CCTV cameras not helping anybody solve the vast majority of crimes – but certainly keeping people off the unemployment rolls…
(I’m still doing screen captures of articles – but WordPress seems to smoosh the ones I post to illegiblity. If I figure out what I’m doing wrong, I’ll update the post…)
From Wikipedia:
First part of the story-arc Going Home. Cerebus and Jaka travel across land, then on a river boat. Cerebus is eager to make as much time as possible, as he fears being trapped in the mountains near Sand Hills Creek by winter, but instead he indulges Jaka’s desire for shopping and public appearances.
(We also get a good look at Cerebus’ jawless mouth. Priceless!)
Along the way, they encounter veiled hostility from the Cirinists. Cerebus and Jaka’s relationship begins to show signs of deterioration, and Jaka is almost tempted away by F. Stop Kennedy (a fictionalised F. Scott Fitzgerald), a writer who has accompanied them on their river boat.
Frustrating, that’s what it is. The Fall and the River part of this volume should have been self-contained on its own, rather than shoehorned into the greater Cerebus story arc. Gorgeous art, well-written, but in my opinion, another digression…
At least here, we get some depictions of the military (in earlier volumes, Sim would allude to divisions of pikemen or some such, but would never illustrate them…)
From Wikipedia:
Eventually Jaka’s ex-husband Rick arrives at the bar. He has significantly aged, become a heavy drinker (he could barely tolerate alcohol in Jaka’s Story), and it is gradually revealed that the mental and emotional scars from the events at the end of Jaka’s Story have left him mildly insane. Rick is working on a book about his life, which gradually becomes a religious work in which Cerebus is a holy figure and Rick his follower. Joanne returns and taunts Cerebus by courting Rick. At the end of the book, Rick departs, for reasons not entirely clear, and tells Cerebus that he will see Rick only once more in his life. After Rick has left, Jaka shows up at the bar, and she and Cerebus depart together, heading for Sand Hills Creek.
Yet another interesting digression from the “main” plot line. Look – even Sim realizes that the story line might be getting too esoteric for the average reader…
And, finally, the “jump the shark” moment for me – Sim puts himself graphically into the narrative…
And more fantasy elements as well, which dropped me right out of the narrative…
Can Sim recover me with some sort of Hail Mary Pass through the last volumes of the narrative? Stay Tuned…
Plus – I’ve been reading ahead (on Going Home right now) and found this passage in the notes at the back…
Part of my ongoing experiment to incorporate text pieces into a comic book story so that the reader actually reads them instead of skipping over them…”Oh shit. Do I really have to read all THIS?”…Yes, Dave, you have to read all one page of it.
Chasing Scott (notes on Fall & The River, Going Home, third printing August 2000)
The only problem being – there’s more than just one page of it.
When adding text like this (I would say), don’t go in for lengthy passages like this, especially if they’re in faux-King James or what have you) and distill the essence down to the really important stuff. Just because you have 6000 pages to fill doesn’t mean that you have to bore the reader. Especially when you’re using this as a plot point for the rest of the story…
Just a quick one – What an attention whore Tarantino is! Not content with making a ripping good (if a little overlong) WW2 picture, he’s gotta throw the historical revisionism in there!
I won’t say what that revisionism is, but in my heart I know it’s there because it wouldn’t be brilliant Tarantino if it hadn’t.
AND MORE (INVISO-TEXT): As to the “Jewish Revenge Fantasy” angle – how wouldn’t that work if the Basterds hadn’t killed Hitler, but some fictional Nazi group instead? It will be intersting if T. goes all in for the rest of his filmmaking career with his own mythology. Not that anybody hasn’t done so before, but this would be the first time for a major director to do so…
Beyond this list here:
http://www.appleseedinfo.org/pdf/what_to_bring_shoot.pdf
Here’s some stuff I think I could have used on my last Appleseed:
A small set of binoculars (you’re not allowed to check your target after each course of fire – this might help to check your NPOA easier)
Some sort of cover for your rifle during the lunch break (my rifle got mighty toasty in the sun)
A Shamwow-sort of product (for putting water on, and putting on your head in the hot, hot sun.)
A proper shell extractor for your rifle (there was a guy down the firing line who had to keep extracting shells with a collapsible cleaning rod)
I had forgotten just how exhausting an Appleseed was. Don’t get me wrong – it was fun as well, met some great people, re-dedicated myself to getting that Rifleman patch (3 people got it yesterday, if I recall correctly).
It’s just the stand-to-prone, stand-to-seated, prone only, over and over again, at Rifleman’s cadence, on knees and elbows already rubbed raw, in the heat. “Draining” seems to be a word that’s too limiting, even though we all were keeping hydrated throughout the day. And I also understand why we were doing this – the training under stress would be a great help if we ever had to use the skills we were building – still: I don’t believe I was doing myself any favors by sticking around to the second day.
However – I finally learned how to make the damned loop sling this time, and managed not to shoot any targets but my own. I’ll have to do some serious study on my own for a good long while now.
It took me a while to write about this, but I thought it was a strange enough phenomena to commemorate…
Went out to zero my rifle for the Appleseed in Bristol happening in 2 days – just for giggles, I decide to turn a new target over and stick a high contrast dot on the back to see what would happen…
My group immediately tightened up (that circle is about 2 1/2″ in diameter). 25 yards, offhand. Of course I’m rushing the shots sometimes and still anticipating the recoil, but I think I’m going to do a lot better at the Appleseed this time…
From Wikipedia:
Cerebus hangs out in and eventually becomes bartender in one of the Cirinist’s bars where “degenerate” men are essentially quarantined from the female citizens. Described in the trade paperback’s introduction as based on a bar that Sim frequented during a near-alcoholic stint between relationships, the series features various parodic characters who come and go while Cerebus remains stationary. Cerebus begins a somewhat reluctant relationship with a woman named Joanne, who was first introduced in one of the possible futures with Jaka that “Dave” showed Cerebus in Minds. Enjoyed by a number of fans as a return to the “earlier, funnier” Cerebus.
Almost a Cheers episode transported to Estarcion – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Couple of guest appearances (I think) by other artists as well – I think this is Don Simpson…
The character incidentals would work well in another story, say, in present day Ontario – so why weren’t they set there, with only humans as characters, instead of the funny animal aardvark comic?
Aside from another place where the story should have been divorced from Cerebus-world entirely, Sim shows off (again) the mastery he has with caricature and dialog…
It’s weird…having to rage impotently at the Artist way, way after the fact like this, but then, there it is.
ADDED BONUS: The Cerebus Wiki…
Clarity, finally.
From Wikipedia:
Fourth and concluding part of the story-arc Mothers and Daughters. Cerebus and Cirin ascend, then are separated by a mysterious force. As Cerebus flies through the solar system, he is shown images from his past and is forced to reconsider his actions and his faith. He then encounters a disembodied voice calling itself “Dave” that acknowledges itself as Cerebus’s creator.
“Dave” shows Cerebus the history of the Cirinist movement, revealing that Cirin is actually named Serna and was the best friend of the real Cirin (the old woman Cerebus encountered in Women), but usurped Cirin’s leadership and effectively exchanged identities with her. “Dave” then gives Cerebus information about his past, showing that Cerebus unwittingly ruined his original destiny, causing chaotic repercussions which have influenced most of his adventures. Cerebus demands that “Dave” make Jaka love him; in response, “Dave” shows Cerebus visions of possible futures between himself and Jaka, all of which are disastrously flawed for both of them due to Cerebus’ nature. After a period of penance and self-reflection on Pluto, Cerebus asks “Dave” to place him in a bar he remembers from his mercenary days.
I wish the exposition of the Serna/Cirin backstory had not come as a Deux Ex Machina moment in this book. ”Dave” telling Cerebus this information feels to me a bit like grasping straws – “What do I fill the issue with now?” or alternately, “I don’t want any of the backstory I made up for the novel that no one may ever see going to waste – howabout inserting a little into the current issue?”. So we are treated to a great deal more exposition about how much of what Cerebus has experienced in the preceding issues fits into his life (Inviso-text follows)
…such as Elrod (who disappears in Reads) being described to Cerebus by “Dave” as being “a manifestation of your self-deception, incompetence and bluster”. Lame.
Sim gets points for introducing the old “injury to the eye” motif in an interesting way (in fact, the series’ later volumes are peppered with small homages to comic history).
If Sim could only have resisted the impulse to insert himself into the comic – again – at the end, and given his character something of a grace note to end the story on, Sim would have been free to focus his creativity on anything that suited his fancy. However, the story goes on…for another 100 issues…
Or: Suenteus Po Expains it All for You.
From Wikipedia…
Third part of the story-arc Mothers and Daughters. This book primarily consists of two long text pieces. The first revolves around an author of “reads”, heavily illustrated books in Cerebus’s world. In this story, there is a strong thread about the dangers of commercial success and “selling out”. It is generally viewed to be Sim’s treatise on why independent comic publishing is preferable to publishing houses. The series moves from this storyline to a long essay attributed to Viktor Davis, a fictional “reads” author. This essay puts forth a theory on the nature of the genders, describing “the Female Void” focused on feeling, and “the Male Light” focused on reason. These two stories are accompanied by a long discussion between Cirin, Astoria, Cerebus, and Suenteus Po. Po gives information about aardvarks, including that all aardvarks have Cerebus’ “magnifier” quality, and attempts to convince each of the others to abandon their pursuits of power and return to what they enjoy doing most, then leaves them to their fates. Astoria is convinced and also leaves, but not before giving Cerebus information about her history with Cirin and also informing him of his hermaphrodite nature. Cerebus and Cirin then engage in a long and brutal fight, which leads to the beginning of another ascension.
Part the first – the comic part
I enjoyed the Suenteus Po exposition-fest (always nice to clear up confusion),
and I did like Sim letting Astoria go out on something like a grace note.
The revelation that Cerebus is a hermaphodite comes here as well…
What? Like the talking aardvark wasn’t enough for you jaded graphic novel readers?
The latter half of the comic dealing with the fight between Cerebus & Cirin was appropriately brutal (though headache inducing in parts). Had I the means (and the balls – telling someone to fix his life’s work; how gauche), I’d ask Sim not to go nuts with the “drawing in the typography” stuff – it’s a nice emphasis once in a while, but lots of it gets the average reader like me lost.
Part the Second – the text pages
Fine – he writes about selling out – many artists do. But then he goes into the Male Void section of this essay. I can’t vouch for the veracity of what he talks about vis-a-vis Alan Moore (to name but one example) , but is the point Sim making in this essay the same one that Kim Du Toit made here…
http://www.theothersideofkim.com/index.php/essays/41/
albeit from a different angle?
