soren@reed.UUCP (Soren Petersen) (02/07/86)
In article <912@rlgvax.UUCP> oz@rlgvax.UUCP (THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ) writes: >BUT THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING ABOUT CEREBUS (come on Mike, I saw your name a few >times). Be that as it may, I would now like to open the topic of what is going >on with Cerebus, A-V and Deni and Renegade. > >First of all, I have to go along with the people that say CEREBUS isn't as >enjoyable as it used to be (but then to me it hasn't been GREAT (with a capitol >"g") since it was in it's teens and early twenties). Mind you, I still enjoy >CEREBUS, but I feel that Dave is subjecting us to a lot of arrogance in the >two issue dream sequence a little while ago and in his editorials. I no >longer have as much FUN reading it. The fact that Dave has gone the way of >GQ on his back covers is adding to this feeling. > >Speculation at Geppies here in the Washington area says that A-V will not be >around for the long haul and that CEREBUS will end up with an another pub- >lisher. This is based on OLD meetings between the managament of the Geppies >chain and Dave when A-V as still Dave and Deni. The people were not impressed >with Dave as a business man and that seems very possible. Are other people >finding Daves editorials as obnoxious as I am? Actually I like Dave's editorials more than Deni's. Yes, they are rather arrogant, but they seem to have so much more zing then Deni's ever did. Frankly, I would much rather hear what he has to say about Cerebus (what (suggested listenning for each issue and the like) than who Deni met at the convention. Also, I am a recent (#66) convert and I find the recent issues to be the best. Yes, they are no longer as much 'fun' but they are much better characterized and, especially since Gerhard started doing the backgrounds, much better drawn. I did enjoy the early Swords issues, but Dave Sim has, quite simply, learned to *write* since then. The story has slowed down, and I too was rather irritated by the dream sequence, but on rereading the last thirty issues or so at once, it is certainly dramatically justified. I think the problem with Cerebus is the format. Cerebus is, as Dave has said many times, a *Novel*. He has, however, to release this novel in strict twenty/per month installments, which forces one of two actions. 1) He can devote all his energy to making every issue self-contained, which is what everybody else I've read, independent or mainstream, good, bad, or indifferent, does. 2) He can completely ignore the fact that he is publishing a monthly comic, and just go ahead and publish the next twenty pages of his magnum opus, even if it they begin and end in the middle of a sentence. The first makes for better individual issues, but severely limits overall developement, the second makes for greater long term success but quite often makes the current issue, for which I have just spent my hard earned $1.70, rather nonsensical. At the moment, I am sufficiently impressed by the big picture, that I am willing to put up with the individual brush strokes, which we see, even if they make no sense on their own. It is irritating when nothing happens for three issues straight, but if it is good enough, then I think I prefer it to say, the Starlin Captain Marvel and Warlock reprints, where the flow of the story is regularly broken because Starlin has to stop and say what happenned to everyone who hadn't read the previous issues. Of course on the third hand, Sim has to make some concessions to one-issue readability, otherwise he simply isn't going to attract anymore readers. I was lucky, starting with an issue that 1) marked a fairly clear beginning and 2) has several really funny, spectacular scenes (the baby throwing scene is priceless). I've been going on far longer than anyone is going to read, so Have A Nice Day Soren Petersen