High Society

High Society. That's the name of the book, and the first issue or chapter. From the time you first look at the cover of the phone book, even if you haven't read the issues it comprises, you know that you're in for something special. The picture of The Regency (the lavish and famous hotel in Iest that the majority of the action takes place in) on the front is truly stunning. I don't think the picture had appeared in this form before. Dave had done the drawing some time ago, but it wasn't until his friend, and co collaborator Gerhard got hold of it that it became what adorns the cover. Gerhard was one of the most gifted background artists I have ever seen. The detail and depth that he gives The Regency makes it almost photograph like in it's clarity. Gerhard didn't become the regular background artist until issue #63, and High Society encompasses issues #26 - #50 (the phone book came out later again).

Cerebus drags his way up the steps leading to The Regency and is prepared for a fight. He's trekked a long way on foot, and he's been carrying a hefty sack full of valuables over his shoulder. Cerebus knows that his very appearance will alert the hotel guards, and the snobbish desk clerks that he is not the sort of person they want soiling their establishment with his dirty feet. It does appear from the look that the clerk shoots down his nose at the glowering aardvark who approaches his desk, that Cerebus was correct. However the second he mentions his name, it all changes. The clerk not only offers to show him to a room, he gives him a suite, and refuses to accept payment for it. This preferential treatment only serves to make Cerebus suspicious.

When the clerk comes to show him to the dining room the smell of his fur when it gets wet joke gets another airing, Cerebus having bathed in the interim. Cerebus still wants a fight, and so proceeds to make himself the most difficult customer he can imagine. He orders prime rib of yak with rum and raisin sauce (yuk! Rum and raisin is an icecream or chocolate flavour, not an accompaniment for a roast rib of a hairy asian beast of burden), four bottles of Chateau Dehrsion (it's Cerebus' version of Dom Perignon), four different years, and for dessert any fruit that is out of season. When all of these unreasonable demands are met with a polite nod, and a murmured 'yes sir' Cerebus gives up.

No sooner has the clerk departed, than Cerebus is besieged by various well attired gentleman desperate to make his acquaintance, speak very quickly about the company they represent, and give him money for the privilege. Cerebus finally manages to get a foreigner by the name of Scorz to explain exactly why they are doing this. The conversation is extremely amusing because of Scorz's habit of referring to Cerebus as Famous the Aardvark, in fact he does it so often that Cerebus begins using it in reference to himself. The businessmen see Famous the Aardvark....sorry, got me doing it now! Cerebus as a conduit to Lord Julius, and no business can be done unless it has Lord Julius' say so. By the end of the evening Cerebus has managed to garner over 5,000 crowns, and cemented his reputation as a tough negotiator with nerves of steel. Unfortunately his mood has not improved, and more than ever he desperately wants a fight.

In search of the conflict he takes a cab to the toughest tavern in town, throws a bag of flour over the crowd, and challenges the entire assembled assortment of thugs to a fight. I love Cerebus' thinking as he gets ready for the brawl: 'Impossible odds; mentally unbalanced foes; cramped quarters for a good punch-up...and people say Iest has no night life.' I always see Cerebus like this, ready for a fight, legs bent, head down, fists clenched. To me that pose is Cerebus, and it doesn't matter where the story takes him, to me that is what he is, was and will forever be. His fun is spoiled by the arrival of the dock police, who have orders to protect him. Disgruntled, Cerebus trudges back into Iest's night, wondering how he can lose his security detail.

Swords of Cerebus #6: Captain Cockroach! The Death of Elrod, The Beguiling, Swamp Sounds, This Woman, This Thing

I've always thought this Swords was the best of the 6. It had more stories for a start, and there's not a dud amongst them, this is when the book really started to take shape, and pave the way for High Society.

Cerebus wakes from his drugged state, and realises that he's in Beduin. He has no idea how he got there from Togith, or how long he's been out. Two other clues tell him that he's in Beduin. The Cootie and Elrod are there! Okay, the Cootie is about a foot taller than he was before and he's got muscles on his eyebrows, plus he's wearing some outlandish costume, but it's definitely the Cootie, for some reason people are now referring to him as Captain Cockroach, and lining up to give him money for war bonds, apparently they seem to think they're at war with the Hsifans, who they disparagingly refer to as the Hsiffies. Elrod is the Roach's assistant, he's wearing a mask and he calls himself Bunky, but he's Elrod all right. Curious about what is going on, Cerebus makes his presence known to the two, and demands to be told what's happening. Captain Cockroach, an obvious parody of the WW II version of Captain America and Elrod/Bunky, so named because it sounds so much like Cap's teenage sidekick Bucky Barnes, take Cerebus to their boss; the President of Lower Felda, Weisshaupt. This is news to Cerebus, because he had been under the impression that Lower Felda was ruled by a council, not the one official. Using the Cockroach and the threat of a non existent attack by the Hsifans, Weisshaupt; a political wheeler dealer who resembles George Washington (maybe it's the wig) first built his personal fortune, and then got Lower Felda's economy back on track and made himself the President. Realising that Cerebus could be a hindrance or a help, depending on how he was treated, Weisshaupt drugged the aardvark, and sent him out on patrol with the Roach and Elrod/Bunky. They were attacked by a Hisfan assassin, because of the drug Cerebus had been given by Weisshaupt, he kept slipping in and out of a drugged state, and was unable to adequately protect the Cootie or the albino, and Elrod/Bunky was killed.

The Death of Elrod had echoes of Captain America's teenaged sidekick Bucky being killed in that title many many years ago. Dave wasn't about to get rid of one of his most popular recurring characters this early in what he had decided was going to be a 300 issue run. He used the death of Elrod to lampoon a comic book called Deadman by Neal Adams. The spirit of Elrod left the albino's bodym and took over other peoples bodies, in this case he initially moved into the body of the Hsifan assassin, and took to calling himself Deadalbino (get it!). I didn't know until I read the intro exactly what Dave was making fun of. Although he says he wasn't really a student of comics, someone who can pull something that obscure out to do a parody of couldn't be anything but a student. Once Weisshaupt found out that Elrod could move into any body he wanted at will, he saw a use for that talent. Using Elrod's somewhat unique talent, Weisshaupt could remove any opposition, and make his own political position near impregnable. Where Elrod is concerned, though, things are never that simple. For ease of transport they ordered Elrod back into his own dead body, he got stuck there and brought himself back to life, but it unravelled all of Weisshaupt's grand plans, and left both the President and Cerebus quite literally trying to outrun the authorities. Weisshaupt slipped on the snowy street, and Cerebus left him there. By this time Cerebus had learned that he had been out of it for some time, and in that period his army of T'Gitan mercenaries had attacked Palnu, been routed and destroyed by a combination of the Palnan army and hired mercenaries. So he squeezed out of the bars in a gate into Beduin, and headed off into the snow.

As the title might suggest The Beguiling is Dave's version of the Clint Eastwood film of the same name, starring Cerebus, instead of the gravelly voiced actor. In his flight from Beduin Cerebus had ripped his leg open on a jutting nail, and was dying from the wound. He was slogging through the snow, and fighting to stay conscious, he passed out in sight of a large farm house. The house was actually a private girl's school, with only 3 students, 3 very attractive girls in their late teens. They took Cerebus to their headmistress. She sees that Cerebus is completely helpless and puts him to bed, intending to nurse him back to health. Strangely enough Cerebus becomes quite protective of the girls and their headmistress, and when a mercenary scout forces his way into the house, the aardvark drags himself out of his bed to protect the girls, only to find that one of these sweet innocent young ladies had quite cold bloodedly put a crossbow bolt through the intruder. As the headmistress tends to him, Cerebus apprises her of the political and military situation in the country. The soldier will not be the last one and they will have to take steps to protect themselves if they wish to remain unmolested. Two more soldiers arrive, one who has a long standing grudge against Cerebus, as they are using Cerebus as part of their plan to kill the men and ensure that no more come their way, this is rather inconvenient. The aardvark is incredibly lucky, and the girls and their surprising old headmistress are not without resources. The soldiers end up dead, and Cerebus is allowed to continue his convalescence.

I really enjoyed the early part of Swamp Sounds. It was an amusing scene with Cerebus and the girls conversing. Dave did this sort of thing best, and Cerebus could be remarkably funny and sensitive all at the same time when he was in the mood. He managed to prevent one of the girls from making a mistake, break a crush on him and protect the dreams of one of the others, all at the same time in this touching scene. There's also an amusing take from the girls on how they see others that Cerebus has had dealings with such as Lord Julius and Elrod. Night after night Cerebus hears strange noises coming from the houses basement. Eventually he creeps from his bed to investigate the sounds, and finds that the headmistress is not actually a woman, but an old bald man, the wizard Professor Charles X Claremont. To get the joke behind the name you needed a working knowledge of early 80's comics. The Professor Charles X was obviously the leader and founder of the X-Men, Professor Charles Xavier, or as he was more commonly known, Professor X. The Claremont was the surname of the X-Men's most popular and famous author, British wonder kid Chris Claremont. Claremont and Dave were mutual admirers of each other, and that's where Professor Charles X Claremont came from. Claremont would return the favour by having the X-Men feature a large purple demon who resembled an aardvark and spoke in the 3rd person, he went by the name of S'ym. It wasn't until I started to read Cerebus that I realised where S'ym came from. Professor Claremont perfected a sorcery that can bind people together. What he does is to meld his 3 pupils together, and gets a huge shambling semblance of a female that he calls Woman Thing.

This Woman, This Thing was a parody of Marvel's Man-Thing and DC's Swamp Thing. The reason Dave made the Man-Thing a Woman-Thing was at the time Marvel was on a kick of doing female versions of their most popular male heroes, eg: Spiderwoman, She-Hulk. Besides he couldn't very well call it Man-Thing, could he? Cerebus, the Professor and his creation make their way to a nearby castle, intending to free the local villagers of the terror that inhabits the castle. This 'terror' is a crazy, trendy, incredibly wealthy artist who uses creatures such as the Professor's, as art. He has his own version, he calls it Sump Thing. The Woman-Thing and Sump Thing fight, the Professor gets involved and all 3 tumble into a bottomless pit. The artist finds it inspiring, but then realises that Cerebus' companion has been killed. Cerebus, once he sees the opportunity for some guilt money, plays it for all it's worth, and the artist loads him down with valuables to assuage his own guilty conscience. Maybe things are looking up for the aardvark.

Swords of Cerebus #5: Champion, Fluroc, She-Devil in the Shadows, Mind Game

The opening page of Champion is classic Cerebus, a close up of the aardvark's extremely annoyed face, dripping wet. Cerebus is cursing Lord Julius as the horse he was given to ride out of Palnu on broke a leg, forcing him to drag 8 bags of gold through some foul weather. The fact is that Cerebus doesn't have to carry the entire 8 bags, he could bury 7 of them somewhere, get to a town, hire a wagon and team and tools, dig them up, and go back in style. Unfortunately the earth pig's mind doesn't work that way, if you have money you hang on to it. Cerebus has made and lost far too many fortunes to leave something like that to chance. He comes across a hovel, offers the penniless inhabitants some of his gold to leave it, and decides to wait out the weather there. While relaxing in the hovel, and planning out his next move there is a knock at the door. Standing outside are 2 T'Gitan mercenaries who claim to be part of an army attacking Palnu.

Cerebus lets them in, and meets Gudre and his son Stromm. Their mortal enemy is Palnu's heroic general Commander Krull, the whacko who recites his own memoirs to a personal assistant at all times. Dave admitted to watching a lot of sitcoms during the writing of this, and said that Krull was a cross between Conan (who he certainly resembles facially) and the insane Colonel Flagg from M*A*S*H. The reason for the T'Gitan's animosity was that Krull ordered Stromm's tongue be torn out. Although it didn't do much for poor Stromm, it benefited his father, given the boy's size and musculature development his lack of being able to vocalise enabled Gudre to pass his son off as Stromm God of Thunder, and son of the one true God Tarim, which meant a large number of T'Gitan mercenaries flocked to his cause. Meeting Cerebus also helps Gudre. Cerebus never passes up an opportunity to make money, and he's amoral enough to turn on a former ally without giving it a second thought. Gudre's target is the Palnan trading city of Fluroc, which is guarded by Krull. Krull may be an egomaniac, but he's also a talented warrior. Cerebus hatches a plot to take Krull out of the picture, and allow the T'Gitan mercenaries to take over an undefended Fluroc.

Fluroc finds Cerebus and the mercenaries holed up in the now deserted town, they having killed most of the inhabitants. The main joke in this issue was how many different ways the T'Gitans could mispronounce Cerebus' name. The T'Gitan accent was germanic, it having come to Dave while watching reruns of Hogans Heroes. My personal favourite was how Graus, the most prominent mercenary said the name, making it sound like 'Zerbutz.' I can remember reading the first page, and a bit with Graus repeating the name thinking 'What the hell is he talking about?' until it finally dawned on me that this was how he said Cerebus. Graus tells Cerebus how the Stromm legend got started, and Cerebus admits to himself grudgingly that Gudre is one smart operator. The T'Gitans are thrown into a panic when a trading caravan arrives at Fluroc. Cerebus tells the traders that the city was overrun by plague, and he is one of the few survivors. He convinces the traders that having entered the city they have now contracted the plague, and can only be saved by taking some of a liquid that he has. He of course is not going to part with his only defence against the deadly disease cheaply. This allows him to take the merchants for nearly everything they have in exchange for a flask of what is most probably water or T'Gitan beer. Speaking with the mercenaries, and seeing how incredibly gullible they are he starts to think that maybe Gudre wasn't all that smart after all.

Cerebus took Graus to Togith where he intended to sell the jewelry he had conned from the merchants to raise an army of pikemen to continue the attack on Palnu. While there, Graus became entranced by a fortune teller called Perce. Cerebus found that if he could obtain another golden owl like the one he had been given by the traders in Fluroc he could raise his army. Contacts told Cerebus that a man named Hortne may be able to assist. Once he arrived at the tavern where Hortne lodged he found it in uproar, largely due to some menace that was in Hortne's apartment. Always the skeptic Cerebus investigated and came face to face with Red Sophia! Although this female warrior looked and dressed like Sophia, Cerebus decided she could not be the wizard's daughter. For one she hardly said a word, and Sophia was rarely ever lost for one of those, and the other thing that she was a better fighter than Cerebus remembered Sophia being. Once past her he discovers that Henrot (Sophia's father) was behind it. The female warrior outside his inner sanctum is a construct he devised to give himself some peace and quiet. As a favour to Cerebus, Henrot gives him a magical twin to the golden owl, which will disappear in 6 months. Graus is still with Perce, who drugs Cerebus, and sends the T'Gitan back to Gudre with a letter supposedly from the aardvark. No reader knew who Perce was or what her game was, but we were about to find out. Perce was the first Cirinist we ever saw.

Dave was becoming rather interested in artistic games when he put out Mind Game. Legendary comic book artist Neal Adams had on more than one occasion hidden a giant drawing of the head of one of the characters in what he was working on amongst the art work. Dave decided that with 19 issues of Cerebus under his belt it was time to stretch himself artistically, and do something similar. If you cut up the pages of Mind Game and reassemble them the right way you get a picture of Cerebus. Having virtually no artistic talent whatsoever I can't even imagine how hard this is to do, and create a coherent story around it at the same time.

I may be a little over effusive with the praise there. Mind Game isn't the most coherent of stories, actually it's downright weird, but it's still incredibly important in the development of the book and the narrative. Mind Game came out about a year after Dave had been hospitalised by his mother and wife following several days of taking LSD, that's where the 300 issue run idea came to him and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mind Game was also born about then.

The entire story takes place inside Cerebus' mind. The drug that Perce gave him was mind altering, and also put him in a state bordering comatose. He was speaking to Perce and someone she referred to as Mother Wenda. Perce and Wenda were both Cirinists. The Cirinists were a group of ultra feminists who followed a woman calling herself Cirin, and believed that the dominant God figure was actually called Terim and was female. They were in opposition to the male dominated church of Tarim and the hedonistic Illusionists; led by another shadowy character called Suenteus Po. Readers also met Po for the first time in this issue. I have to admit I liked Po, he was infuriating, but very funny. Exactly what it is about Cerebus that piques the interest of the Cirinists is not explained, although it is hinted that it could have something to do with him being an aardvark. Using Po's advice, and his own intelligence Cerebus manages to divert the Cirinist's attention from him and onto a group of helpless Illusionists, although the issue ends on a massive cliffhanger with Cerebus passed out face down in a sea of blackness, without Wenda from the outside, and Po from within being able to elicit any response from him. Gulp.

Scott Lynch

I know this has nothing to do with Cerebus, but occasionally the space between my ears is occupied with things over than the avaricious aardvark, and this is one of them. I’m a long term fantophile (probably an obsession that began when I first picked up The Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton when I was but a small child) and always on the look out for something new and interesting to excite my synapses. For fantophiles 2006 was a great year.

3 (count them! 3!) new authors burst onto the scene with stunning debuts (I've been advised by none other than Joe Abercrombie that Pat Rothfuss was actually 2007, so there were 2 stunning debuts in 2006, thanks for making me look stupid Joe. I can do that all on my own, thanks very much!), one was Joe Abercrombie with The Blade Itself (the man is a machine, 3 years later and he’s completed that trilogy, written one standalone set in the same world and already embarked on another standalone, which he believes will be published early in 2011. A machine I tell you! A machine!), Patrick Rothfuss put out The Name of the Wind (I personally wasn’t that excited by this, it was competent enough, he uses words well and I’d like to see how it all turns out, but I won’t be waiting on the doorstep of the bookstore when he finally produces the sequel: Wise Man’s Fear. The publishers don’t seem to be concerned about how long a new author is taking to do this, I guess they know what they’re doing, I hope for Rothfuss’ career they’ve read the market right) and the subject of this post; Scott Lynch published The Lies of Locke Lamora. Now we can argue long and loud, and believe me people have, about who was the best debut, but for mine it was Lies. I loved this book! It’s hard to express in words why and why it had the effect it did. Happily for everyone concerned Scott soon followed up with Red Seas Under Red Skies, it wasn’t quite as good as Lies, but then again his debut was a hard act to follow. Unfortunately that was the last we saw as personal issues affected the author and he took a break from public life, this has delayed the publication of the 3^rd of the adventures of his gentleman thief; Locke Lamora Republic of Thieves.

In about 2 years Scott updated his previously active LiveJournal twice and people began to wonder if he would ever return, then suddenly about a month ago he was back! Back with a vengeance as it turned out. Regular updates started appearing on his LiveJournal, he got a Twitter account, and then marvel of marvels the long dormant webpage was updated. There was a prologue to Republic of Thieves (in this humble blogger’s opinion Scott had lost nothing, the prologue was every bit as enchanting as anything in Lies or Red Seas) and some notes or author’s musings about writing the early chapters of Red Seas.

The 3^rd bit is what got me excited and why I’m doing this, and publishing the link here. Somewhere in his long sojourn Scott revisited an old idea he’d had about a pulp style novel or serial which he called Queen of the Iron Sands. It’s in the style of the old stories published in such esteemed journals as Amazing Stories, and in some ways it seems reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs Carter of Mars series, although the main protagonist is a woman. Scott intends to publish it all online chapter by chapter and for free. It’s good stuff, no really it is, and I am not at all biased *cough* *cough*

http://www.scottlynch.us/ironsands.html

Thanks for listening, normal transmission will soon resume.

Swords of Cerebus #4: The Palnu Trilogy

Now we get to the Palnu trilogy. In his introduction Dave describes it as a 71 page story, which it actually is, it's not a 3 issue arc, it is a self contained story. It's a 71 page story in 3 chapters.

The first chapter, or rather the prologue: is Silverspoon, which was Dave's parody or homage to Hal Foster's Prince Valiant. Dave drew Valiant as Silverspoon; a spoiled, vain, rich kid who looked for adventure as his way of getting his kicks. Each page of the story was like one of the old Prince Valiant full page strips. In the intro Dave apologised if it offended any fans, as Hal Foster died not long before publication, but he had not intended any offence. The journey with Silverspoon comes to a bad end, and both Cerebus and the vain young man are held as captives by the savage inhabitants on the island they are shipwrecked on. They are rescued by forces loyal to Silverspoon's father; Lord Julius, and that is where the story really begins.

The Walls of Palnu: Lord Julius, the director of trade and elected ruler of Palnu looks, talks and acts like Groucho Marx. For those of you new to Cerebus I can see you saying "Huh?" That was my reaction at first, then I did a little research. Groucho Marx's real first name was Julius and he once played Rufus T Firefly, the ruler of Ruritainian kingdom Freedonia in Duck Soup. I do think Dave Sim's idea of using him as a main character and political player in Cerebus was inspired genius.

Lord Julius made Cerebus his Kitchen Staff Supervisor in gratitude for saving his son's life. As Cerebus soon came to learn the titles in Palnu don't mean what they say. The Kitchen Staff Supervisor is actually in charge of Lord Julius' security forces, however he can't be referred to as Director of Security Forces as Lord Julius gave that title to the Secretary of the Navy. As Lord Julius explains: 'When you're running a bureacracy, the best way to safeguard your job is to make sure you're the only one who knows how the whole thing works.'

Cerebus uncovered a plot to assassinate Lord Julius, and went in search of who was behind it. Cerebus managed to kill one of the assassins, but was no closer to finding out who planned it all, and that means that Lord Julius' life is still in danger. The old Cerebus fur smells when he gets it wet gag is recycled.

A Day in the Pits: After trying and failing to advise Lord Julius to take less risks, Cerebus continued his search for the revolutionaries who were planning to kill Lord Julius, overthrow his government and take over. The search led him to some pits under the city. Lord Julius and Cerebus came across a giant snake. Cerebus battled and killed the snake, but the revolutionaries were still at large.

A Night At The Masque: despite the danger Lord Julius held a gala ball. Cerebus attended in order to protect his employer and the readers are reintroduced to two old friends: Turg and E'Lass from issue #6 (it is no accident that these two reappear in this issue as there is another echo from issue #6 at the end of the story). E'Lass had his eyes on a diamond worn by one of the guests. At some point he became separated from Turg and it was never explained what became of E'Lass' large, not so bright protector. E'Lass managed to separate the diamond from the owner, but as Cerebus followed the head conspirator into the same set of tunnels as E'Lass fled to, the thief thought the aardvark was after him. Cerebus failed to find E'Lass, and the thief got rid of the diamond and promised to go straight only to discover he was never the object of Cerebus' search. Cerebus unmasked, and then killed the leader of the revolutionaries, who was actually Lord Julius's Social Secretary, and then he left Palnu. As Lord Julius watched Cerebus ride away a messenger delivered a message from his niece: Jaka.

Aaaaarrrggghhhhhh!

Swords of Cerebus #4: Black Magiking

I apologise for the brief absence, the computer wasn't cooperating, now I'm back here we go.

The 4^th Swords of Cerebus collection really should have contained just issues #14, #15 & #16. That would have of course left no room for issue #13, and at some point that does become important later on, so the publishers were really between a rock and a hard place there, but Swords of Cerebus #4 is really all about the Palnu Trilogy, in fact it even has the words ‘The Palnu Trilogy’ on the front cover with a picture of Lord Julius, but I’m getting ahead of myself and spoiling the fun for everyone. I'm only going to cover issue #13 in this post. The Palnu Trilogy deserves it's own post.

Issue #13: Black Magiking was what the readers were coming to recognise as a ‘standard’ Cerebus story. Having lost all of his ill gotten gains in Beduin, courtesy of the Cootie’s insanity and Elrod’s meddling, Cerebus is once again somewhere out in the boonies. He is found by a couple of hunters from an isolated village. Curiously enough these two yokels not only recognise that Cerebus is funny looking they think he’s a demon of some sort. It didn’t hit me at the time, but thinking back on it this is the reaction you would expect a 3 foot tall, talking bipedal aardvark to provoke everywhere he went, unless of course he happened to be in the world from Alan Dean Foster’s Spellsinger series.

A nicely drawn fight scene followed, I think the fight scene was there just for the sake of having a fight scene. It was rather apparent that the hunters were hopelessly outmatched, yet when they suggest bringing Cerebus before their priest he appears bound to a chair in the next panel. I don’t know if anyone has ever asked why he went so willingly when he didn’t have to. As priests tend to be in Cerebus, this one was completely deranged, but saw a use for Cerebus beyond drowning him or burning him at the stake, or however the villagers preferred to deal with their demonic monsters. This particular village is at the mercy of a powerful wizard called Necross the Mad. The priest believed that Cerebus may have been able to help them with Necross, possibly he recognised the aardvark’s talent for mayhem. It’s another thing that I don’t believe is totally explained. Cerebus, along with the priest, go to Necross’ castle and Cerebus meets the wizard himself, he is quite undeniably insane, but not dangerously so, at least Cerebus thinks so until Necross shows him Thrunk. Thrunk is a huge stone golem which Necross intends to use to take over his little corner of the world. He was also a parody of The Thing from the Fantastic Four. Necross taunted the priest and this time to the wizard’s surprise he wound up with an arrow through his chest rather than a harmless incantation flung his way. Unfortunately for the priest Necross transported his consciousness into Thrunk. Cerebus took that as his cue to get out of the castle and Necross/Thrunk crushed the priest. Happily for Cerebus the priest threw away the heavy gold religious icon he was carrying when Necross crushed him and it landed where the aardvark was standing outside the castle, so the whole episode wasn’t a complete waste of time.

There were a couple of themes in this that were common throughout the book’s life. One was religion. Religion played a large part in Cerebus. Dave was an atheist for the most of the time he spent writing the book, but he underwent a religious conversion of sorts towards the end of writing it. I’m not sure if he had some less than pleasant experiences with religion earlier in life, this may have been why he tended to portray religion and religious figures in the unflattering manner that he did. The second regular occurrence was the parodying of a character from another comic. We’d already seen The Batman as The Cockroach and now The Thing. It shouldn’t surprise, presumably Dave was a fanboy before he started his own book. I found it interesting that, The Cockroach aside, he tended to use Marvel characters more than DC ones. It’s possible that because I was almost exclusively a Marvel fanboy I didn’t pick up on the DC parodies as easily.

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.