades politics for gardening. Cerebus and Cirin remain unconvinced and continue their fight for the throne. Reads’s conclusion keeps the victor veiled.

The secondary story, told in double columns of text opposite a single square image. This tale tells of the publishing perils, triumphs, sell outs, compromises and philosophizing of author Viktor Davis. Fiction’s power is explored along with the demands and decisions of creators and their creations. Reads (and Cerebus as a whole) remains notorious for the discussions of misogyny the 186^th issue (the final comic in this collection) of Cerebus generates. 

Form: Dichotomies weave throughout the 186-issue narrative of Cerebus, and Reads continues to work with this duality. A partial list includes:

Words  & Pictures

Black & White

Aardvark & Human

Have not & Have

Poor & Rich

Weak & Strong

Male & Female

Order & Chaos

Thought & Feeling

Seriousness & Humor

Heavenly & Earthly

This binary aspect of Cerebus imparts a mythic flavor present in Gilgamesh and the creation myths of Hesiod and Ovid, and ancient Babylon and universal scale to the book.

Sim’s choice to publish a comic bereft of panels and pictures and filled mostly with words, creates a refreshing variation from the norm and enlarges how  the medium can function. In Women, Sim utilized single anorexic columns of text. In Reads, Sim filled pages with chubby double columns of text. This form of full-page text fits the philosophical dialogue on the power and impact of writing and stories and autobiography and narrative in Viktor Davis’s career.  While this structure can grate (if one wanted to read straight prose, ten thousand novels await selection), it expands the range of comics. This opportunity allows new regions for comics to work as a crucible of thought.

This shift in form cues the reader of the change in the story. The entertainment aspect of this comic is diminishing, or rather the passive entertainment, as Sim challenges to reader to think, to engage and consider new ideas. The shift shows there’s no deception of tricking readers into falling for ideas, but rather to consider the ideas and then leap knowingly into acceptance or run away shrieking.

One story intertwines and grows beyond another story as it mimics the organic and generative nature of stories. Once one tale is told, serpentine sequels follow the first, old stories are shed, and new tales emerge entwined from the original narrative. 

Story: And what of these stories? “All stories are true,” according to the maxim Viktor Davis swiped from Alan Moore the way Prometheus stole fire from the gods.  Fire burdens as well as bolsters. 

Stories cradle both literal and metaphorical meaning within their narrative threads. Sometimes though, writers don’t know the events and meanings that will emerge within a story and these details work themselves out with the writing of the story. At times, leaving the writer’s thought process on the page helps a reader understand the writer’s logic. Issue 186 of Cerebus attracts criticism for misogyny. Crafting tales leads to unanticipated connections and conclusions. Like fire, words leap to surprising places.

The section of Reads that contains the story of Viktor Davis captures the rhythm of an idea getting worked out upon the page. The story arrives at a conclusion regarding thought and feeling, yet it does so by keeping the paragraphs, like step markers, of how such a conclusion was arrived at. Whether true or false, a task that can capture that immediacy of thought should be hailed has a well-written tale. Preserving the rationale for such a conclusion invites readers to examine the logic, ask questions, and arrive at their own answers. The tale isn’t telling readers what to think, rather the tale shows readers how a fictional character in a fictional setting arrived at a conclusion.

It is a precarious business associating the ideas of characters with the ideas of authors especially in fiction. Some disconnect does exist between the creator and the characters and ideas in a fictional setting. Yet still, even if Viktor Davis truly possesses (or possessed) the misogyny often heaped upon the author is only part of the Cerebus tales. The story contains other avenues of thought (and feeling) that stretch through the previous 186 issues.

So what is a reader to do with the paradox of an innovative quality story that harbors ideas fundamentally opposed to the reader’s beliefs? To reject a full 300 issues because the creator holds different beliefs also eliminates a lot of good story telling and beneficial self-reflection. As humans, creators have some dark actions: Martin Heidegger wrote engaging philosophy and also was a member of the Nazi SS; John Milton crafted Paradise Lost and worked as a secretary to the harsh rule of Oliver Cromwell; Virginia Woolf advocated empowerment for women and abused and denigrated her servants; The Birth of a Nation contained innovative camera work, coloring, plotting, soundtrack  and racist characterizations. The author and the work, though intertwined, are separate and distinct. Reading and enjoying a story (despite unsavory aspects that may arise or repellent traits the creator may possess) are not always an endorsement of the author’s thinking.

So what? How should a reader respond to this tale and the ides contained within? Well, if  all stories are true, then, for what it’s worth, here is a truth found in Reads.

Each author, maybe even each work, teaches each reader how to

read the work.. The binary aspect of Reads serves as a clue for reading the text. The shift from pages of images and words to pages of only words informs readers that there is a shift in medium that requires a shift in approach to the story. Pages full of text discussing ideas is the standard form of philosophy texts, so this shift to words suggests that Reads should be read, at least in part, as philosophy. Philosophy in the sense that ideas are considered and how and why one responds to these ideas are also considered. Reads encourages readers to think.

The theme of dichotomy present in Cerebus gives the story a basic (in the sense of primal, fundamental) strength, but dichotomies can be very limiting in the sense that everything gets grouped into one or two categories. This either/or approach, while simple, also can grow complex. This complexity works against simple limited understanding of terms. The dichotomies contain quite a range and complex composition.

If Light is akin to yin and Void is akin to yang, then Reads exhibits complexity by having Suenteus Po (yin with regards to sex) opt for a passive (yang) approach to life and empire. Astoria (yang with regards to sex, yin with past regards to politics) also adopts a passive (yang) political position in life. Cirin (yang) chooses the yin approach to life and rule while Cerebus (a hermaphrodite, hence a yin-yang) also chooses the yin approach. The story doesn’t present a simple light/dark situation. Instead the story narrates a power struggle scenario and in a way that forces careful readers to work through and think about the situation to arrive at their own conclusions.

But what about those things said by Viktor Davis? Again, while a dichotomy is presented (Light and Void) it is a complex shifting dichotomy of Reason and Emotion. 

On page 245, Viktor Davis states, “It wouldn’t be that big a stretch to categorize Reads as Hate-Literature against women.” This statement sounds damning and misogynistic, there is still a stretch occurring, implying that Reads, at least according to Viktor Davis, is not hate literature. Also, in the previous paragraphs, Davis talks of “Female and Emotion and Void,” not “woman.” The capital letters indicate that large impersonal complex categories and aspects of thought are being discussed.  The understanding that some readers reach isn’t the understanding Viktor Davis reached, nor is it the main point of Reads.

Reads ends with talk against fear, “Not doing a large ambitious work

because you’re convinced that Danger Lurks Around Every Corner…is a waste of the Inner Radiance that found you.” This focus on creating a large work encourages artists (writers, painters, creators in general) to accept and adhere to their own voice. Reads emphasizes on developing a voice more than how others will react to that voice, or even what that voice may say. Viktor Davis speaks his voice in issue 186 of Cerebus, and Reads encourages readers to do likewise.

Viktor Davis goes on to say:

“Remember that you’re just a custodian for It. You can be a good custodian, a so-so custodian or a bad custodian. You can make It a pile of smoldering twigs or you can make It a bonfire. The Male Light or the Female Void. I’m telling you that you have to choose. I’m telling you that if you think you can have both, you are mistaken, that you have already made your choice in that case.”

This final choice Viktor Davis presents readers is preceded by 245 pages of lead-up to this conclusion (and it could be argued 8 previous volumes of Cerebus to bring readers to this point). These former pages amount to Viktor Davis the thinker showing his work. Taking such a lengthy approach to this posed choice is an invitation to readers to go through and check the steps of Davis’s reasoning. Just because Viktor Davis states this either or choice exists, doesn’t mean that is the only truth within this story. One of the first things good readers learn is that not all narrators are reliable.

The complexity of dichotomies inherent in the larger Cerebus story allow for other understandings than the one presented by Viktor Davis. The text encourages readers to reach these understandings.

The second to last paragraph of Reads is:

“Consensus and Exception merged once more. Rather, Consensus and some Exceptions merged. Other Exceptions, feeling the first icy brush of the Merged Void against them, edged slightly apart from it. As they felt the weak gravitational tug, they moved even further from it, compressing their own awareness within themselves. Several hard, gem-like flames flared into new existence.”

What in the hell is going on here? This paragraph supports the previous claim, that Reads, even while putting forth its own ideas about a single choice of The Male Light or the Female Void, simultaneously encourages readers to consider the story with their own minds and arrive at their own conclusions so that their own light of understanding can flare into existence.

While it may be true that all stories are true, that truth carries power only in the way that it shapes and forms actions as readers of these stories dance throughout the world. And even if some readers, or even authors, believe a story to be true, that doesn’t mean all readers have to dance to the same tune.  Not every text needs complete unconditional acceptance. Valuable elements shouldn’t be lost because of odious ideas and simultaneously vile ideas shouldn’t seep into the mind from rhetorical flourishes.

The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 8: Mothers & Daughters 2: Women

               Dante I Didn't Tell You...

Cerebus: Women

Issues 163-174

October 1992-September 1993

247 pages

Mothers & Daughters: Flight is a book working its way through a thought to some conclusion. Mothers & Daughters: Women possesses the same feeling. While in his introduction Dave Sim states “Structurally, each of the four books in the series say the same thing, but they say it in very different ways,” a different emphasis (even though maybe part of the same larger argument exerted in Mothers & Daughters) on creator’s rights emerged with this volume.

A sequence of four images of parody in Women formed the axis around which the Book 8 coalesced. Parody lurked consistently in Cerebus from the beginning, but in Women it becomes a force exerting influence for the existence of the world.

In these four scenes beginning on page 224, a particularly tense situation involving Cerebus, Astoria, Cirin, and the ascension (a chance for mortals to talk to the god/goddess or even to achieve a sort of apotheosis).

The Roach, under the guise of Swoon, lord of the dreams and imagination and a caricature of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman begins shaking and shifting. On the following page chains, claws, ammunition belts, spikes, and giant shoulder pads emerge amidst very unpoetic onomatopoeia. The following two pages are each entirely filled character names, all followed with the trademark TM and beginning with “Total Sellthough RoachTM.”

 The commentary on Image, Valiant, Vertigo, Marvel, DC, and other highly promoted and ExtremeTM characters and comics companies has the subtlety and humor of watching someone else get hit in the crotch. The TM symbol tags these characters. The unleashing of these large muscled power-chord characters hold the threat of collapsing the world on which Vanaheim and Iest rest.  Some creations from the imagination could destroy a whole world unless the Swoon Roach is able to contain them in his robes.

What the hell is going on here?

Something with creator rights, and maybe even creator responsibility.

 

When working on his Divine Comedy (three poems describing a Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), the 14^th century Florentine poet Dante Alighieri worried on the role of the artist with regards to a reader’s understanding.  Dante in particular was worried about someone reading his poem and misunderstanding the ideas and could wander astray. In Canto V of the Inferno Dante-pilgrim learns how a book of Arthurian romances pushed Paolo and Francesca into Hell:

character’s travels to salvation through hell, purgatory, and heaven in the works

Trembling kissed my lips.

                                 That author and his book played the part

                                 of Gallehault. We read no more that day.

                                                                 -Mary Jo Bang’s translation

So, is the reader responsible for not having honed the necessary reading skills to understand the author’s intent?

Or, is the poet responsible for not making the ideas clear enough for the readers to understand?

While Cerebus: Book 8 doesn’t address these same questions, it does work with a question closely related to the ones puzzled over by Dante. Should creators maintain the rights and control over their creations? The answer provided for a creator’s responsibility to a reader’s understanding influences the answer to the rights of control.

Letting control of a creation escape the artist’s mastery carries a dark destructive stigma on these pages of Women. Management of a creative property by an organization that focuses on profit and mass appeal damns one as surely as reading Arthurian romances lead the Italian lovers to their hellish situation. This loss of control carries with it the concerns that originality and creativity and potential of the character will erode the original idea into a shallow parody of its original potential. Greater ethical concerns arise as well if creators hold a responsibility for the effect of their creations. Setting the work loose to wander like Frankenstein’s monster carries with it deadly consequences.

How much control should a creator retain over her or his character creations?

Are corporations better stewards of creative properties and better able to expand and explore the full range and potential of the character, or is the single creator better able to realize their story lines with their greater resources and financial advantages than a single creator ever could?

Is a creator still responsible for what becomes of a character after others hold the legal rights?

What is the relation between a creation and the creator’s need for money?

Who knows?

Swoon Roach knows.

With the meditation of the Swoon Roach and the slowly stated “must   contain   them all.    c   a   l   m,”  Cerebus: Women, posits that creations fare better with creators than corporations.  Swoon Roach subsumes the creations bursting forth into his chest, literally keeping them close to his heart, and maintains peace.  

While not directly answering the question with which Dante struggled, Cerebus: Women hints that, for better and worse, the actions and ideas occurring in the pages of Cerebus emerged from Dave Sim, not editors, distributors, or secret cabals of all-powerful fanboys.

The creator cares for and stays with his creation. And, love or hate what the creator does, there is some nobility and admiration, calmness, truth and love that occurs in such a choice.

The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 7: Mothers & Daughters 1: Flight

Absurd Ascents

Cerebus: Flight

Issues 151-162

October 1991-September 1992

 246 pages 

Flight begins by continuing the ending of Melmoth. This seventh book in the aardvark’s chronicle tells of the failed revolt in the town of Iest, follows Cerebus into different dimensions where some workings of the universe are explained to him, and a parody of the Punisher and vigilante sexual frustration. The volume shifts from action to the philosophical to funny for a captivating balance.

Within the issue, a three page sequence captured the themes and tone of the entire book. This sequence begins on page 62. Seven men armed with swords, shields, and murderous looks, with and yelling “EYAAAAAA.” These attackers charge across the cobble-stoned streets toward four sword-wielding Cirinists (think of them as extremely conservative republican radical militant feminists). The Cirinists exude an aura of calm. They hold their swords at relaxed angels and slightly inclined their heads in their space at the bottom of the page. Disdain is conveyed with no depicted facial features with such skill that viewers begin to question their self worth.

Page 63 hides the carnage behind block letter words. A whole page filled with only words. Nothing like this ever appeared in a comic previously read and few pages since have utilized a similar technique.

Page 64 brings the twist cinched this three page full-page sequence. Three of the Cirinists gaze directly at the reader (in the context of the story they’re looking at Cerebus standing on a balcony) and all the attackers lie dead and bleeding on the street, chopped from life by the Cirinists.

Of everything from this first book in the Mothers & Daughters storyline, these three pages hold the themes of the story. The themes multiply from the conflict suggested in the title and goes on to include the opposition of female and male, calm set against excitement, individuality set against anonymity (in that readers can see the faces of the attackers but the faces of the Cirinists are concealed  both by not facing the reader and by wearing hoods), attack versus defense, motion/change set against immobility and stasis/stability. Given that the Cirinists easily cut down the male attackers, without any of the four suffering death or even injury, at this point in the story the Cirinists/mothers and the list of ideas they represent from the above paragraph have a pretty secure grip on power and control in the society.

Cerebus, as he does in so much of the book, escapes this dichotomy and acts as a wild card. He was the one that incited the attack on the Cirinists, and he’s the one the Cirinists look up to in the lower panel of page 64. But the look up contains no admiration, but based on the angle of Cirinist eyebrows, contains rather annoyance and disdain that such a trickster would dare exist and upset the order of Cirinist rule. Cerebus, in the first compact panel of page 65 appears too surprised by the easily defeated rebellion. Juxtaposing this small panel after the three large expansive pages of the Cirinists in action, aids in the emphasis of Cerebus limited power (in comparison with the Cirinists) and also conveys the unbalanced ratio set with another dichotomy of order (Cirinists) and chaos (Cerebus). The above ideas ooze throughout the storyline, an impressive bit of work for four panels at the beginning of a 49 issue story arc.

When rereading this volume another welcome aspect is the greater clarification of the larger idea and universal workings taking place in the story and that have been limited and alluded to in previous pages:

            glowing coins

            the hooded aardvark

            the scrawny wrinkly aardvark with bad hair

            Astoria

            Suenteus Po

            various tribes, groups, idols, etc.

While the explanation is greatly welcome, it creates the concern of how to

1. Speak/write about the profound without sounding trite

2. What images to use in tandem with this weighty and lengthy exposition

3, How to make this massive (but welcome) info dump from being too boring

Sim and Gerhard masterfully apply the absurd (and not for the first time) and the surreal to match and accompany the written explanations to provide apt and attention holding visuals, but also visuals that connect to the conveyed ideas that provide a bit of grandeur that enhances the written word.  A giant celestial chess game hints at some rules to the universe and some control over one’s destiny without any need for melodramatic belittling explanations. During Cerebus’s ascent through the N^th Spheres thin columns of images offset the text which is displayed like a long dense Robert Creely poem. Lots of white space stretches across the page and this emptiness works a double duty. Not only does it mirror the otherworldly journey of Cerebus, it also doesn’t overwhelm the reader with a page packed tight with complex text and images. Here distinct equal spaces reside on the page and Cerebus: Flight comes as close as possible to squaring the circle in comic books by composing an equal area for the image and the word.

The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 6: Melmoth

Roving Wilde

Cerebus: Melmoth

Issues 139-150

October 1990 - September 1991

248 pages

The main surprise in Cerebus: Book 6 is that Cerebus does surprisingly little.

Such inaction, although violently ended at the end of the book, however fits with another odd twist of the book, it conveys the final days of Oscar Wilde.

Melmoth, the pseudonym Wilde adopted, Sebastian Melmoth, after his release from prison, works a strange magic. It mixes fact and fiction (perhaps continuing the dichotomies in Jaka’s Story) resulting in the literary urge to  read not more Cerebus books, but works of Oscar Wilde.

This sending of readers to anther’s works is a powerful effect. An impetus of writing (or reading) reviews hopes to influence potential readers to works the reader/writer found valuable with a hope that new readers will discover the reads as captivating as the one who suggested the text. Reminding a potential audience of the greatness of a work that otherwise might remain hidden makes reviewers slightly less obnoxious. Revitalizing interest and highlighting a work’s relation to the present gains reviewers, if not dinner invitations, at least a grudging appreciation.  The critical writings of Randall Jarrell taught appreciation of Robert Frost, the writings of Anne Carson made enlivened Sappho, Helen Vendler continues trying to show me the marvels of  Wallace Stevens, and Keith Silva always alerts readers to the intricacies lurking in the panels of comics that enhance the reading experience of any (well, most) comic book.

So, this extended introduction thanks Dave Sim and Gerhard for telling the days leading up to the death of Oscar Wilde, and reawakening a desire to re-read some reads of Oscar Wilde.

(The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Windermere’s Fan, and Wilde’s “Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young” serve as fine beginning marks for delving into Oscar Wilde’s writings). A work that leads readers to other works, provide, if not the best, at least an honorable homage for the original work.

I continually wracked my brains trying to find connection between the Cerebus storyline and the death of Oscar Wilde. And while part of me (a very large portion) suspects no link need exist   (and that Melmoth stands superior for the Wilde storyline plopped in the midst  of a sword and sorcery comic book about an aardvark), something seems to be transpiring with this juxtaposition of fiction and fact. The slow decay of Wilde hearkens to Cerebus-the-immobile in this collection of a dozen issues. Having learned his death culminates in the earth-pig being alone, unmourned, and unloved, and losing Jaka, it’s not really surprising to see the titular character paralyzed by nihilism (or so it seems). Yet, the same element that keeps Oscar’s final days from an utter bleakness worthy of Dickens is the same factor that finally jars Cerebus from inaction—concern and love for another (Oscar’s friends for him, and Cerebus’s love for Jaka). No matter what, if anything, may be in store after death, love at least casts some comfort (albeit cold, but better cold comfort than none at all) and arousal to action and protection for others and conveys some faith in life rather than in death.

Sim’s and Gerhard’s  artwork continues in its quality execution.  More aspects of the tale (the poor services of the wait staff at the restaurant where Cerebus perches statuesque, the inflated assessment  of gold, the waitress resembling Jaka, the bloody mess Cerebus makes of the Cirinsts with his sword after he overhears that one of them tore out a chunk of Jaka’s hair, etc.) remain potential threads for a more thorough and extended study of the work…but not for this review. 

Dear readers, forget about further analytic speculations regarding Melmoth, and instead borrow, beg or steal a copy of Oscar Wilde’s work and begin reading to bring forth the laughs and revisit or discover the remains of his witty and tragic comedic toils.

The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 5: Jaka's Story

The Daughter of Palnu

Cerebus: Jaka’s Story

 Issues 114-136

August1988-July 1990

486 pages

 While rereading Jaka’s Story, I reconnected with a friend with whom an almost twenty-year abyss of silence stretched. No sinister betrayals, thwarted bank robberies, or demon control extended the silence to so many years, but rather each of us moved in different directions at 18 to live our own lives.

So, while very pleased to gulf the abyss and be in touch, the plaguing question arose of how do you convey a life of almost two decades to someone?

Jaka’s Story treats this same challenge and Sim and Gerhard apply graphics and paragraphs alongside bent facts and time spans to deliver a semblance of the life, and at the same time character and identity, of Jaka. Conventional biographies corset lives in time; Sim and Gerhard cut the laces with words and pictures and loosen temporal constraint.

Jaka’s Story[1] picks up after the final desolation at the end of Church and State and averts its focus from the minutia of political action and intrigue. With a setting limited to a single-room tavern, the street in front of the tavern, a small apartment shared by Jaka, her husband Rick, and house-guest Cerebus, an apartment of Oscar [Wilde], a prison cellblock, and the quasi-fictional memories of a young Jaka’s rooms and playground in Lord Julius’s palace, the geography varies little.

While narrating the biography of Jaka, it simultaneously suggests that versions of an individual’s past remains in the present moment and shapes how individuals perceive themselves and how others perceive the individuals with as much force as actions in the present. Art shapes these perceptions into some sensible form that allows for some greater understanding and/or investigation. 

As Wilde assembled in his Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young, “One should always be a little improbable.”

 

How to Tell a Life: While the main concern of Jaka’s Story is Jaka, like any good biography, its revelations extend like tendrils of gravity to influence readers, illuminating shadowy realms of their own lives along with the life of Jaka. For this shedding of light, the medium shines the message…or at least part of the message…of this work.

Sim applies a split narrative, where a section of Jaka’s present life (living on the side of a mountain with her husband) and her childhood (raised in Lord Julius’s palace) unfold simultaneously (or at least as close as printed works can achieve) to the reader. Past and present occur alongside each other.

Memory works in a similar way, it has the focus of just one event tale, or scenario to be carried out, yet the conjuration or consideration of an idea spawns an associative complex web of remembrances of things past. When transporting the reader to Jaka’s past, the sequences of sequential art become steeped to a single image parallel to a thin column of dense text that opens swaths of white space to sprawl leisurely upon the page. These moments of white space function as a focus for the actions in the pillar of text, but also figuratively represent memory. The one image symbolically becomes a scrying surface for an entire experience and works as powerfully as lime tea and a madeleine to recall previous events. All else fades into the white space haze—unimportant.

That white space lets the reader focus on the narrated event just as the speaker focuses on the single tale being relayed, while at the same time suggesting more occurs than any page can hold…to attempt to portray all the details in a life, even in a moment, is impossible, and would weaken the moment. The use of white space encompasses the infinite, letting the reader’s mind construct the details without restriction. Portraying Jaka’s past with this method ensures that less specific information results in more information.

Accompanying the swaths of white space, Sim works reflections and repetition to a similar end. Two scenes best capture this technique. Pages 193-195 depict the tavern/grocer owner Pud mopping the

floor.  The tavern owner (hiding a secret lust for Jaka) rehearses an imagined dialogue with Jaka in his head. This exact same script reoccurs throughout the volume and as if Pud gains comfort with the lines, builds up his confidence. The three pages show the reflection of the tavern owner clarifying in the puddle, symbolic of his strengthening resolve to initiate his often imagined conversation. He starts the conversation with Jaka during her next shift at the tavern. This clarity of resolution for both the image and the character’s resolve continues the dualistic theme (past and present, black-and-white/pen-and-ink, words and pictures, work and home, husband and wife, spouse and friend, art and force) with the image and the imagination.

Jaka is drawn in a similar reflection on pages 62-65, 321-323, 413 and the final age 486 of Cerebus Book 5.

On pages 62, 64, and 65 Jaka dresses for dancing. She tries on different outfits and applies makeup, each time checking the mirror for the result, to make sure her reflection portrays the desired image. Biographies work in  similar way, the actual person can’t be captured in a written record, but some reflection, a chimera of the person, a hint at what the individual arises from reading the pages of another’s life. Oscar writes to the critic Mr. Hendricks on page 287:

 “…As to whether my story is “true,” it really depends on what you mean by that term. Any well-written article of prose is “true” because it touches one’s emotions and illuminates one’s thinking. To whatever extent the facts related within the story are not at variance with that intention, they remain unmodified.”

The chosen image finally selected by Jaka and Oscar as they dress and prepare for the public (on pages 321-313) contains the truth they want to convey about themselves and hope the public will perceive, but as any struggling biographer knows, truth of a person extends far beyond any image that can be reflected or depicted.

Which brings consideration to the image of Jaka looking out a window on page 413 and 486. This reflection depicts the inner reflection on Jaka, after her imprisonment, after being told she is hated by her husband, after the end of her dancing, after a return to the very palace she escaped at 16 years old. The reflection, in window glass instead of a mirror, is ephemeral and allows the outside world to show through and obscure her face. This reflection doesn’t allow choice for a self to portray, but rather has the world fade distinctions of self, the world exerting its truth on the individual. Somewhere between the lines of these reflections, the truth that Mr. Hendericks seeks about Jaka exists, but such a truth, without a “touch on one’s emotions and illumination of one’s thinking” is nothing more than an ink stain festering on the page.

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[1] The events in Jaka’s Story seem restrained when compared to the far-reaching sprawl of Church & State. The summary for each section of Jaka’s Story consists of:

Prologue: A morning routine of Jaka and her husband Rick is shown, where they rise from bed, dress, and Rick, after a rough reminder, goes to look for work. A split to the past narrates the childhood of Jaka and her doll Missy while growing up in Palnu.

Book One: Pogrom’s Progress: narrates the arrival of Cerebus in the house of Jaka and Rick. The daily routine of Jaka buying groceries from her landlord (Pud Withers), then going to his tavern to sit and wait to dance for customers (none arrive), before she returns home. Rick hunts for work with a lackadaisical zeal and attempts to initiate marital congress with Jaka with a more dedicated zeal.  Cerebus sits around and daydreams of running off with Jaka.

Book 2: The Poet: has Oscar a poet/writer arrive on the side of the mountain to work on his story and to hang around with Rick. Sim’s Oscar is Oscar Wilde and is accompanied with the wit of our world’s Oscar Wilde. Jaka continues her routine until finally the first customer stops in the tavern. Rick tries to look for work. His time spent with Oscar annoys Jaka. Cerebus sits around a lot throwing a ball in a bucket. Finally he leaves to buy a jar of paint. Jaka’s past continues its integration between episodes of the present story. Readers learn the events of Jaka’s past were crafted by Oscar. The Cirinists show up  and  kill the tavern owner and customer, arrest Jaka and Rick, and sentence Oscar to two years of hard labor because he doesn’t possess…an artistic license.

Book 3: Mystery Achievement: Jaka’s captivity is narrated. She meets her old nurse, who is executed, and undergoes some re-education to sign a confession that dancing is wrong. She reunites with Rick and reveals that she induced a miscarriage, much to Rick’s distress. Rick states he never wants to see Jaka again and is sent by the Cirinists to live with his mother. Jaka is transported back to Lord Julius’s palace in Palnu. Cerebus returns to discover the burned remains of the tavern. He drops and breaks the jar of paint. 

Epilogue: Jaka sits silent in a room of Lord Julius’s palace while servants speculate on her condition during the preparation of her tea. Readers learn Jaka’s escape from the palace to dance 13 years ago, wasn’t as secret as she thought, and the royal search for Jaka was a farce, since her location was known and monitored by the royal family.