Bar Talk
Cerebus: Guys
Issues 201 - 219
December 1995 - June
1997
408 pages
SCENE: Two men sit at a tall table. A tumbler of scotch sits before one, the other
has a snifter of brandy.
KS: So, you just finished Guys, what’s it like, what happened? I’ve never read it.
DM: Well, in terms of action, it doesn’t really have much of
a plot. Cerebus, the main character who
is an aardvark…
KS: Thanks asshole, I know that much.
DM: Sorry. Anyway,
Cerebus sits at a bar and drinks too much too often and then stops (mostly)
drinking too much. He talks and plays
games with the other patrons. He spends
a lot of time with his “best” friend Bear, until Bear leaves the bar (and
drives everyone else away too) to get back together with his wife, or
girlfriend (I can’t remember), and then Cerebus owns and operates the bar. He hooks up and then breaks up with a woman
named Joanne and at the end of the book Rick, Jaka’s ex-husband, enters the
bar, shows Cerebus how to pour a pint of beer, and reveals his identity to the
earth pig.
KS: That’s it?
DM: That’s it.
KS: There are no battles, or wars, or ramblings about ascensions
or made-up religions? Are any philosophical
metaphorical scenarios included about publishing or sex or art?
DM: Nope. None of that stuff is present. The main events are just the antics and
conversations that occur in the bar.
KS: Sounds dull. Is
it worth reading?
DM: Well, yeah.
KS: Why?
DM: First off, there are some pretty funny scenes, jokes,
and stories that occur in these issues.
While getting lectured on the innocence of youthful femininity by a
Margaret Thatcher parody, a young girl strips outside the bar, visible to the
patrons through the window, but unseen by the Thatcher Cirinist. The juxtaposition between the images and text
is hilarious. A sight gag about a
mongoose in a box, and the lettering, especially for drunks, contain a great
deal of laughs.
KS: Yeah, ok, that sounds pretty good, I guess. But don’t
all those drunk people get annoying after awhile?
DM: Some. It’s not
too bad. Sim keeps it pretty limited,
and besides, it’s always better reading about drunken antics than having to
suffer through the antics of drunks while sober.
KS: So, what sets this book apart from the others?
DM: Hmm, that’s a good question. A wide cast of characters appear,
disappear, and reappear. We, as readers,
witness the characters do a rare thing in comic books. They change.
KS: How so?
DM: Well Cerebus starts off as a dedicated drunk, but
finally controls his drinking and sobers up for the second half of the
book. Bear goes from being fed up with
women to getting back together with his woman named Ziggy. Even poor naïve Marty shifts from a
wallflower to a chatty excess drinker to a husband and café operator. Eventually, everyone leaves and none return
to see Cerebus at the bar. There is no
superhero stasis here. When characters
change in Cerebus, they change. When
characters go away, they don’t return phoenix like from the ashes.
KS: Ahh geez, really, is that the best you can do?
DM: Sorry. But still,
real change occurs for characters in Cerebus.
That dynamism allows for a greater range of storytelling.
KS: That’s nice. Is
there anything else about this book that makes it stand out? Whether from the Big Two or the other Cerebus
books?
DM: One trait that stood out was the relatability of the
setting. It is a scene that you can find
in almost any town—a bunch of guys sitting around in a bar talking.
KS: I read somewhere that Sim shows a whole range of stages
and ages of men. Young me, old men,
middle-aged men, famous men, nobodies, married, divorced, dating, single,
squares and perverts, and probably a whole bunch of other types too that I
don’t know since I didn’t read the book.
DM: Yeah, all those elements are present. This approach is far more interesting than a
straight forward temporal structure. I
didn’t pick up on or even notice the different stages of men while reading the
book, but on reflection those factors were noticed. It’s a nice touch.
KS: So in the earlier responses to Cerebus you kept tasking about the theme of dichotomy. Does that theme continue in this book?
DM: Not that I noticed.
If anything that dichotomy gives way to a three way point of view shown
by the voices in Cerebus’s head (I think of them as the Id, Ego, and Super
Ego…I don’t know if this was Sim’s intention) advocate, or at least work
together to try and figure out a course of action. I think this shift started occurring in Minds
where Cerebus, Astoria,
and Cirin talked with Suentius Po. This
shift continued on into Guys.
KS: How did this shift change the overall Cerebus story?
DM: More depth.
Instead of a back and forth emphasis, a third possibility (which was
always present in the story, but becomes explicit with the introduction of the
third voice) arises. The easy, cut-and-clear
choice becomes more messy, muddled, and complicated. I like how this additional depth to the story
comes about without a lot of heavy-handed preaching, monologues, or academic
junk cluttering the page. Those mythic
elements that relate to universal themes and events of mankind are swapped out
for mundane matters.
KS: So, what makes it
worth reading? What did you get out of
your time with this book?
DM: In terms of
story, value exists in how this book portrays friendship between various
individuals and various levels of depth.
It brings to mind Plato’s Lysis,
I think, that explores questions about friendship. Parts of Guys
serve as a how-to manual, a guidebook, to guys’ friendships. It portrays jokes, talk about girlfriends,
women, the beginnings of childrearing (“Will you shut up with the stupid
riddles and get me a clean diaper like I asked you!” on page 83), how to tell a
friend you’re angry with them or that they’ve hurt you, or how to influence a
friend to help them change for the better (or, alas, sometimes for the
worse). When the friend leaves, like
when Bear goes off with Ziggy without returning, not even to visit, that
loneliness, loss, and sadness Cerebus experiences comes through in the
story. That compassion and care for a
friend reads sincere to me. Cerebus’s
patience and hope that his friend will return helps maintain some reader
sympathy with Cerebus. Even Cerebus’s
time with Joanne seems more a way for Cerebus to pass the time until Bear
either returns or it’s confirmed to Cerebus that Bear isn’t returning.
KS: Do you think Cerebus and Bear are gay?
DM: No. They care for
each other, and there might even be a type of love between the two, but it
never enters into anything physical. Some
affections exists between the two, even though they can be pretty mean to one
another.
KS: And you said Bear
never returns?
DM: Not in Guys. He barely even gives Cerebus a goodbye; he’s
too caught up in Ziggy’s return. It’s
tragic to witness the ending of this friendship, even this friendship that seems
unbalanced in a lot of ways.
KS: Like the friendship between Hawthorne and Melville? Melville was really interested in being
friends with Hawthorne, but Hawthorne, for whatever reasons, didn’t keep
in touch with the same intensity and Melville finally just gave up. He, Melville, eventually even stopped writing
and just faded away until death.
DM: Yeah, Cerebus is sort of like Melville in that respect. He’s waiting to see if his friend will
return. Waiting to see if he and Bear
have the type of friendship that stretches through stages of life (from
childhood, to school, to college to grad school, to marriage to childrearing
and so on) or if they just had a friendship of opportunity…a friendship that
lasts for a certain time, or place. And
once any of those factors change, the friendship ends.
KS: It seems like Cerebus and Bear have the short-term
friendship. I’m interested to hear how
Cerebus and Rick get along. Tell me
about it when you finish the next volume.
DM: Ok.
