The Final Ascension

The first chapter of the 6th book of Church & State II is a short one. There are no words spoken in the actual panels. The story is told by the drawings and text placed somewhere on the page to explain what is going on in the panels.

Cerebus is rising, while still clutching his golden orb. Everyone else is watching. When I say everyone, I mean everyone.

From the far away Cirinist Abbess by means of a mechanical device, to Astoria in the cathedral, still awaiting sentence. From the dead Bran Mak Mufin in the hotel and the people frozen in the courtyard at Cerebus command, to Blakely wandering the streets of Iest. From Bear in a forest somewhere outside the city, to Jaka in a tavern located in the lower city.

Cerebus is clinging to the bottom of the Black Tower as it rises upwards at tremendous speed.

It was an interesting way of presenting an issue, something I'd never seen before. It's bloody hard to read, though. Dave couldn't just put the text at the one angle in the one place every page he couldn't just make the panels all the one size. Noooo! He had to stick it everywhere, all angles, slant it, make the panels irregular. To read it you're forced to turn the book over and over again, you forget what page you're up to and at times it makes you dizzy. Dave had to be an independent, back then no major publisher would have even considered doing what he did in The Final Ascension.

Causality Casualty

The final chapter of Church & State. This was going to be good.

Lord Storm'send keeps talking and as he's stuck in the crack there's not a lot Cerebus can do about it. Storm'send is going on about false Popes and Cerebus can't work out why, although the farmer insists that it has to do with the end of the world.

Cerebus is rescued by the reappearance of Sophia. She proceeds to give him a good telling off (hooray!) and then says that her major problem with their relationship was that once he became Pope she felt that the nature of their relationship became perverse as she was making love to a God on earth.

She leaves as Cerebus is dragged by Lord Julius back into the wall. Julius tells him that Tarim is outside and he wants to talk. When Cerebus asks why they're going upstairs Julius says that's so he can look Tarim in the eye.

Outside the hotel is a giant stone golem clad in papal robes. Thrunk has returned, and he says he's Most Holy. Everyone believes him. I know I would.

Because Cerebus has gold that Thrunk believes belongs to him he has to get Cerebus out of the way. What follows is a great sequence of Thrunk's enormous stone fist trying to squash Cerebus and the aardvark using every evasive trick he knows to avoid the rock giant. Cerebus finds Bran. The former leader of the Pigts tells Cerebus he's made a mistake and then drives the point of a knife into his chest. The ritual suicide stuns even Cerebus and he can't get away when Thrunk's fist crashes through the wall and grabs him.

In something reminiscent of Cerebus' actions as Pope, Thrunk flings Cerebus away. The aardvark grabs a tree and manages to land on the head of one of the gargoyles carved into the mountain above the city. He can't maintain his grip and falls to bounce twice and end up on somewhere in the lower city.

It's going to be a long climb back to the top for everyone's favourite earth pig.

Day Of Greatness Age Of Consent

Either Henrot couldn't find Boobah or he managed to outrun her, because he's right there on the first page of this chapter. He is now acting as Cerebus' scribe. Cerebus, or as he now prefers to be known; Most Holy, seems to be believing that he is some sort of God and has Boobah writing down all his conversations in case he says something profound. Another character from the past also returns; Bran Mak Mufin, or as he is commonly referred to in Boobah's scribblings: Muffins.

Cerebus asks why he shouldn't condemn Bran to a horrible death for failing to bring an army to Cerebus aid and causing him to lose the Prime Ministership. Bran explains that another of the tribesmen; Fret Mac Murry (I had to laugh out loud at that, wonder if Dave had been watching 'My Three Sons' reruns) convinced them in Bran's absence that the aardvark was in fact a false Cerebus (another laugh out loud moment). It's rather hard to satisfyingly condemn Bran to death, because he so happily accepts anything that Cerebus says.

It seems Sophia, now often referred to as Mrs Most Holy (he just kept making me laugh in this one, that's right up there with Mrs Ari from Entourage), has gone back to her usual wardrobe of chainmail bikini and she and Cerebus are having marital difficulties. I'm actually glad she stopped being a doormat.

Believing that for Most Holy's thoughts to flow properly requires aloneness, Cerebus and Boobah (Boobah doesn't count as a person) climb to the roof of the hotel, but it rains and this disturbs Most Holy, and also makes him realise that whatever he thinks, and whatever the people who congregate outside the hotel daily think, he is NOT a God.

Another face from the past reappears: Astoria. The former powerbroker is discussing Cerebus' increasing power with the Cirinist mother superior of Good Abbey. I presume that this settles once and for all the matter of Astoria's religious affiliation. No matter what Theresa may think Astoria is most definitely allied to the Cirinists, not the Kevillists. The two ladies are forced to come to an agreement that Cerebus is out of control and there's nothing either of them can do about it.

Weisshaupt brings the Vice President of the Bank of Iest to heel by going over his head to the President, and then having the President thrown out the window as a demonstration of power and conflict resolution Weisshaupt style. I wonder if he learned a few things from his former Prime Minister, because that has often been Cerebus' approach to a problem.

Cerebus...sorry Most Holy takes to the rooftops, or rather a chimney pot, to squeeze more gold out of the Iestans before Tarim brings the world to an end in 10 days time. The series of panels with Cerebus standing on the chimney, haranguing the crowd, gesticulating and shouting, with the wind whipping his papal robes and stole every which way are true works of art. We get the words of the speech below from Boobah, but you almost don't need them, the drawings tell the full story.

Someone, somewhere is forging Cerebus' letters. Bran finds 4 different transcripts from 4 different locations in Iest, but all 4 are in Most Holy's handwriting. This convinces Cerebus that Bran is rather useful to have around.

Swords of Cerebus #2: Bran Mak Mufin, The Secret, Black Sun Rising, Day of the Earth-Pig

After 4 issues Cerebus had managed to exceed his creator’s initial aim and built up a small following, as well as create a world in which the character moved, however to me at this stage it was still a ‘funny animal’ comic. Two things differentiated it from Conan and the other Conanesque titles that were around: the central character was an aardvark and at times it was very funny. I find it interesting that neither Dave Sim or the fans of the time were particularly impressed with issue #5. Dave said that the story was largely lifted from issue #2 and that it contained one joke: Cerebus' fur smells when he gets it wet (this was a running gag for some time, it does beg the question: does he ever bathe?). I actually contend that it contained two jokes, one was the aforementioned smelly fur gag and the other was the play on words that formed the only title I’ve ever been able to find: Bran Mak Mufin, it’s hard to even say that without a chuckle, even funnier when Bran became a more important player in the political game later on. Why did I think the issue was important in the evolution of the character?

This is the basic storyline: Cerebus has signed on with a mercenary army and is stuck scouting in the Red Marches getting rained on (hence the wet fur), he takes shelter in a hollow tree and is discovered by a group of primitive warriors, members of the ancient and once very powerful Pigt tribe. They take him to their leader; Bran Mak Mufin. Bran seems to know more about Cerebus than he should and this piques the aardvark's interest. He goes exploring, and finds the Pigts at their worship. The object of their adoration is a statue, a statue of an aardvark! This is the first indication that Cerebus is more than just an itinerant warrior who happens to be an aardvark. He is a figure of destiny. I believe that Cerebus life and the way the readers viewed the character changed from this point onward. Cerebus destroys the statue, makes his way out of the tunnel network where then Pigts live and heads for the nearest city.

If issue #5 was a bit of a disappointment to readers and creator then issue #6 was an unqualified triumph. I think it is not only one of the best Cerebus stories written, but it is one of the best single comic issues I have ever read, it was also immensely important in the continuing story of the graphic novel as a whole. Dave said that this one was in some ways partially autobiographical, and it shows, things are handled with great affection and sensitivity as well as gentle humour.

Cerebus encounters a dying man, who with his final breath gives the aardvark the clue to finding great treasure. The unfortunate man’s pursuers; wily conman E’Lass and his large, strong, but stupid companion Turg, are also trying to gain that information. Once they realise Cerebus has it they first attempt to force it out of him, but discover to Turg’s eternal regret that even the thuggish barbarian is no match for the earth pig born. E’Lass then decides that where strength will not prevail, guile will. He drugs Cerebus' drink so that he will fall desperately in love with the first woman he sees; tavern dancer Jaka. E’Lass and Turg then heavy Jaka to get the information out of Cerebus. Cerebus is so smitten that he will do anything Jaka asks, and the scene between the two in Jaka’s room as she tries to wheedle the information out of him contains this priceless and hysterically funny exchange: a doe eyed Cerebus sits next to Jaka on her bed and murmurs lovingly to her: ‘I'd love to lick apricot brandy out of your navel.' Jaka desperately tries to steer Cerebus back on topic, but he refuses to be dissuaded from his wooing, and continues on: ‘If Cerebus had a navel would you lick apricot brandy out of it?’ at this point Jaka, convinced that her cause is hopeless, collapses with a moan onto the bed. A confused Cerebus stands over her and asks helplessly ‘You don’t like apricot brandy?’ I usually have to put the book aside to laugh.

Jaka tells Cerebus that E’Lass and Turg have threatened her. Cerebus finds them and hands out the mother of all beatings. He and Jaka plan to find the treasure themselves and start a new life together. Whilst preparing for the journey the potion wears off Cerebus, he forgets who Jaka is, and that he carried a torch for her. She meets him, but realises that he has no memory of her or what she meant to him, she promises to wait for him to remember even if it takes the rest of her life. So beautifully done and with such a tragic end, it almost makes you want to cry. I don’t think I’m the only fan who remembered The Secret for a long time after reading it. People were convinced that Jaka would one day return, but when?

Dave decided to return to safer ground with Black Sun Rising and brought Elrod back. Cerebus was on his way to see if he could get the treasure he had first heard about from the dying stranger, and had now recalled (although readers were left none the wiser as to whether or not he had also remembered Jaka), when to his horror he encountered Elrod, the big mouthed, incompetent albino. In his efforts to recover the treasure hidden somewhere in the Temple of the Black Sun and avoid Elrod Cerebus found himself battling a giant spider, and only just managed to get out of the temple with his life, let alone the treasure. Foiled once again, and once again penniless Cerebus continues his lonely wandering.

Day of the Earth-Pig was an odd issue, a good half of it saw Cerebus in a delirious fever dream trying to recover from the injuries presumably incurred during the fight with the spider in the Temple of the Black Sun. Seeing Cerebus willingness to inflict violence to get his ends an unscrupulous religious military officer nurses the aardvark back to full health, and then installs him as the leader of the Conniptin's. Of course Cerebus is supposed to be a figure head, leader in name only. By the end of the issue Cerebus is already scheming how to get rid of the man who made him the leader and take all the power for himself. The issue was left very open ended, and it looked like Dave had just started his first genuine multi issue story arc.