Henrot-Gutch

Dave continued the profile series with a 3 page one on Cerebus' insufferable ogress of a mother in law; Henrot Gutch. She's taking tea with Blakely. It's possible that he is courting her in order to curry favour with the Prime Minister.

Partway through their conversation Henrot sees a child stealing fruit from a pear tree in the garden, she throws a brick at the urchin presumable injuring the thief, she then goes back to her tea with Blakely wondering why Sophia never brought her play mates home to meet mother when the female warrior was a child.

Typical portrayal of Henrot and the joke had worn thin on me. She's the mother in law from hell, I get it. I wonder if Dave had issues with his own mother in law.

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.