Is Cerebus worth reading entirely?

Very yes.

yeah I think the ending is worth reading through the worst parts of it

Yes.

>>87328068
Cerebus is to /co/ as Infinite Jest is to /lit/. Everyone here pretends they've read it.

>>87328187
this

>>87328313
I quit reading around issue 50

I'm still trying to find a torrent of it.

(w/ apologies to Dave Sim, I'm disabled and cannot afford it.)

>>87329383
Readcomiconline has every issue

>>87329383
>but I'm definitely entitled to it
Maybe you're disabled because karma decided to show externally how shitty you are internally

>>87329480
Yeah, probably.

I just struggle to get to and from the library. It's a bit far and I have mobility issues.

I think you would be surprised at how little money you get for being severely disabled, though. It's not like I choose between going out with the boyz and buying books. Internet is literally the only frivolity I can afford.

>>87329436
Thanks.

Yes. It may be tempting to skip parts (like the initial parody parts or the later "force feeding ideology" issues) but the whole thing builds on itself to create some of the best comic scenes in the medium.

Also, check the desu, because most of the links from previous story times still work.

>>87329383
You can get the first two books for free directly from Dave Sim's site:
http://www.cerebusdownloads.com/freecerebus/getBOOKs.html

>>87329645
Well you made me feel bad for ribbing you, if that's any consolation

>>87329901
Don't feel bad, man.

I understand where you're coming from.

>>87329645
Hey man if you can work a computer there's some jobs youd be fine at
Youd be a good diversity hire

Cerebus starts out straight GOOD as a fantasy satire right out of the era of dead serious silly fantasy which is priceless. Then it gets kind of preachy in a way, but not in any way that is controversial in hindsight. In fact, almost boring and typical for indie comics at the time and would be kinda shit without the hilarious Groucho Marx guy. THEN it takes this very personal turn where Sim expresses some quite misogynistic views on women and relationships that were almost too much even in the 80s, were straight up blackball material in the 90s and 00s and now fits right in to some /r9k/ /mgtow/ shit. It actually comes back around in the comic and it's interesting how revealing it is about Sim's life experiences but it dug him into a hole there was little escape from. In fact, I'm pretty confident that Bone stepped right into the vacuum that Cerebus's dark turn created.

>>87328068
If you read all the amazing parts (probably 70%), you'll have read enough that you'll feel compelled to finish it, even though Latter Days will blow your mind with what a joyless slog it is.

>>87328068
No, the early chapters are crap.

There are themes I totally disagree with, and it's somewhat inconsistent, but totally. It deserves the praise it receives

>>87329383

Sims doesn't care actually.

>>87328313
I've read both, and each was one of the most intense artistic experiences of my life. But both are the kind of thing you can't really recommend to someone- stuff that huge and challenging you've gotta come to on your own when you're ready.

File: punchingfrogs.gif (483KB, 785x757px) Image search: [Google]

483KB, 785x757px

>>87329645

>gets free government money
>still complaining

I would gladly trade being a wageslave for a nice social security meriting disability any day.

>>87330031
I really don't understand ow anyone can think it's seriously misogynistic until he marries Jaka. Cerebus' misogyny consistently fucks him over

>>87328068

It's good, but pretty fucked up how he ends up dying and going to Hell in the end.

>>87330154
Latter Days is good until you hit his retranslation of Genesis. You can skip the text of it and read a summary if you want. Just do not skip what comes after.

>>87328068

Yes. It's an amazing work, though not entirely for the reasons the author intended.

>>87328313

I've read both. I'm the saddest human being alive.

>>87329807

It's massively frustrating, because I couldn't write it off. Even in the latter issues, there would still be these flashes. Some scene, some layout, some joke where you get a real sense of the talent that you could see developing in the first half of the series.

>>87330031

Not really, Bone was huge at the same time as Cerebus. IIRC they toured cons together with two other alt creators under the title "Beans, Bones, Hepcats and an Aardvark".

That's the other thing about Dave Sim. He would regularly devote back pages of his comics to showing work from other independent creators. So it wasn't like he was always this isolated figure. He was hugely well connected, and he knew and had done favors for a LOT of people. You've got this guy who is amazingly generous and well liked, suddenly picking a nasty, high profile fight with more or less the entire comics industry.

>>87330430
It's not mysogyny if she's /fucking nuts/.

>>87330530
He doesn't go to Hell, he goes to Equestria.

>>87330580

Didn't Sims and Smith like get in a physical fight eventually?

>>87330350
>challenging
anon...

>>87330613
That'd be even worse

>>87330594
But then theres the shit with thrle hemmingway expy that is definitely misogyny, and Sim is clearly applying it to the concept of marraige in wake of his divorce

>>87330614
Sim challenged him to a boxing match but I don't know if anything came of it

>>87330580
He saw SJWism twenty years before it blossomed. He saw how nuts it was because he saw how nuts he was because of it.

>>87330674
truly ahead of his time

>>87330621
I can't just read comics all day. I have to balance my comic-reading time along with my time for work, studies, family, friends, etc.

Working out my schedule is a challenge.

>>87330614

Don't know. I think he challenged Jeff Smith to a fight. And honestly being punched in the face a few times might have done Sim a world of good.

>>87330627

The irony being that the present day parts of Jaka's Story are about a strong female protagonist trying to navigate and care for 4 weak and treacherous men who want her to be a part of their own fantasy worlds. You could make a strong argument that Jaka's Story as a an important feminist work in the comic medium.

Basically there's no "middle" with Dave Sim.

>>87330674
...and he saw it blossoming in the indie comics industry. He was the prophet of redpill before anyone else could see the pattern.

>>87330787
It's a true work of literature.

>>87330614
Smith was obviously too much of a pussy, as Sim knew damn well. Basically Sim is a very opinionated person with a huge amount of self confidence and was perfectly willing to stand against the entire world to say "most women are shit and too many men are putting up with it, which is making everything shittier" and he said it all along it's just that the whole world turned against him for it in the mid 90s.

>>87330674
>>87330797

Or he's an un-diagnosed schizophrenic who created his own syncretic version of the three major Abrhamaic religions and his views on women are as cloaked in his own bizarre and esoteric hermeneutics. Both possibilities should be considered.

I can't read Cerebus with the voice of George C. Scott
I just can't

So when Sim dies and Cerebus becomes public domain, what's the first thing that'll happen to the character?

>>87330903

There's already a gay furry porn comic featuring Cerebus. Again, IIRC, Sim has said he doesn't care who uses the character and for what.

>>87330903
Feminists make an issue where he apologizes for Sim

>>87330863
Regardless of how venomous his opinion of women became you can't deny the Cirinists are prescient

File: laughing-skeleton-722449.jpg (370KB, 957x1300px) Image search: [Google]

370KB, 957x1300px

>>87330973
Holy fuck I could actually see that happening

>>87330567
I hated pretty much all of it- ESPECIALLY the Todd McFarlane satire stuff. The details are hazy, and I know I didn't like Going Home or Form & Void much either, but my memories of Latter Days are just 99% loathing.

>>87331008
Not really, no. Nobody can shoot me with a crossbow because I like to dance. Meme it up all you want, but we don't live in that world.

>>87331008

Yes. The psychic heavily armed matriarchal fascists who worship the role of motherhood and wear full face hoods and long skirts are becoming a real problem.

I kid, but if anything the SJWs are the Kevilists.

>>87330863
Are you mind-shaming a gifted disabled man, you cis-minded ah ha haha hahaha haha haha I can't keep a straight face.

FYI, I'm an autistic man who syncretised Ayn Rand's Objectivism and Dave Sims' dualism (the part before he went all Abrahamic/Gnostic) into a modernist philosophy that can eat postmodernism for lunch.

>>87330903
Ideally? Someone writes another "cycle" of the Po/Cerebus/Astoria/'Cirin' power struggle a few thousand years in the future.

>>87330903
He's already public domain. The hypercrisis is real. He's running against Hillary "Astoria" Clinton. The Cirinists have already taken South Korea.

>>87331123
>if anything the SJWs are the Kevilists

>>87331138
I'm not a fan of the "His worldview isn't one of the 15 religions I acknowledge as existing; this is evidence of mental illness," argument that seems to always come up with Sim.

>>87331075
It's parody you fucking dolt, of course it's extreme
When mainstream leftist news sites publish articles like this, he was on to something
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9877692

>>87331182
>When mainstream leftist news sites publish articles like this, he was on to something
Oh no, they're writing articles! Writing articles makes them JUST LIKE CIRINISTS!!! Our very lives are in danger!!!!!

HEAD FOR THE HILLS BEFORE THEY KILL US ALL

>>87331070
I agree with this except I think the 3 "blackout" issues are contenders for best in the series

>>87328313
I'd say watchmen fills that role

>>87331178
Most people hink Sim is insane because he was literally diagnosed and denied that diagnosis, then when he got divorced he went completely bonkers towards women

>>87331228
Remeber the Cirinists first took control by taking over media

>>87331287
>and denied that diagnosis
Actually, he fully acknowledges that his diagnosis is quite possibly fully valid.

It's seeking treatment that he has no interest in doing.
>Assuming (for the sake of argument) that I’m crazy and everyone else is sane, what genuine, verifiable, objectively real foundation is your sanity based on? What, objectively speaking (or subjectively, if we’re being honest here), lends that foundation validity? The thing which lends validity to my schizophrenia (I was diagnosed as a “borderline schizophrenic” in 1979 and I think it is reasonable to assume that the condition has “worsened” in the interim) is the fact that I can make a living from it. In a capitalistic society founded upon “choice” as an absolute, that gives me a certain “real” world impunity.

>>87331314
What media, the reads? No, they took over with swords. And telepathy. Remember, women read minds, guys.

But on a scale of 1 to 10, how triggered should I be by the fact that (O M G) people are writing articles?

>>87331138

It's kind of interesting you should say that. I'm fascinated by Sim because he's my best possible example of the danger of symbols and reasoning. Ultimately you can trap and destroy yourself with your own symbols. At the same time, I know the response to this would be that I'm seeing imprisonment where he's experiencing communion with God because (as the Qu'ran put it):

>As to those who reject Faith, it is the same to them whether thou warn them or do not warn them; they will not believe.

>Allah hath set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, and on their eyes is a veil; great is the penalty they incur.

Not only is it a great example of god being kind of a dick; but I'm someone who's usually describe as very analytical in nature, and I have to admit: Accept the premise that there's a monotheistic God who has attempted to communicate with us through middle-eastern humans, and creating your own heretical Islamic sect is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Put more simply: Sim reminds me that all reasoning and philosophy are built on our perception of the world. There is no way to analyze your way out of your own mind, and there is no way to truly justify your perception. Therefore do not trust reason too far, lest it lead you off a hidden cliff.

>>87331287
He was diagnosed as he was coming down from a weeks-long LSD binge in like 79 or 80. I think anyone would register as slightly disassociated in that situation.

>>87331228
You do realize there aren't talking aardvarks either right? Or a Judge living on the moon?

>Until they take up crossbows, the Cirinism/Kevilism system explored in Cerebus has nothing to say about modern feminism
You're being stubborn. Cirinism/Kevilism doesn't map directly on to real world ideologies and politicians. "The Mother" and "The Daughter" are symbols of what Sim sees as the two primary female world views.

If you'll stop trying to "win" the conversation, you'll realize there are elements of Cirinism and Kevilism all over the modern conversation about "women's issues." The uneasy mix of "choice above all" and "mother knows best."

>>87331394
I don't think you should be triggered at all. I'm just saying the ideology Sim wrote about is here.

>>87331518

Yes, but playing with the logical extremes of Jungian Archetypes in a story is far from the original claim that Sim was prescient for perceiving them. I'd also argue that the uneasy tension you describe between two the strands of feminist thought you describe was also apparent before Sim ever picked up a pen.

>>87331486
That's why my philosophy (previously mentioned) relies on both reason and perception, seeking ultimate truths without going beyond the edges of human ability, and defining moral perfection while insisting on balance as one of the prime virtues.

It's also secular yet completely compatible with Christianity.

>>87331486
>Allah made them not religious
>but they'll be punished lol
This is why people don't take the Abrahamic relgions seriously

>>87331518
I don't feel threatened by the feminist movement and I can only feel sorry for people who do.

I'm not trying to win anything, but someone is telling me that Cirinism is prescient because PEOPLE ARE WRITING ARTICLES? Forget feeling sorry, I can only laugh at that poster.

>>87331567
What ideology? The Cirinist ideology of removing men from all aspects of public life other than menial labor or forced NEETdom? No, I don't see that at all in the modern world.

>>87330863
>Or he's an un-diagnosed schizophrenic

I thought he was diagnosed was such. Wasn't there a period where he spent some time in a psych ward?

>>87331567
>SJWs are Kevellists
>Hillary is Cirin
>Bernie is Rick
>Trump is Bear

>>87331607
This is why I'm a Jesus-ist.

>>87331600
I appreciate the distinction you're making.

>>87331668
>someone is telling me that Cirinism is prescient because PEOPLE ARE WRITING ARTICLES
I'm not speaking for that original poster, and in a sense I'm having to correct for his mistake in terminology.

The radical "choice above all" feminists are more closely related to Kevilists anyway, and the Kevilists aren't the ones with the hoods and crossbows.

>What ideology? The Cirinist ideology of removing men from all aspects of public life other than menial labor or forced NEETdom? No, I don't see that at all in the modern world.
Are you trying to make my argument for me? I'm confused now. It's definitely not prescient because dancing isn't illegal? Or it definitely is because the situation your described with modern young men is absolutely real?

File: jsdnhfjnhjfdnhsfh.jpg (22KB, 186x400px) Image search: [Google]

22KB, 186x400px

>>87330973

this thread is reminding me i should probably read the rest of cerebus before Cerebus in Hell comes out. I stopped at like issue 20 or so? the one where all the pages combine into a pic of Cerebus

>>87331838
>Or it definitely is because the situation your described with modern young men is absolutely real?
Do you really feel too scared to leave your house, go to school, get a job, be a productive member of society?

That's your own anxiety at work, not the nasty feminists oppressing you.

>>87331873

What's his feminist agenda, /co/?

>>87331890
Separate but equal. No interaction beyond procreation. And end women's suffering by ending women's suffrage.

>>87331668
Once again you feel the need to screech and ALLCAPSIMRIGHTLOL and insult your way out of actually engaging the argument
Things presented about the Cirinists that are popular in the current zeitgeist
>anti sex feminism
>cult of female superiority ie: the "men bad women good" logic that dominates most feminist conversations surrounding gender politics, "every woman is special" narratives, making every possible issue from murder to wages about women
>domination of comic books by SJWs (see current Marvel)

Once again just because reality doesn't line up with a parody comic doesn't mean it's automatically wrong. Also this has nothing to do with feeling threatened, it's just observation.

>>87331931
>it's just observation

Stop noticing things. Just Listen and Believe.

>>87331888
More bullshit ad homenim
Remember that most men were content under cirinist rule

How long did it take you to finish Cerebus?

>>87331709
He thought "the summer of LSD" would be a good idea. a week or so in to it his wife had him institutionalized. he was diagnosed schizophrenic then.

Whether or not he was still suffering from LSD induced disassociation 15 years later is up for debate. The "I'm actually crazy and I talk to these characters in my head" could very well be smoke and mirrors.

>>87331888
I'm not discussing individuals and their individual feelings. I'm talking about the fact that men are being left behind by society as a group. This isn't "I'm afraid to ask Stacy out." This is "serious changes in the workplace, the sexual/dating marketplace and cultural attitudes about masculinity are negatively affecting generations of young men."

>>87331991
about a year.

>>87331838
Dave has stated pretty clearly that Cirinism is based on first wave feminism while Kevillism (which evolved out of Cirinism) is based on second wave feminism.
Third wave/current feminism has traits of the two previous movements which means it has similarities to both Cirinism and Kevillism.

I guess the best in-comic allegory would be the branch of goddess-worship that New Joanne lead in The Last Day.

>>87331668
>What ideology?
Big picture: subverting the current "patriarchal" system with an alternative "pro-woman" agenda.
Cirinism/Kevillism/New Joanne-ism is a caricature of this real-life theme of subverting culture.

I'm not trying to say that there's a real-life feminazi regime that's taking over the world. I'm just saying that this type of counter-culture exists in some form.

>>87331991
About 6 months I think. Maybe 8 or 9 it's hard to remember

>>87331931
>engaging the argument
The very first argument that you presented to me was: Sim was right because HuffPost publishes articles that you don't like. No, you deserve to be laughed at.

>anti sex feminism
Cirinists are pro-sex. In Cirinist society, you cannot be a citizen until after you've had sex.

>cult of female superiority ie: the "men bad women good" logic that dominates most feminist conversations surrounding gender politics, "every woman is special" narratives, making every possible issue from murder to wages about women
This isn't Cirinist philosophy either, since Cirinist philosophy has nobody as special, and women hold no worth at all until they become mothers.

>domination of comic books by SJWs (see current Marvel)
This doesn't exist in real life, and it didn't exist in Cirinism either. The Cirinists let reads continue to do their own thing. Look at Rabbi as an example.

So, you can fear those SJW boogieman all you want, but what you fear in real life has no connection to what Dave was doing in his comic.

File: drinking.jpg (346KB, 1200x1833px) Image search: [Google]

346KB, 1200x1833px

>>87331991
Believe it or not, I use to read the whole thing each year. I'd guess that my shortest read-through would probably be at about 18 hours over the course of about 5 days.

Also, Astoria is best girl

>>87332119
Hey you actually engaged the argument
Good for you kiddo

>>87331991
A month for issues 1-25.
A week for issues 26-200.
Several months of hiatus.
A week for issues 201-300.

>>87332140

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOLpwzAFsXE

This may be interesting to people in the thread.

>>87332119
>Cirinists are pro sex
No they're pro children and mothers, sex is just a means to an end. Theyre very specifically against sexualization.

>this isn't Cirinist philosophy
It's the basis of their philosophy, since women can have choldren they are inherently superior. All women are special.

>look at Rabbi
This is unclear, if I remember correctly Oscar was punished for what he wrote. Also rabbi is just a joke about Ennis anyway. On top of that where Cerebus was reading Rabbi seemed to be out of Cirinist control considering he leaves that place to go back to the Cirinists to commit suicide. So no, Rabbi is not a valid example

Really what I think is most prescient about The Cirinists is how they canabalize those they disagree with slightly

>>87328068
I'm currently on issue 120. I've thoroughly enjoyed it so far. Will probably finish it within a month. The art is great and most of the characters are vibrant and entertaining. I see some people in this thread comparing it to Infinite Jest and there may be some truth to that in how the story as a whole is treated. However, I find it to be much less pretentious than Infinite Jest.

>>87332012
>I'm not discussing individuals and their individual feelings. I'm talking about the fact that men are being left behind by society as a group. This isn't "I'm afraid to ask Stacy out." This is "serious changes in the workplace, the sexual/dating marketplace and cultural attitudes about masculinity are negatively affecting generations of young men."

I wonder if Sim ever came across the book" The War Against Boys".

>>87328068
I read maybe a dozen issues of Cerebus. It wasn't bad, but I didn't find it overall entertaining. I don't understand the mass appeal of it.

>>87332485
The first 25 issues are pretty boring. Then the author overdoses on LSD and gets hospitalized for a little while. Then the comic gets revamped, and that's when it captured our hearts.

File: Cerebus_151_00_fc.jpg (433KB, 1200x1804px) Image search: [Google]

433KB, 1200x1804px

> "Did you see the look on her face when I suggested that the whole Cirinist/Kevillist agenda is to smother the light of reason in the dark of emotion? She had absolutely no answer!"

>"Dave, that's the last time I introduce you to my mother."

>A difficult man to speak of reasonably, his identity so inextricably entwined with his work in the public eye, his life shuffled in amongst the pages of the chronicle to which he has devoted the larger part of it. (A chronicle which remains famously unfinished until we're already too far into the next millennium to go back: only two thirds of Cerebus, only two thirds of Dave Sim has so far revealed itself above the water line. Leviathan rises in excruciating slomo.)

File: Cerebus_151_01.jpg (120KB, 1200x1827px) Image search: [Google]

120KB, 1200x1827px

>This of course is the whole problem and most of the solution in one. Dave Sim the human being is not Cerebus the publication, nor is he Cerebus the character. He and his work must obviously be considered separately. And yet...

File: Cerebus_151_02.jpg (68KB, 1200x1835px) Image search: [Google]

68KB, 1200x1835px

>...And yet this is to ignore the creator's obvious urge to fuse, face-first, with his creation. Stacked up in one twenty-year-deep pile, the back issues reveal a sex life as geology: the bedpost strata yielding fossil seams of editorial and letters page: others, significant or otherwise, embedded in the woodpulp shale, footnote autobiography. The book becomes a sweethearts oak. The valentines obliterate each other, carved in palimpsest. Megaphone confidences shared, an intimacy twenty thousand strong. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve so much as wear a zoot suit made of hearts.

File: Cerebus_151_03.jpg (246KB, 1200x1826px) Image search: [Google]

246KB, 1200x1826px

>It doesn't end there. How can we distinguish the cartoon from the cartoonist when the sheer duration of the work, its clockwork frequency, makes it screamingly evident that this is, and canonly be, the whole of a man's life we see before us? Let's be very clear on this. If he's not writing, drawing, publishing, promoting or out someplace signing it, he's thinking of it. Even if he thinks of something else that is not it, the thing he thinks of will inevitably end up as part of it. Damn it. This is the product of his body, mind and soul, his chromosomes, his parents' chromosomes. Here's what he saves his white light for, jealously guards his precious fluids for. He means this. This is all of him transformed by alchemy to ink and off-white paper, with the central figure in unvarying moral zip-a-tone between the two. In the gray area. The twilight Carl Barks demimonde between the human and the animal. The full-drag no-man's land between the woman and man straddled revealingly by this hermaphrodite protagonist. We can't speak of Dave Sim unless we speak of Cerebus. Likewise, to write a negative review of Cerebus is to sneer loudly at Sim's choice of tie while in a public place. He and his work dissolve and merge in inextricable suspension. And, as pointed out above, as yet we only know two-thirds of either. Loneliness of the long-distance runner.

File: Cerebus_151_0405.jpg (722KB, 2400x1802px) Image search: [Google]

722KB, 2400x1802px

>With the life and story both unfinished it's not safe, not yet, to talk about the themes, the shapes. Best wait until the last third hauls itself out of the water, see exactly how the contours of those narratives (the life, the work) resolve themselves before we say a word. All we can talk of, safely is the style. I can only speak for myself, of course, but I have always found his personal style refreshing, even charming. Then again, if he enters your living room, even the female houseplants wilfully and slowly turn their heads away; defy the basic laws of photosynthesis. When he's in France, feminine nouns avoid his lips.

File: Cerebus_151_06.jpg (528KB, 1200x1824px) Image search: [Google]

528KB, 1200x1824px

>Artistically, his style is less ambiguous: very few people have the chops of comic narrative down in the way Dave has them down. The almost musical arrangement of the panels, stave-like on the double-spread. Pitch-perfect grasp of character conveyed in line, whether from sable brush or typewriter. Near-atrophied genre conventions like the sound effect or word balloon transmuted in his hands become seamless components in the flowing, plastic medium of his narrative. The conjured soundscape. Verbose silences. In sum, a staggering display of heavily-considered craft, of innovation almost as a reflex. He is a master, and a monster (from the Latin monstro; or "Great Googly-Moogly Lor' Lookit That!").

File: Cerebus_151_07.jpg (304KB, 1200x1824px) Image search: [Google]

304KB, 1200x1824px

>Or, in the immortal words of the divine Max Miller, have a good look, Missus. You might never see another one.
- Alan Moore

>>87332362

that's fucking every group ever.

File: Cerebus_151_10.jpg (331KB, 1200x1821px) Image search: [Google]

331KB, 1200x1821px

the thing is....Cerebus is one of the best executed comics ever when it's firing on all cylinders. The story almost doesn't matter. The lettering, drafting is that good.

>>87332971
>>87332984
>>87332995
>>87333010
>>87333027
>>87333040
>>87333057

Alan Moore's description of the man and the work is perfect.

>>87333173

Moore's got a way with words

File: Cerebus_151_15.jpg (375KB, 1200x1821px) Image search: [Google]

375KB, 1200x1821px

>>87333173
The "From Hell" letters between him and Dave are some of my favorite comic related reading.

>>87333180

Also, I know artists who would give three fingers and an eye to be able to letter as well as he can.

>>87333187
Dude should think about becoming a writer. On second thought, he'd never work out.

File: Cerebus_151_18.jpg (382KB, 1200x1814px) Image search: [Google]

382KB, 1200x1814px

>These are all surely equally valid facets of reality. I suggest that if reality were genuinely a simple matter of forensics, ballistics, and gross physical mechanics, we’d all have things a fucking sight easier. The distressing or glorious truth is rather that our fantasies are real things. They exist, albeit in an immaterial realm beyond the reach of science or empirical investigation. They influence our behaviour and thus influence the material world, for better or worse. In effect, fantasy is a. massive component of reality and cannot really be discussed as a separate entity in itself.
- Alan Moore

I think I'm just going to quote him for the rest of this issue.

>>87330357
Then go break your spine faggot

>>87333232

I work for a civil service. (Indefinite rather than definite article as 4Chan crosses borders). I'm sometimes tempted to try and get an Iconographer do do me up one of Lord Julius.

File: Cerebus_151_19.jpg (342KB, 1200x1824px) Image search: [Google]

342KB, 1200x1824px

> The kind of ripple effect you're talking about is just about the first sort of pattern that one is able to make out with the initial high-altitude mapping. In fact, thinking about it, I'd say it's less like a ripple effect, with hind-sight, than it is like a blast distribution pattern: you have the central area of utter devastation in the relatively small confines of Whitechapel during a relatively small period of time, the autumn of 1888. Spread out from this, there are a distribution of points that seem on first glance to have a relationship to the central point of impact: to the point where some event or personage of considerable size collided explosively with the landscape of history. These points are seemingly randomly and evenly distributed to either side of the impact zone, which is to say in the past that precedes the event and in the future that comes after it. The event is seen as a strange sort of four-dimensional shape or entity, with points of coincidence or significant incident marking the being's extremities and the limits and extents of its time-spanning form.

>The immediate noticeable effect of this meta-shape as it impinges upon normal three-dimensional human historical linear consciousness could be described, I suppose, as a kind of glamour. I mean that both in the conventional sense of "the glamour that surrounds murder and murderers;" their sensational appeal in the eyes of the "public," and also in the medieval/magical sense of "a glamour; a, charm; a spell or enchantment." Frankly, I don't think there's really any appreciable difference between the two definitions, in that they both have exactly the same effect of placing a certain dark or dazzling obsession in the minds of whoever they happen to affect.
- Dave Sim

File: Cerebus_151_20.jpg (348KB, 1200x1818px) Image search: [Google]

348KB, 1200x1818px

>I myself see this phenomenon, both the male and female components of it, as a kind of echo in the "mind-space" of the period. Richard Dawkins might call it a meme, the information equivalent of a gene, a kind of replicating virus-like idea permeating society and influencing how we think and act. Rupert Sheldrake, much less respectable than Dawkins, might talk in terms of a morphogenetic resonance, a thought-form reproducing itself in what Sheldrake terms a "morphogenetic field." For my part, being much less respectable than either of the two above gentlemen, I would talk in terms of the murders being events not only in the "real" material world, but also in the terrain that I term "Idea Space", a kind of medium or field or space or dimension in which thoughts occur. I believe this space to be at least in part mutual, rather than discrete, which is to say that I believe that this "space" impinges to some degree upon all consciousness and that it is co-accessible. Sometimes, certain ideas or notions seem to be or are said to be "in the air." What do we mean by that? When James Watt invented the steam engine, it turned out that several other inventors had come up with the idea independently during roughly the same period. Charles Fort remarked on this to the effect that he guessed it was just "steam-engine time." I'm sure that you get the general idea: that consciousness, including at a group level, is a kind of medium in which ideas or thought-forms are the equivalent of solid objects or land masses, and in which the awareness and "self' of the individual can be seen as a moving point in the fabric.
- Dave Sim
The Hypercrisis is happening /co/

>>87333232

i'd totally buy like "Collected essays on comics" by alan moore

File: Cerebus_152_01.jpg (400KB, 1200x1831px) Image search: [Google]

400KB, 1200x1831px

>One of my more enduring ruminations has been that reality is a succesion of hierarchies. That we are observed by those on the next level up and those on the next level up from them and so on 99.9% of what we do, say, write, and in all ways concern ourselves with has much in common with - say - a Gilligan's Island marathon of many centuries' duration. I think we are as excruciating as that to them. But just as there are diamonds in a coal field, every once in a great while there comes along someone whose works are worth watching - and every once in a greater while, someone who engages the attentions of a handful of presences on the second or third level up. Ergo - the Big Arena I've alluded to. Given Blake's own devout belief in his God and his own belief in retribution f/or a sin committed, the fact that he endured and was not cut off before his time and achieved a measure of peace in his last years would indicate the Large Possibility that he was Onto Something. That, although his meticulously assembled lifelong creative work looks (for the most part) like fevered gibberish to me, the case could be made that in the "next circle up" he had untied some Gordian knot or solved a long-standing piddle or presented some new Gordian knot or long-standing riddle for consideration in the course of his work Perhaps the untying and solving could be attributed to the Heavenly, and the creation of knots and riddles could be attributed to the Infernal - but, to me, this sort of territory moves into the Dangerously Ruminative - which might be the instrument of my own destruction I inadvertently created by engineering a vehicle for near-total creative freedom.
- Sim

File: Cerebus_152_0203.jpg (828KB, 2400x1808px) Image search: [Google]

828KB, 2400x1808px

>I'd agree any creative work acts as a microcosm... if a blurred and inexact one...for the entirety of what I'd call conceptual space and what Blake would call Heaven. I wouldn't even qualify it as conceptual space as it is "during our lifetimes" since to me the essential nature of conceptual space is that it is instantaneous, a hyper-moment filling the entirety of the continuum, in which all other moments are subsumed like specks in amber. In Heaven, in Olympus, in Asgard, in Satori, in Restau, in Dreamtime there is a large, radiant and complex event that is constantly in the process of occurring. Osiris wasn't dismembered in the past. Isis didn't reassemble him and impregnate herself upon him in some remote historical or prehistoric time, nor is the subsequent birth of Horus on a recorded date so that we can send the guy a greeting card. It could be said just as accurately of these dreamtime evens that they will occur in the far future or that they are occurring right this moment now. The "once upon a time" parenthesis with which we bracket our fondest myth-events is careful not to say which time. Angels, as Immanuel Swedenborg insisted, know nothing' of
- Moore

>>87333454

>tfw he's talking like dr manhattan

File: Cerebus_152_04.jpg (346KB, 1200x1834px) Image search: [Google]

346KB, 1200x1834px

>If I look at a hundred individuals and try to predict how many of them will contract cancer, how many will. marry, how many will win the lottery, and so on, then my chances for making an accurate prediction go up considerably. If I look at a billion individuals, I can make chillingly accurate predictions about what will happen, statistically, to the group. The, perception of Free Will is here seen as something that is relative to the degree of mathematical resolution. You individually may seem to have free will, but at higher levels of magnification, you will not be able to avoid doing exactly your bit and no more to see that those statistical figures turn out correctly. There is no Free Will. What happened.. happened. What will happen.. will happen. This is in certain light a scary and highly claustrophobic thought. Reality becomes a tightly constrained tunnel which we are being forced to walk down, with no way to turn back or take a different route. Sometimes the urge to break out must be overwhelming.., which brings me to a very personal anecdote that seems relevant both to the above notions and to the broader subject matter of From Hell.
- Moore

>>87333484

>>87333437
>>87333454

If Sim had been born in the 3rd Century he'd have been at the council of Nicaea.

File: Cerebus_152_0607.jpg (927KB, 2400x1811px) Image search: [Google]

927KB, 2400x1811px

>On a final note regarding Free Will, it seems to me that the suffocating claustrophobia of the determinist scenario is considerably alleviated by the fact that even if all events happen to a fixed schedule and in a fixed order. we are still at considerable liberty in how we perceive. read, and interpret those events. The divine ghost of Consciousness, which bestows meaning as part of its purpose, can pass back and forth unhindered through the writhing ball of centipedes that is our human world, and it can .paint whatever picture it likes of its journeys.
- Moore

File: Cerebus_152_0809.jpg (872KB, 2400x1810px) Image search: [Google]

872KB, 2400x1810px

>Picking up on your optimistic last paragraph, I whole-mindedly and (steady, now) wholeheartedly agree. There is a persuasive argument to be made that we are on the cusp of a genuinely more Mature Age where the "no-two-snowflakes- alike" quality, of individual awareness and expression is going to be seen as an unanticipated bonus of humanity having not done too bad a job of getting to 1997 more or less in one piece. If we haven 't achieved the complete eradication of War and poverty and Disease and Famine, at least we have learned a few lessons - it would be hard to imagine anyone coming forward at this junctl4re and presenting themselves as the Next Nixon or an Improved Stalin or the 21st Century's Answer to Joe McCarthy. ,If we can keep progressing on our present course to a place where divergent philosophies and opinions are seen to be just that - and not grounds for incarceration, oppression, or wholesale purging (or even full retail purging) - I think most of us will be pretty astonished at the general improvement that would result.
- Sim
hahahahahah

File: Cerebus_152_12.jpg (356KB, 1200x1832px) Image search: [Google]

356KB, 1200x1832px

>I'm sorry, Dave, but your theology is all to fuck: you've clearly forgotten that issue of Amazing Adventures during the mid-seventies where Roy Thomas conclusively proved that Bang-Bulge-Crunch was only a part of either Eternity or Ego the Living Planet. I forget which. And, anyway, they were all Kang the Conqueror moving backwards through time. I guess this fundamental religious schism pretty well puts paid to the "Church of AlandDaveology" that we privately discussed, and in fact I've already taken the precautionary move of having you declared an Anti-Pope and Enemy of Mankind. No hard feelings.
- Moore

File: Cerebus_152_1617.jpg (883KB, 2400x1815px) Image search: [Google]

883KB, 2400x1815px

>I can't help but think that your last reply is of great value in that area. We are liars - most charitably we could be described as fabricators or inventors. We take a snatch of conversation, a bit of a book we once read (and have misremembered most times), a fragment of a recollection from our own past, and create a lie that we make as interesting as we can. The value I see in your last reply is that it is somewhat incumbent on us (or, at least, I think it is) to relay to would-be writers would-be professional liars - a cautionary note about what is in store if they really immerse themselves in it. Call it karma or hubris or a "snare for the unwary" (in the biblical sense of the phrase) that if you go around earning your livelihood by lying, those lies are quite likely to come back to you in as you put it "unnerving" ways. Yours seems the most sensible course and the one I've adopted as well.. "Isn't that interesting?" and then get back to what you were doing. It might well be a sign "; it probably isn't a sign, and you're on the slippery slope to L. -Ron-Hubbard-Land if you take it as a Sign. "Isn't that interesting? Oh, almost forgot -I'm out of toothpaste. I must go and buy some toothpaste." I think of Oscar Wilde writing "The Picture of Dorian Gray" before he met Alfred Douglas. Talk about a "snare for the unwary." Jaka has turned up in my life on three or four occasions, but always at a distance or in such a way that it was easy enough to avoid her. Which I do having drawn her umpty-ump times, I know the difference between an approximation and the genuine article. Stare, at her for a Jew seconds. "Isn't that interesting? Right, that's enough staring," and back to whatever I was doing.
- Sim
Hypercrisis intensifies

>>87328068

You won't be disappointed. It's one of the most impressive works of art in the western comics canon. The only thing you could compare it to is Manga like Dragon Ball, One Piece or Berserk in terms of size and scope.

It's a challenging read.

Once you read it you can sit back and realize your in rarefied air, a veteran of an obscure war.

>The middle eighties was when comic books finally got laid. Media attention. Frank Miller in Rolling Stone, MTV. Maus cops the Pulitzer. Watchmen on University reading lists. The style and music press raving about Love & Rockets. Fuck, man, we had the "Cerebus-the-Aardvark Party" running in British elections in ‘88. Reason tottered on its throne. Everybody was on Top of the Pops. We got everything we ever asked for, just as one often finds in real life or the better fairy stories, and just like in real life or the better fairy stories it turned out to be shit. For a few years there, everything we touched turned to gold, and now what the fuck are we going to do with all this gold? All this shit?. With honest and sincere effort, we made comics what we wanted them to be: as popular as any other 20th-century medium. As respected as any other 20th-century medium. What on earth were we thinking?
- Moore

File: Cerebus_152_20.jpg (360KB, 1200x1832px) Image search: [Google]

360KB, 1200x1832px

>>87333756
>>87333789
Ooops.

>>87331668
I want to agree with you on the feminist thing, but South Korea

File: Cerebus_201_11.jpg (453KB, 1200x1837px) Image search: [Google]

453KB, 1200x1837px

also sometimes it's funny

File: Cerebus_201_14.jpg (418KB, 1200x1831px) Image search: [Google]

418KB, 1200x1831px

the end.
>should you read it all?
at least read through 200-250, and then skip to the Last Day if you must.

>>87333647
Zing.

I like this Moore.

>>87333969
South Korea is nothing new. If anything it's a slightly better run version of classic East Asia governmental runnings, only in the modern day (which, mind you, with our more open and tech savvy world, makes many of these "behind closed doors" dealing a lot more open than they used to be).

>>87334050
There's really nothing as amazing is a great Marty Feldman reference.

Who Bendis killed. IRL.

File: b631c98cab4f81edcab6b7421198a72a.png (229KB, 384x384px) Image search: [Google]

229KB, 384x384px

>>87328068
worth reading? yes, hell yes.
entirely? nnnno. stop at "Melmoth" where he diverges into a biography of Oscar Wilde for no reason I've been able to figure out. After Melmoth is is batshit-crazy "women are soul-sucking voids" phase -- Sim was Scott Adams before Scott Adams.

But holy frejoles, he makes good comic books.

>>87335647

I really enjoyed Melmoth. It kind of reminds me of Jaka's story. This is a guy who has issues (to put it mildly) with gay people. But oh yeah, here's his deeply researched incredibly sympathetic and detailed description of the Oscar Wilde's last dying days as an artist in exile. Because of course he'd take an entire book to do that.

Is it collected anywhere? I don't like reading comics on a screen.

>>87335915

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebus_phonebook

>>87335915
It's all been collected. You can find all of it second hand online.

I started skipping panels when he started rendering every famous person's accent in perfect detail

I started skipping pages when he was hanging out with Woody Allen talking about creation

>>87328068
When you've read "High society" you've realy read the best.
"Church and state" is hard nosed satire, but the book turns a bit slow and maudling after that.

>>87336152
A handful of issues aren't collected.

does anyone has the quality graphic? pls post

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/davesim

>the the ascension was pointless

>>87329383
Sim himself said to go ahead and pirate if you can't afford it.

>>87331668
>of removing men from all aspects of public life other than menial labor or forced NEETdom?
Funny, this is reverse muslim extremists ideology. Or reverse christian Europe up until mid 20th century.

>>87331924
>No interaction beyond procreation.
He doesn't like sex?

File: Cerebus the Aardvark.jpg (166KB, 1345x864px) Image search: [Google]

166KB, 1345x864px

>>87338515


>>87338941
Sim is celibate.

>>87332329
>if I remember correctly Oscar was punished for what he wrote

Oscar was punished for writing without a license. As long as you've got that piece of paper, you can write whatever you want, even anti-feminist exploitation.

>>87338632
>the ascension
for all the criticism that Cerebus gets, this should be brought up more often. Sim takes 200 issues to tell a Shaggy Dog story.

>>87330357
Different disabled anon here.

I'd rather work literally any job and have twice the income. The grass is always greener.

File: qkld5a0b8six.jpg (48KB, 669x669px) Image search: [Google]

48KB, 669x669px

>>87335647
>Sim was Scott Adams before Scott Adams
Congratulations, you just persuaded yourself.

>>87333520
Psychohistory?

>>87335647
Where the heck does this "Scott Adams hates women" meme come from?

>>87337691
Which ones?

>>87341430
He's willing to question things, and made observations about Trump that upset liberals.

>>87341430

He tells the truth:

>The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner. You don’t punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don’t argue when a women tells you she’s only making 80 cents to your dollar. It’s the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles.

>>87341441
#51, 112-113, 137-138.
Unless you count Cerebus #0.

>>87328068
>Is Cerebus worth reading
Yes
>entirely?
No

>>87328076
This

>>87333124
Gerhard's work is fucking disgustingly good, whenever I get amped up about working on my own art I end up looking at a print I have from him and feeling dead and worthless inside.

>>87343590
Any news on the projects he's working on with Morrison?

>>87332522
>>87333040
Hm, maybe I'll pick it up again. Thanks, anon.