Cops on the moon, super hero cops and various non-cop-related titles (2017 review, finale)

My connection to the world of comic books has felt a bit off ever since I quit working for Marvel in 2012. Perhaps I miss the shared universe concept, the excitement of seeing different creators and their characters playing off of each other. Maybe. Still, I got into a few titles this last year.

What was the best new comic I read last year? I dunno. Let's say Mooncop or Baking with Kafka by Tom Gauld. The latter book is a collection of cartoons, while the former is a graphic novel about a police officer on the moon - unfortunately, people are steadily leaving the moon so his job seems to be a pointless one. It's funny and heartfelt.

I read a lot of other books from Canada's Drawn & Quarterly including Hostage by Guy Delisle and both of his Bad Parenting books, plus Rolling Blackouts by Sarah Glidden, which I reviewed here.

I followed Deathstroke by Christopher Priest, Joe Bennett, Carlo Pagulayan & others for most of the year until the book shifted from bi-monthly to monthly status and increased its cover price. Priest seemed to be having the time of his life playing on the fringes of the DC Universe while crafting a complex series loaded with conflicted characters. It's very much like his Black Panther, only with an amoral unstoppable protagonist. You can read one of my reviews from the past year here.

I'm also following G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero by Larry Hama & S. L. Gallant, which spent most of the last year creating a new Snake Eyes for the series (Hama killed off the most popular Joe recently). I'm reading Cerebus in Hell? by Dave Sim which has been published in various different parody title formats (ie, Strange Cerebus) and while it sure ain't Cerebus proper, it makes me chuckle. Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai published a number of issues last year and it's as consistent and strong as ever. I also dipped into the past for Top Ten by Alan Moore & Gene Ha, which I missed back in its heyday; it was as complex as I expected from Moore, but I had difficulty sorting out my feelings about the large cast.

For a time I followed the controversial The Divided States of Hysteria by Howard Chaykin, right up until my comic shop stopped putting it on the shelves! It was easily the second-most reviled book of 2017 (after Marvel's Secret Empire) and isn't that enough reason to check it out? I wrote up my thoughts here.

As I had thoroughly enjoyed the film Edge of Tomorrow I decide to give the earlier manga version a try and read All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka & Takeshi Obata. It has many differences compared to the film and definitely opts for less-optimistic ending. I'm still following Astro City by Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson, which had a few noteworthy issues last year, particularly a two-parter about a man who learns to be a hero from the example of his dog.

Some more recent reads of mine include the Charles Dickens adaptation Marley's Ghost by Gideon Kendall, which I reviewed here; Captain Kronos by Dan Abnett & Tom Mandrake, reviewed here; The Sworn Sword by Ben Avery & Mike S. Miller which is set in the world of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones world but is a shade more optimistic; the M. R. James adaptations found in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Vol.2 by Leah Moore, John Reppion & others, reviewed by me here; and the European book Alter Ego: Camille by Pierre-Paul Renders, Denis Lapiere & Mathieu Reynes, which I hope to review soon as it has elements worth talking about... and people don't seem to be talking about it online.

Happy 2018!

"...And here are the people forced to argue about 90s alternative rock for the rest of eternity!" Cerebus in Hell #0 review

It has been 12 years since Dave Sim's Cerebus ran to its long-awaited conclusion. Sim has not exactly been idle since then, what with his book glamourpuss and his plan to publish The Strange Death of Alex Raymond. His recent alliance with IDW has even led to Sim drawing the occasional cover or short story for them. Unfortunately, a hand injury in 2015 has seemingly left Sim unable to draw, his future as an artist very much in jeopardy. Cerebus to the rescue!

Cerebus in Hell #0 is the introduction of Sim's new Cerebus product, picking up where the 300 issue series left off. If you read all the way to the end, you may recall it concluded with the abominable aardvark dying of old age and going to Hell. Ergo, Cerebus in Hell is set in Hell. Makes sense, don't it?

As Sim is unable to draw, the solution to creating a new Dave Sim comic book has been to run everything through Photoshop; Cerebus is represented by a rather limited number of stock poses which Sim drew years earlier. The other characters and backgrounds are derived from Gustave Dore's woodcut-illustrated edition of Inferno by Dante Alighieri (the cover is a painting by Hieronymus Bosch) with Sim's computer-generated lettering providing the script.

It's appropriate to be revisiting Cerebus at this time as the character's 40th anniversary is upon us, so this could be construed as a happy accident (for we readers, not so much Sim's right hand). The form of punishment Cerebus endures in Hell is also quite delicious: having previously been the protagonist of the longest graphic novel in the English language, Cerebus is now the protagonist of a 4-panel gag strip not unlike other funny animals such as Garfield or Heathcliff. In way, Sim has gone back to his roots what with his 1970s strip The Beavers.

The jokes found within are a mixed bag, but as there's a new gang on each page there are enough laughs to justify buying the rest of Cerebus in Hell as it appears. Beyond that, the skill with which this book was created is fun in and of itself. Seeing how Sim can repurpose a character from Inferno into DC Comics' Spectre is quite neat. This comic is pretty much destined to appeal only to a small niche audience but as one within that niche, I am quite pleased.

Sixteen thoughts about Cerebus

This last weekend I finished reading the 16th and final collected edition of Dave Sim's Cerebus. It's taken me some time to get through the series so I thought it fitting to gather up some of my impressions into Sixteen Thoughts About Cerebus. As befits Cerebus, the following is a bit of rambling:

#1: Coming at Cerebus so many years after its inclusion has given me a strange perspective on the series - I say "strange" because my years as a comic book fan and collector ran parallel to the development of Cerebus, yet not once did I seek the series out nor even glimpse it on the shelves. From all I knew of Cerebus - first gleaning it was very well-considered in the 80s, later ill-favoured in the 90s & 00s - I determined I wasn't in the target audience. Who was this assumed target audience? I have no clue, although I may have imagined them as caricatures of beatniks, replete with turtlenecks, goatees and bongo drums.

When I read of Cerebus on the internet today, it's difficult to untangle how people feel about the series because they all seem to have lived through the 300-issue run. They hitched their waggons to the Dave Sim pony, only to later grow furious at said pony for choosing to ride through a muddy, swampy bog. I lack the original context Cerebus was published against and while I likely missed many, many situational references, I think I'm better off reading Cerebus now. I doubt I would have had the patience to last until #300 if I had begun any sooner.

#2: The availability of Cerebus is a tricky thing. Even though my local shop keeps two shelves worth of Dave Sim material in-stock, some volumes of the trades are not easily acquired. This delayed me from reading the series as quickly as I'd hoped - I actually thought I could read 1 volume per week when I began this more than 2 years ago! It was also during this two year period that 1) I supported the High Society Digital Kickstarter and 2) my employers (University of Calgary Library) set out to acquire a full set of Cerebus. It seems as though there was something in the air.

#3: Part of what eventually drew me to Cerebus was the knowledge Dave Sim is a fellow Canadian. Which, I think I had known for decades, yet because Canadian media tends to lower your expectations when compared to British or US standards, I think I assumed Cerebus and by extension Sim were inferior. Mea culpa. I had already come to enjoy Sim's storytelling via Judenhass and glamourpuss - finally, I know him for his most widely-read work and recognize he is easily numbered among the greatest comic book creators.

#4: I'm even fond of the very early Sim when he was still learning his craft. It's not great, but it's an earnest effort. One of the joys of the first volume of Cerebus was seeing Sim discover his talent story-by-story, until he was essentially fully-formed by the end. Gerhard's later backgrounds were certainly very fine, but the panel shapes & sizes, the facial expressions, the carefully-considered placement of captions - that's what I marvelled at.

#5: However, for me, Sim's lettering was easily the most astonishing aspect of the series. Lettering is one of those disciplines (like colouring) which fans only ever seem to bring up when it's done poorly. Sim's lettering is phenomenal. So much of his characters' personalities came through in the way their speech was designed - the shape of their words were as important as the words themselves. It became particularly noticeable in later volumes where often verbal repartee was the only "action" on the page.

#6: I'm not normally one who enjoys fiction about horrible people (hence my spurning Mad Men), and yet Cerebus' cast of terribly disappointing people are fairly tolerable. Certainly the humourous bend of the series helps. Cerebus himself was clearly unlovable by the end of the first volume and that's firmly cemented through Church & State. Yet I was willing to carry on with his story in a large part because of the humour. Even then, as awful a person as Cerebus was and as certain as I was that the prophecy of Cerebus' death would come true, I did want to see good things happen to him. Even though I'm very forgiving to fictional characters, it's strange I should be so forgiving to someone whose author was clearly not going to let off the hook. Colour me naive.

#7: Speaking of humour - Sim's range runs the gamut from pratfalls to jokes so tasteless they cross the line twice. This was a series which makes gags about hurling infants to their doom. That's jokes, plural. Fortunately, comedy was never too far from the centre of this series. I thought the Roach was an odd distraction the first time he appeared, but oh, how I came to appreciate his appearances as the series progressed.

#8: I can't say I share in those interests of Sim's which become part of the narrative, being indifferent to Woody Allen and the Three Stooges, more interested in the fiction of Oscar Wilde & F. Scott Fitzgerald than I am in their personal lives and as of yet uninterested in Ernest Hemingway. Heck, I'm not even a huge Barry Windsor-Smith fan and the series originated as one great BWS/Conan parody. Regardless, at no point was I unable to follow the narrative because of Sim's references; no one ever seems to interpret art in the way its creator would prefer, but even though I may have been on the outside of many of Sim's references, I didn't feel excluded.

#9: The plots, though - whew! By Church & State I was having considerable difficulty keeping up with the references to the Cirinists and Kevillists, etc. Because the series was usually told from Cerebus' perspective, frequently significant events occurred outside his ken and I found it difficult to catch-up on what was occurring off-panel.

#10: For that matter, the series had a tendency to become text-heavy (oh, you think so? sneers everyone who read to the finish). Giant, staggering blocks of text broken up by illustrations, rendering the series as much of an illustrated novel as it was a comic book. This is the one place where I think serialization held an edge over the collected format - I think I would have been a more attentive reader had I been handed an issue of text-heavy Cerebus, as opposed to, say, 100 text-heavy pages in the Latter Days trade. Similarly, while I digested glamourpuss just fine as a serial, I doubt I could endure it as a collected work.

#11: Is the later Cerebus any good? I think so. The religious commentary seemed to be a diabolical test of the audience's willpower, but Latter Days contained many gems: notably, the tournament between Cerebus and Paul "Coffee" Annan was Sim at his best; the Spawn parody brought back fond memories of earlier Roach gags; I even found a lot of humour in the Three Wise Fellows, despite my lack of interest in the Stooges. It's only when Woody Allen entered Latter Days that I began to tune out; fortunately, I found the Last Day to be a very strong finish. I don't regret reading the entire series, despite the many internet screeds exhorting readers to quit after Melmoth.

#12: Misogyny. As a human on the internet writing about Cerebus, I am contractually obliged to mention it somewhere, yes? I signed the I Don't Believe Dave Sim is a Misogynist petition before ever reading Cerebus and I still hold to that opinion. I do believe Cerebus' content was, at times, misogynist - but I don't hold to the popular opinion that this content is the true face of Dave Sim. I appreciate that Cerebus tackles issues about male/female relationships from a perspective many would balk at assuming. Again, you are free to call me naive - but I enjoyed approaching these ideas from an unorthodox viewpoint. I like to question authority and people's innate assumptions - perhaps that's why I found the ideas Sim expressed fascinating. Opposing the mainstream was surely part of why I decided to tackle Cerebus to begin with.

#13: After Church & State, there's a terrible sense of melancholy which permeates Cerebus. Cerebus was informed he'd die alone and unloved and we readers had no reason to doubt he both deserved it and would get it in the end. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Cerebus - moreso than anything to do with hurled infants or its relationship to feminism - was that promise of Cerebus getting what he was due. It lurked behind every fleeting moment of happiness the character achieved in the remaining twelve (!) volumes. But then, even Cerebus' latter debauchery (opening a titty bar or founding a terrible religion) seemed fleeting - things were terrible but never so bad they couldn't get worse. At least there was nothing good to look forward to!

#14: Melancholy crept over me as well. Cerebus was doomed to struggle through 12 more volumes of his book and I, having determined I would finish reading the series, was doomed to struggle with him. Humourous asides such as Cerebus' suspenseful climbing of his chair (in the Last Day) or bizarre diversions such as Roarin' Rick lecturing Cerebus (in Guys) could only briefly distract me from the overall pointlessness of it all. The gradual thinning of the cast down to merely Cerebus himself just reinforced the sense of futility. If you dared invest yourself in the Regency Elf, Lord Julius, Elrod, Astoria, or, Tarim help us, Cirin (oh, how I perked up when her name appeared in the Last Day!), you were damned to disappointment.

#15: And there, I have to applaud Sim for daring to refuse fan service. He could have coasted from on the format popularized by High Society and Church & State for the rest of the series. He could have made Cerebus (gasp!) a decent person. Cerebus wouldn't be the only misanthropic cynic who audiences found favourable. Thinking (for instance) of Howard the Duck, there you have an outsider who sits in judgment over the rest of culture and we (presumably) want to see Howard stick it to The Man (even if The Man is us) because we identify with the underdog. Early in the series you could mistake Cerebus for an underdog protagonist who outwitted people which were his seeming betters (it even felt as though High Society were leading him to such an end). And yet, it was gradually clear that Cerebus' myopic avarice was not a design flaw for him to repair - it was his built-in feature. He was terrible and if we did see ourselves in him... well, congratulations, we're terrible too. Just because you're a cynic and an outcast, it doesn't imbue you with righteousness. All those muttonheads you look down upon? There always someone else looking down on you.

#16: The conclusion of Cerebus, in which our titular protagonist was drawn into The Light, held some interesting commentary from Sim about readers mistaking this as some form of Heavenly reaward - understandably, seeing as Cerebus' fallen castmates were waiting for him on the other side. All the same, I'm surprised so many people fell for it. Why would an eternity with all of his semi-friends be rewarding when he was so supremely unsatisfied to be with them in life? Come on, Elrod is on the other side. Ah say, it's The Other Place. Hades, that is, and ah don't mean Missouri. That's a joke, son.

"The gods themselves shall hear my tale..." Jaka's Story (Cerebus vol.5)

As promised, my gradual journey through Dave Sim's Cerebus has brought me up to the fifth volume, Jaka's Story. Cerebus has a decreased role in this entry, with the focus reserved for Jaka, Cerebus' recurring love interest. Up until now, Jaka's been somewhat thinly-defined (not being the lead character); by the end of this book, we learn the story of Jaka's isolated upbringing, adolescent humiliations and her contemporary troubles as she and her husband Rick deal with her recent miscarriage, Jaka's career as a dancer working in a tavern run by one Pud Withers, Rick's friend Oscar (Wilde) who's writing a book about Jaka's life (without her knowledge); Cerebus himself is just a minor complication in Jaka's present; by the end of the book, she's in much worse shape.

Although the first volume of Cerebus demonstrated a marked improvement in Sim's craft as the book progressed, it's clear he was still finding himself as he went into Jaka's Story; this is the first Cerebus volume which reads like a novel, rather than a set of serialized comic books collected as a trade. There are no sudden halts to spend (roughly) 22 pages with the Rolling Stones, Elrod or Artemis. It must have been something to experience when the series was first published, to find Sim mastering how he would change the monthly comic book to better suit the eventual collection - the format people like me know it as today.

In his introduction (which I withheld reading until after the story), Sim described his character Pud Withers as being one example of a certain type of men:

"Their desires, natural and organic, fester within them, their shyness and their unappealing physiques the frail but insurmountable barricade which makes what is difficult for the rest of our gender, unattainable for them. That the merest handful of them surredener, finally, to internalied rage and sick need is testimony (to me) to the monumental restraint which characterizes the existences of nearly all men..."

He also notes Pud's character is representative of "much of the comics-reading community." He's not too far wrong, from my own experiences. As Jaka's Story progresses and it becomes clear Jaka's employer is harbouring a terrible crush on her - repeatedly rehearsing in his mind how he wants to express it - I could definitely see something of myself in there. I held a weird mixture of sympathy and dread for Pud - sympathy from our similarities, dread to imagine how his story would wind up. As I surmised, there was ultimately no way Pud's story could have a happy ending. He would either force himself on Jaka or allow his feelings to fester within him until he destroyed himself... or, so I assumed.

I'm not sure why Oscar Wilde is now a character in this book - no more so than I understood why Groucho & Chico Marx or Rodney Dangerfield were series recurring characters or Margaret Thatcher one of this volume's antagonists. I'm probably hamstrung by being very under-educated on Wilde - I think I've just read the Canterville Ghost & Picture of Dorian Gray and have never read his biography. In the introduction, Sim notes Oscar demanded more effort to write than his own parody characters; there is something interesting to be found in Oscar's all-too-proud cleverness, something almost pathetic given that Rick is the only character in the book he tries to impress.

By the end of the tome as Jaka is being held by the rigidly-dogmatic Cirinists, I wondered if the story was headed to an ending similar to Orwell's 1984 - the destruction of the hero's personality, reprogrammed into a tool of the oligarchy. Instead, just as Pud's fate is worse than rejection or eternal festering, Jaka's fate is worse than 1984's Winston Smith; she isn't remade by the oligarchy through an act of betrayal, but rather has her betrayal exposed by them in the worst way.

I'm curious to see where this now-focused narrative will go; I'll hopefully obtain volume six before too long...

Back on Track: Church & State II review

Although I once marveled at how easily one could acquire the whole of Dave Sim's Cerebus in trade paperback, I have to eat a few of my words; the shop I began collecting Cerebus from was sold out of Church & State II, only the fourth volume in the series. This halted the momentum in my attempt to catch up on Cerebus and it's only recently that I finally obtained a copy.

As this volume opens, Cerebus the Aardvark, having won and lost the office of Prime Minister of Iest, became the Pope of Tarim, an office with much less regulation and far more power. Being the self-centered so-and-so he is, Cerebus wasted his time taxing the populace to provide him with all of their gold, right up until his old enemy Thrunk usurps the title of Pope and casts Cerebus from Iest.

This fourth volume concerns Cerebus' struggle to reclaim the papacy and deal with his on-again-off-again manipulative ally Astoria, who has been jailed for assassinating another Pope. It all ends up on the moon as a cosmic figure dubbed "the Judge" answers every question on Cerebus' mind, pulling no punches as he does so. Most of the recurring characters recur.

At a key moment in this tome, Cerebus rapes Astoria, in what I believe the TV Tropes site likes to call, "Moral Event Horizon." It's difficult to imagine Cerebus ever living down the rape... then again, he's never been an entirely sympathetic protagonist, so I've been well-prepared for him to perform despicable acts. Raping Astoria is terrible (no matter how equally unlikeable Astoria is), but really just the most recent terrible thing Cerebus has done. So how does one sustain interest in such a terrible person for so many more volumes? It remains to be seen, in my case...

In addition to having a massive cast, Cerebus has a complex world which I'm afraid I constantly lose track of; it seems as though whenever Cirinists are invoked I'm left wondering, "Who were they again? What was their philosophy? How are they a problem?" There's a lot of talking in Cerebus, making comic relief characters such as Elrod and Artemis (now going by "Secret Sacred Wars Roach") a welcome respite; I also note how Lord Julius' character has less to do with the plot now, so that when he appears he feels like a more absurdly genuine homage to Groucho Marx than before. Special mention must also be made of the Flaming Carrot, who appears for one chapter of the story (strangely, there's nothing in the book's indica about who owns the Flaming Carrot; pretty sure it's Bob Burden, not Dave Sim & Gerhard?).

Looking back at Cerebus and the impressive talent on display by Sim & Gerhard, I wonder at the comic book industry we have today - it seems much the same as the 1980s industry, with two companies ruling the roost, except creators now seem as eager to please Hollywood as they've ever been to cozy up with the Big Two. From this vantage, it looks like things were going to change - could have truly changed - but for some reason, didn't. Sim helped empower creators' ability to chart their own path, but it seems as though the gates he kicked open have only ever enabled a tiny handful of folks to find success doing their own thing; some have the purity of their art, but address only a niche audience. Looking at Sim himself, there was a time when Sim as near to the mainstream of comics culture as a self-publisher could get; today, he's trapped playing to a niche audience. Where exactly did comics history go wrong? Why did so many talented individuals fail while the corporations just kept growing fatter? If you know the answer, don't share it; use its power to sustain yourself.

In two days, I'll begin reading the next volume in Cerebus: Jaka's Story.

On the poor collective memory of comic book culture

Two creator-owned self-published books by well-known authors reached the end of their publication this month.

Rasl was created by Jeff Smith and began in 2008; it ran for 15 issues in total. Although it had good press when it launched and plenty of comments about the first issue, it quickly fell off the radar of the internet's comic book culture.

glamourpuss was created by Dave Sim and began in 2008; it ran for 26 issues in total. Although it had a decent amount of press when it launched, it quickly fell off the radar of the internet's comic book culture.

I feel Rasl was difficult for comic book mavens to discuss because it involved parallel worlds, quantum theory and various mysteries. It will almost certainly be vindicated over the years as people assess the collected series as a single story, rather than as irregular installments spaced over four years.

I feel glamourpuss was difficult for comic book pundits to discuss because a) it only barely concerned itself with narrative and b) was the work of Dave Sim, who is (to put it bluntly) reviled by much of the internet's comic book culture. Unlike Smith, Sim was unable to bring his series to a proper ending; he hopes to eventually finish the segments featuring "the Strange Death of Alex Raymond" as a graphic novel, but was left uncertain about his future in the comics industry.

The recent brouhaha surrounding Before Watchmen has had an interesting effect on the creator-owned comic book business as publishers of creator-owned material (notably, Image's Eric Stephenson) have publicly called out the exploitation of employees by Marvel & DC. Just this week there was a piece in Dark Horse's comics encouraging readers to support creator-owned books. It's fine that publishing groups like Image, Dark Horse & IDW can put up a united front, but what about the self-publishing creators? Smith & Sim are both perfect 10s on the scale of creators rights.

And yet, it's so easy to forget creators like Smith & Sim are on the marketplace because they don't have the marketing resources of the publishing groups. It's also easier for comic book fans and retailers to focus their attention on products they understand, not challenging material like Rasl and glamourpuss. There has been no dearth of Batman comic books for the previous 70 years (I think there's been at least one Batman comic per week for the last 20 years?) so one would think "Batman, chapter 2,096 of Infinity" wouldn't be newsworthy. However, the numbers don't lie: our comic book culture has room for books like Rasl and glamourpuss to co-exist with Batman, but overall, we'd much rather have Batman; we understand Batman.

None of this thinking is doing wonders for my sense of optimism regarding comics. Still, something will come along to take the place of Rasl and glamourpuss, just as these books followed Bone and Cerebus. At least this has been a fun journey!

Unearthed: Steve Ditko's Static

Until now, I've been using Unearthed to look back on comic books I read in my youth. Today's example does dip back into 1983, but I didn't acquire my copies until a couple of years ago. The subject is the Static serial which ran in issues #1-3 of Eclipse Monthly.

Eclipse Monthly was an anthology title run by editor/publisher Dean Mullaney and featuring work by notable creators like Doug Wildey, Marshall Rogers and Gene Colan. It had been preceded by Eclipse, a black & white magazine-format series. I collected Eclipse and the first three of Eclipse Monthly because they contained a serialized adaptation of Sax Rohmer's Dope by Trina Robbins. I started thinking about these two series again while I was reading Dave Sim's Cerebus Archive#6, wherein he discussed the mistakes Orb made, noting:

"Changing the format is a bad idea -- going from magazine size to comic book and then back again was just confusing."

And:

"Continued stories don't work in erratically published titles or anthology titles. 5- and 6- page installments are too short to "hook" the average reader. A continued story has to be book-length and anthologized stories have to be self-contained.

I don't know the full story behind Ditko's Static, but one senses editor Mullaney wanted to give Ditko a free hand in developing his own super heroes, a way of setting right the assumed indignity of being scripted by Stan Lee in the 1960s. Static was plotted, scripted, penciled and inked by Ditko, much like his Mr. A. In fact, it is very much like Mr. A...

We meet our cast in Eclipse Monthly#1; they consist of scientist Ed Serch, his assistant Mac Rey and Serch's daughter Fera (unusual names are a trademark of the series). While Rey is testing Serch's new experimental space environmental suit within a special environmental simulator, two men break in and steal the Enego device from Serch, attempting to kill Rey in the process. Instead, Rey's suit absorbs electricity and they soon discover he can use the suit's power to increase his strength.

As Serch, Rey and Fera discuss the theft of the Enego device, the series demonstrates its fatal flaw; Serch recalls how rival doctors Pety, Ems and Rale were all interested in the Enego and he's convinced Ems is behind the theft. Rey, learning quickly how to control his suit's unexpected powers, believes he can pursue the Enego thieves and stop Ems. Fera is upset with Serch and Rey, saying it isn't their responsbility, they should notify the police.

By the fourth page of Static, a lot of speechifying has set in and it's quite deflating. Arguments loop around the same issues again and again but worse, aren't even logical. Serch and Rey's decision to pursue Ems for the missing Enego is based on Serch's belief Ems is the thief. Because Fera is the series' straw (wo)man, she fails to point this out when she argues for contacting the police. I mean, there's been a theft at the laboratory and an attempt on Rey's life. Serch and Rey, how ever responsible they feel, are not qualified to solve crimes. Shouldn't they at least bring the facts to the police, even their suspicions? Serch and Rey act as though their suspicions are both a) correct and b) unpresentable to the authorities, thus justifying vigilante behaviour. Static and Fera follow the criminals in a van, because apparently the thieves didn't have enough time to get out of visual range while Rey was discovering his powers, exhibiting his powers, arguing about using his powers and convincing Fera to help him pursue the criminals. It's weak storytelling.

This isn't the first time in the series a criminal announces hearing "static" while Static sneaks around. It really doesn't work because no one talks like that. An exclamation like "hey, what's that weird static-y noise?" might pass muster, but remarking "I hear static" as though it's something you occasionally notice on the highway draws too much attention to the contrived effort at inserting the hero's name into the villains' mouths.

So, Rey goes into battle as Static to retrieve the Enego, much to Fera's dismay. As it turns out, Dr. Ems didn't steal the Enego, the other two scientists - Dr. Pety and Dr. Rale were behind the theft. Static fights Rale, who dons a nifty-looking suit with giant fists and finally electrocutes Rale by using himself as a conduit through a light socket. Static reclaims the Enego and returns to Fera, who hopes Rey "learned a lesson" from all of this, but he clearly intends to keep being Static (or we'd have no story).

Eclipse Monthly#2 continues the tale as the villain Boron tries to kidnap Dr. Otto Cern, only to accidentally kill him. Serch, Rey and Fera attend Cern's funeral and get into a two-page argument on the matter, with Serch and Rey jumping to the conclusion Cern was murdered and Fera wailing at them to let the police do their jobs. The argument runs through 14 very crowded panels, one so badly mangled that Rey is all but obscured. It was over this panel that editor Dean Mullaney argued with Ditko, ultimately driving him away from Eclipse when Ditko refused to accept Mullaney's criticism.

So, Static investigates Cern's murder and luckily Boron returns to the scene of the crime, enabling Static to defeat him and his master. However, Fera steals the Static costume and refuses to let Rey wear it again.

The third and final Static story run by Eclipse appeared in Eclipse Monthly#3. Here, Dr. Serch is kidnapped by the General to build a super weapon for him and Static has to rescue him, forcing Fera to give the suit back (strangely, this happens off-panel! Fera is seen resisting his demands for the suit, then he's Static again on the following page). Serch becomes most upset at how he agreed to build the weapon for the General, trusting in Static to rescue him; he feels he let himself down by pretending to assist the General.

It seems as though Ditko intended for the arguments between Serch, Rey and Fera to be the core of this series, given how much time he devotes to them. The problem is he runs over the same material every story, the characters unchanging in their viewpoint (although it's suggested in the third story that Serch may be reconsidering allowing Rey to use the Static suit; Rey, a true objectivist, simply notes that's Serch's right). The conflict between Serch, Rey and Fera is one note, played again and again. The series would have been stronger as a whole if Ditko had run part of his screed in each story, rather than the full argument each time. If the argument in the first story had been restricted to "is it right to become a vigilante?" it might have been readable. Instead, that argument is played in each story, along with digressions on personal responsibility, not trusting the authorities and whether power corrupts.

Through it all, I never get a good sense of who Static is. I have a pretty good understanding of Fera from the arguments she loses. Static wins every argument and every fight, taking it with the ease of shopping for groceries. I never felt Static was challenged by anything - he masters his powers, he talks circles around Fera and he beats the bad guys. And so, despite having a fight scene and at least one argument in every story, Static feels like a strip devoid of conflict; the villains and Fera are the only ones being put at risk - the hero is up on a pedestal. Ditko's Spider-Man is one of the all-time greatest super heroes in part because of how the hero would react to failure; Static's seeming inability to fail makes him rather bland.

Ditko eventually self-published the rest of Static. His Static work in Eclipse Monthly is absolutely gorgeous, so far as the artwork is concerned. Unfortunately, the unrelatable characters drag the concept down.

Yesterday I began following Cerebus

There was a time when I knew of Dave Sim's Cerebus as "one of those artsy-fartsy comic books only those Comics Journal-types read." Then I connected to the internet during the age when the series was "derided by all, especially those Comics Journal-types."

Strangely, I became a fan of Dave Sim's work through his post-Cerebus output, which certainly isn't discussed in as much volume or detail as any of his 300 Cerebus issues. I bought his 2008 graphic novel Judenhass, quite enjoyed it and soon became an infrequent follower of his book glamourpuss which started at about the same time. Recently, I began buying up the Cerebus Archive, where he discusses his attempts to break into the comic book market and the many mistakes he made as a young cartoonist; I've found the latter series to be so fascinating as a portrait of the rim of 1970s comic book culture that it suddenly struck me...why don't I read that Cerebus book which is ultimately responsible for all of these other projects?

Even though I've been attempting for years to better educate myself in the world of comics (having been a super hero-only type for far too long), Cerebus carries a lot of baggge based on the cursory information I've learned at internet columns and blogs over the last 13 years. I understand that the latter years of Cerebus become a soapbox for Sim's editorializing, but...being that I enjoy Judenhass, glamourpuss and Cerebus Archive, clearly I already enjoy his editorializing. Therefore, my decision is to start working my way through Cerebus one volume at a time until I decide I've had enough (or run out of volumes).

In fact, one of the amazing things about Cerebus is that I can easily obtain the entire series - I think every shop in town carries a set. It caused me to reflect that outside of Dave Sim and Stan Sakai, just about any highly-regarded independent comic book creator's output from the 70s & 80s is nigh-difficult to acquire. Thanks to the shifting interests of audiences, self-destructed publishers, dead creators and retired creators, you won't find many indie hits of times past on your local comic store's shelves. Heck, even a bigwig like Scott McCloud hasn't kept his colour issues of Zot! in-print.

I'm barely into the first volume of Cerebus and so far I'm enjoying it. Already I've seen a remarkable evolution in Sim's style. Early issues of Cerebus play out as something of a Conan parody, which is interesting because in Cerebus Archive Sim expresses how he had little interest in Conan, yet the parody itself is so gentle he could have run the material in Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan with only minor alterations (that the protagonist is a talking aardvark is sometimes the only "funny" part of this "funny animal" book).

Thus far the Elrod character (Elric by way of Senator Claghorn) has been a fun, broad addition to the series and in general the series' dialogue is playful and diverting, helping to steer the stories out of familiar tropes by having characters respond to outrageous situations in a realistic, comedic manner.

Cerebus: I'm reading it.

State of comics: today

"If your hobby becomes your profession, find a new hobby." - Mark Gruenwald

I always feared there was some truth to the above quote. For most of the last decade I've been toiling on projects about Marvel Comics and it gradually transforms my hobby into a chore. It becomes increasingly difficult to approach a Marvel comic - or any other super hero comic - with a genuine fascination in the narrative of the fictional universe. I can't bring myself to care about where any particular stories are going...but I can still appreciate the craft displayed in a good story which is well told.

Since I have this problem with super hero universes, it's really up to the non-super hero books to keep me going as a hobbyist; today I brought home five new comics, all them from non-super hero publishers (five different publishers too). It's been a very long time since I've shared my thoughts on what I'm buying, so why not join me? Thank you.

Sergio Aragones Funnies#3 contains various features by Aragones, some of them the type of gag cartoons he publishes in Mad, but there's also an interesting story about a feature Aragones spent some time sketching up, only to learn it had all been done before. My favourite part of this series, however, are Sergio's autobiographical features; he's lived an interesting life and this issue's tale relates how he met a famous cellist. Sergio's biographical stories are always modest and genuinely human; I hope Funnies carries on for years to come.

Of all the stories which have been told about Lewis Carroll's fiction, Snarked#0 is definitely one of them. It's written/drawn by Roger Langridge, whom I only discovered as of his Muppet Show comics, but he's quickly becoming a favourite writer of mine. Because this is a $1 preview issue, Snarked doesn't do much more than establish the setting and cast of characters for the series, which stars the Walrus and the Carpenter of Through the Looking Glass fame; the Walrus is a grifter and the Carpenter is his dim-witted accomplice. Looks good!

G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero#170 continues Larry Hama's return to the franchise he made world famous. This issue carries on various running stories about the return of Sneak Peek (and what he's been up to), Roadblock, Lady Jaye & Flint preparing for a mission (allowing Hama an opportunity to discuss handgun maintenance), Cobra Commander walking through his wax museum (a wonderfully absurd moment typical of Hama), Jane defeating Crystal Ball & Firefly (Crystal Ball being reduced to a joke) and Storm Shadow learning how his family's ninja clan wound up with a Russian branch. So far this series has been heavy on plot and I don't think it's broken out the sort of excellence I know Hama is capable of...but the plot, characters, quips and insights into the armed forces are enough to entertain me until then. Interestingly, Hama's G.I. Joe was the only book in this stack with a writer-artist collaborating team.

I picked up Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo#140 despite having missed #139 while in Angola; #139 was the first of a two-part tale, so I've spoiled myself on the resolution. This story bring back Inspector Ishida, a brilliant detective who's one of the series' best recurring characters. Part of why I enjoy seeing Ishida appear in a Usagi tale is that he's uncommonly good at catching criminals. After years and years of reading super hero comics where criminals are almost never punished, it's cathartic to read the opposite now and then.

Digging back a little ways, I bought Dave Sim's Cerebus Archive#5 as I've been gradually working my way through the series. I've never read Cerebus or much else of Sim's work, but reading Sim's account of how he attempted to break into the comic book industry in the 1970s is utterly fascinating. Of particular note in this issue is a 5-page story Sim had to fluff up to 8 pages and it did suffer from the transition. There's a lot to learn in Cerebus Archive, even if only as a series of cautionary tales.

Over all, this was a good day for me as a comic book hobbyist - humour, action, adventure, biography and a history lesson; while books such as these are being published, I shouldn't want for lack of entertainment!