Fascination And Fruition

Dave tried something different with the start. The title does not appear on the front page, it's some wonderfully intercut panels which show an awed Cerebus managing to climb off the pile of money bags.

Whilst backing up the stairs he runs into Boobah, who is carrying a pile of folded sheets that obscure his view, so the inept mercenary goes tumbling down the stairs to be followed by an enraged Henrot threatening to rend him limb from skinny limb, until she too trips over the retreating Most Holy.

Cerebus races up to his room to tell Sophia what has just happened, to find her packing. She tells him she's leaving. He asks why. Sophia says that she told herself she would if things didn't get better, they haven't so she's gone. Dave seemed to write a lot from personal experience and I wonder if this wasn't art imitating life. I think the timeline fits for when he and Deni's relationship fell apart.

Initially Cerebus calls for Bear to force Sophia to stay, but then tells him to forget it and stalks down to the cellar, where he pries open a crate of Borealan whiskey. Before the aardvark can get down to some serious drinking the glowing ball of light returns, and this time it isn't a false Elf.

This ball of light talks to Cerebus, it tells him that he didn't even like Sophia, so why did he want to stop her leaving? The one he really wants is dancing in the lower city. Jaka.

Cerebus sees Jaka, the way she was when he first met her and once again he bellows for Bear. The big mercenary asks what Cerebus wants him to forget about this time. Cerebus tells him to go to the lower city and bring him a dancer called Jaka, and he wants her in one piece.

Most Holy goes to the garden on top of the hotel to brood and wait and we readers get to once again appreciate Gerhard's brilliant backgrounds.

Bear returns and advises Cerebus that Jaka is waiting in the middle room of his suite. As Bear and Cerebus are going downstairs to meet Jaka Bear casually drops the fact that Jaka wanted to bring her husband.

Sophia

This was another 5 pager, it was the beginning of a series of chapters where Dave examined certain key characters. Cerebus and Sophia are the only 2 characters shown and the whole thing is in darkness with only them and their bed illuminated.

Initially I didn't like Sophia much and dreaded seeing her become a regular character again. However she had changed in between the last time and reentering as Cerebus' wife. She was still wearing the chain mail bikini most of the time, but she had developed from the sword swinging Red Sonja parody that she began as. She was now softer and had depth, she was more of a girly girl, displaying a heretofore unseen intelligence. She also seemed to genuinely care for Cerebus. I don't know if it could be described as love. In the book that really only seems to exist in a somewhat warped form between Cerebus and Jaka.

The chapter is a one sided conversation where only Sophia speaks, Cerebus lays in bed and scowls. In her monologue Sophia neatly and amusingly sums up Cerebus' life and her own and their relationship before she kisses the tuft of fur on one ear and turns over to go to sleep. I came away from this one with a totally different picture and view of Sophia.

Suddenly Sophia

Cerebus wakes in a hotel in Port Seprania (I assume in new Sepra) with a pounding headache. He's been on another bender. He gets out of bed and hears a ching in the usual pounding of a hangover. The last panel on that page is brilliant, 5 shots of Cerebus' face going through a gamut of emotions, settling on stunned shock when he looks downward.

Cerebus is wearing a chainmail bikini. As the only person Cerebus knows who wears such attire is the feisty, randy and decidedly crazy Red Sophia this is not a good development. His worst fears are realised when he looks at the rumpled bed and sees an equally rumpled Sophia laying there.

Worse is yet to come. Weisshaupt walks in and it appears that he drugged Cerebus and whilst in a drugged and inebriated state Cerebus not only slept with Red Sophia he married her! Weisshaupt's administration has made leaving a legitimized marriage (Sophia claims they legitimized it at least 12 times) a hanging offence.

This is all part of the devious bureaucrat's plan to reinstall Cerebus as the Prime Minister of Iest. As the aardvark has no choice at the present time he lets Weisshaupt's flunkies dress him in wig and suit and prepares to go back to Iest. The final insult is meeting Henrot Gutch. Henrot is Cerebus' new mother in law and to say that she is the mother in law from hell is putting it rather mildly.

Dave was at his funniest both with art and script in this one. Images of Cerebus wearing only Sophia's bikini were hysterical as were the scenes with him in the suit and the wig, coupled with his almost permanent scowl.

Although I'd never been much of a Sophia fan, she seemed more amusing in this and the character had a little more depth, now she wasn't threatening to cut heads off and had been made into more of a girly girl, who just happened to have a penchant for chainmail underwear.

Swords of Cerebus #3: Swords Against Imesh, Merchant Of Unshib, The Merchant & The Cockroach, Beduin By Night

After 8 issues Cerebus had added a love interest in Jaka, and had a regular recurring character in Elrod, the world in which the aardvark moved was really starting to take shape, and it was already moving away from it's roots as a Conan parody starring an aardvark.

Swords Against Imesh picked up where the previous issue left off, with Cerebus leading his army of military fanatics against the city of Imesh. It was a city the aardvark knew well, having spent his adolescence there and learned magic under the tutelage of Magus Doran. Dave had realised that having given Cerebus power, he didn't really want him to have it yet, and this story was his way of removing that power. The city was surrounded by a huge wall, Cerebus left his army outside and scaled the wall to investigate what was going on in Imesh. In a huge tower he encountered Imesh's King K'cor; a beefy bearded character who had enslaved the city by addicting it's populace to a drug he called Buz. Cerebus had no intention of being thwarted and tackled K'cor's champion Lord Koghem, having defeated Koghem, Cerebus thinks that he now has control of the city, however K'cor had other ideas and challenged Cerebus himself. Cerebus was unable to get through K'cor's armour, and looked set to lose when the king gave up the fight, informing Cerebus that if he had left his army outside to forage for food and water, then as all the wells in the surrounding area had been poisoned to discourage barbarian attacks, then they were probably dead, and Cerebus was no threat and of no use. A stunned Cerebus watched K'cor's large retreating back and realised that he was back to where he was before he met the Conniptins.

I felt that comparing the artwork in Swords Against Imesh with that of the next issue: Merchant of Unshib, that there was a subtle change. Cerebus began to look less like the long nosed cartoon that he began as and more as the better drawn version that readers came to know and love. Red Sophia returned in Merchant of Unshib. I hoped she wouldn't become a regular recurring character, she was a one joke character to me, and the book had begun to move beyond such a two dimensional character. While trekking through a blizzard Cerebus ran into Red Sophia. His reaction said that he would rather have encountered an avalanche. Sophia told Cerebus that she knew the whereabouts of the Black Blossom Lotus; a priceless magical artifact. Cerebus agreed to help her obtain it and share the proceeds with her when she introduced her partner; Meirgen, a musclebound, brainless barbarian warrior (just Sophia's type), the trio later had a 4th conspirator join them; a treacherous T'Capmin border guard. Cerebus double crossed the other 3, took the Lotus all for himself, and for once walked away a winner.

The Merchant & The Cockroach marked another turning point for the book. The city of Beduin was somewhat more civilized than the barbarian towns we'd been seeing. It was also the introduction to one of the books most important and popular characters; The Cockroach. Dave got the idea from talking to Marshall Rogers about Batman...sorry The Batman to give him his real name, and he started thinking about doing his own version of the character in Cerebus with what was a very 'Dave' twist. In The Batman legend Bruce Wayne and his alter ego are aware of one another. By day The Cockroach is a mild mannered businessman, and by night the crime avenging Cockroach, however the businessman doesn't know what he becomes at night and The Cockroach doesn't know about the existence of his law abiding other side. After selling the Black Blossom Lotus to the businessman and watching him destroy it Cerebus accidentally happened to witness the transformation to The Cockroach. It intrigued him and he followed, as he comes to call the unhinged night time avenger; The Cootie. He observed The Cockroach find, beat up criminals and take their money, he then saw him make his way back to his house, drop the money into a hole in the wall and go to sleep. Cerebus did some exploring and realises that The Cockroach has been doing this for years and doesn't realise that there is 8 feet of gold in between the walls of his house. Cerebus tried to use The Cockroach to take the gold out of the city, but realised that The Cootie was an extremely unreliable assistant, unfortunately this happened too late for Cerebus to keep more than a sack or two of the gold.

This is also the first issue I can remember seeing Cerebus regular wardrobe of black vest and the three medallions.

Beduin by Night followed directly on. Having escaped from the authorities in Beduin, and leaving The Cockroach to their mercies Cerebus holed up in a tavern and proceeded to drink himself through what gold he managed to keep, whilst lamenting all that he had lost. After overhearing that The Cockroach had been taken into custody, he went back to the Cootie's house to check on the rest of the gold only to find that it was gone. I have to admit that seeing Cerebus have a conniption when finding that the gold is gone and referring to it as 'Cerebus gold' amused me greatly and it was so typical of the character and his incredible, overwhelming avarice. Further searching led him to The Cockroach's version of the Batcave, complete with Cockroach and gold. Cerebus told The Cockroach that they had to move the gold because Elrod of Melvinbone planned to steal it. This may have worked except that while moving the gold the two of them actually met Elrod! The fight between Elrod and The Cockroach drew the city watch, and while Cerebus fought them off, he also lost the majority of the gold in the process. Yet again Elrod had managed to ruin Cerebus grand plans simply by being there. You could tell it would not be the last time and I didn't think it would be the last we would see of The Cockroach. As it turns out it was the last time we saw him as The Cockroach, but we would learn that like his namesake The Cockroach could never really be exterminated.

Swords of Cerebus #1 cont: Captive in Boreala, Song of Red Sophia, Death's Dark Tread

When the first issue was a modest success Dave suddenly realised he had to do another one. The other one was Captive in Boreala, introducing readers to an often mentioned, but rarely seen country in Cerebus' version of the Hypborean world. Another very Conan-esque setting, not surprising, as Dave was admittedly a huge fan of Conan artist Barry Windsor-Smith. It was in this issue that we first saw how Cerebus used his unique physiology to best much larger opponents, that he had a ruthless streak; stabbing a beaten opponent, although this was played for laughs. Cerebus' true avarice came to the fore. In the first 50 - 100 issues of the book the driving force for Cerebus was money, it later became power, but only because power made money. Like the first issue it was open ended. The story could be continued, but it had been neatly ended.

While working on issue #2 Dave had decided that he would parody Red Sonja in the 3rd issue. Red Sonja was rather like a female Conan. The best known version of Red Sonja was created by Roy Thomas and Dave Sim’s hero Barry Windsor-Smith, although they adapted the character from one created by Conan creator Robert E Howard; Red Sonya of Rogatino. Due to her penchant for wearing a chain mail bikini to almost cover her ample assets Red Sonja always proved very popular with the legions of fanboys out there. Dave decided to call his version of the character Red Sophia. She looked exactly the same, it was her behaviour that was different. The original was fiercely independent, great with a sword and refused to lie with a man unless he could defeat her in single combat. Red Sophia was somewhat dim witted, she followed the same rule that she would only lie with a man who could defeat her in combat, but at heart she was a self centred, Daddy’s girl (her father was a powerful and wealthy wizard) who thought of little else other than her next sexual conquest. The fact that Cerebus could not have been less interested in her was one of the attractions to the aardvark. Cerebus gratefully finished his mission with her, left her with her former boyfriend, collected his fee from her father and moved on to his next story. Sophia would become a recurring character in the books early days.

Although Dave had never read one of Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels, he was aware of them and that was the spark for issue #4 Deaths Dark Tread. Dave decided to do a version Moorcock’s albino warrior, only this was one was called Elrod of Melvinbone and he spoke like Foghorn Leghorn, he was also completely incompetent. It’s no secret that particularly in the early days of Cerebus Dave was a regular user of marijuana and LSD, he never states it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he was high when he conceived Elrod. Despite not having read Moorcock’s books fans of them told him that he had nailed the character. To Cerebus, Elrod is an annoyance. Cerebus can’t stand him and somehow Elrod always seems to have the knack of spoiling Cerebus’ plans. He also became a recurring character and was very popular with fans. He never seemed to lose the belief that Cerebus was just a kid in a bunny suit.