Cerebus Book 6: Melmoth (#139-150)

"Aye..." - Cerebus

After the emotionally draining events at the climax of Jaka's Story, we get this.. strange little book.  Only twelve issues long, the shortest one so far, it tells two tales that only interact with each other for a couple of frames.  We get Cerebus dealing with what he believes to be the death of Jaka, and the slow decline and death of Oscar Wilde.  Not the Oscar character based on Oscar Wilde of Jaka's Story - he's in a Cirnist prison.  No, it seems after enjoying writing Oscar in that book Dave Sim wanted to do more with him, and so simply put in the "real" Oscar Wilde as a character, but uses excerpts from the letters of Oscar Wilde's friend Robert Ross about Wilde's last days and death, instead of writing new material himself.  Yes a peculiar choice which makes it a little difficult for me to write an awful lot about this volume, because over half of the text is not by Dave Sim.  In later books, F.Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway play major roles, as of course Oscar did in the previous book and are incorporated into the action in ways that make heir usage justifiable.  But here the Wilde portions of the book are far removed from the Cerebus parts, and give no insight into any ongoing characters nor do they even match a general theme.  It's the first worrying sign of self-indulgence on the part of Dave Sim, and while collected in one volume it's a pleasant enough hour's read, this would have taken twelve months to complete reading on a monthly basis and I can't imagine how annoying that must have been for the comic's audience back then.

Fuh-Fuh-Fuh-Fuuuuu!

After a short prologue showing The Roach in his disguise as normalroach spitting obscenities under his breath at the burqa clad Cirinist soldiers patrolling Iest (the full body robes, revealing only the eyes seem a strange thing for a "feminist" organisation to wear, maybe not so much in the very early 90's, but certainly odd to see now they are equated by some as symbols of female oppression.  They do get an explanation later on in another book though), we meet "Sebastian Melmoth" (the name Wilde gave himself after he got out of prison and moved to Paris) talking with "Robbie" about the Cirinist occupation and some of the strange ironies of their rule.

Melmoth: "One of the happiest of Cirin's many 'happy accidents' is complete freedom of expression.  In a society where dissenting viewpoints are suppressed those viewpoints are potent and dangerous. Where dissent is tolerated, it rapidly becomes quaint and is viewed as unsophisticated.  People merely amuse themselves with the expression of contrary opinion... Conformity then supplants awareness as the cornerstone of wisdom."

Melmoth and Robbie

 Which is a fascinating observation as to how an oppressive, authoritarian government can best deal with subversion, and makes me wish Dave Sim was writing all the Sebastian Melmoth stuff. As it is then, but for one or two scenes later on, the rest of Sebastian Melmoth's story is told via the real life words of Robert Ross, like Jaka's Story it's laid out as typewritten text on pages with one or two pictures, but with far, far fewer words per page, and unfortunately this time I have to criticise the pacing here.  It's just too slow and too uneventful especially with the lack of action going on in the Cerebus part of the storyline as well. The slower pacing of Jaka's Story was off-set by a detailed and beautifully written framing device, and frankly, Robert Ross' account of Melmoth's final days just aren't as detailed nor as movingly written and it's about a character we have never met before and who plays no role in the grander narrative, unlike Jaka. So Mr. Melmoth gets sicker and sicker and finally dies, the only time this part of the story meets up with Cerebus' is when his funeral cortege goes past the inn Cerebus is sitting outside.

The Unpleasant End Of Mr. Melmoth

I genuinely am not sure why Dave Sim felt he had to devote an entire years worth of comicbooks to pay tribute to Wilde.  I mean it's a nice idea and quite sweet, but really it should have been told in less than half the amount of issues.  If the aim was to provide some breathing room between the end of Jaka's Story and the next big arc, well again, it could have been done faster and more economically over a few months maybe.  Basically, there is no themetic reason (that I can see) why the death of Oscar Wilde needed to be told in the Cerebus storyline.  If it had been the Oscar of Jaka's Story and Dave Sim was doing all the writing then fair enough.  As it is, it is as I say pure self indulgence and in retrospect a mild warning of far greater indulgences to come...

The Cerebus storyline is even more uneventful.  Cerebus, completely shell-shocked after coming back to Pud Withers burnt out place to find Jaka gone, presumed dead, is shown blankly clutching the smoke blackened doll Missy while paying for room and board in another inn for the rest of his life.  It was

Pictured: Half Of The Book.

mentioned in the previous book, but shown more clearly here, that the net result of Cerebus-the-Pope taking all the gold out of the Iest economy, and that gold being swept up by the Cirinists during their invasion and takeover has therefore rendered the few gold coins left as insanely valuable with single coins being owned by big consortiums.  So he can pay for that lifetime lodging with the one coin he had left after the end of Church and State, and with the money from it, the inn owner Dino is able to refurbish his cafe into something planned to be quite sumptious.  And so work starts up on the improvements and as Melmoth lies dying elsewhere, Cerebus merely sits outside, day-in-day-out, unable to say much more than "Aye" or "Nay", holding Missy close to him with one hand and his sword with the other.  Haunted by strange dreams, totally desolate and lonely, having lost - he believes - his one true love on top of everything else.  I'd almost feel sorry for him if, you know, he hadn't raped Astoria.

Cerebus finally snaps out of it when he hears two Cirinist soldiers boasting of their mistreatment of Jaka while she was in jail.  He cuts them down in a blind rage, then we get a flashback to his mercenary days talking with Bear about how the Cirinists seem telepathically connected:

Bear: "They're women yeah...but they're like giant waddayacall hornets, like if you hurt one of 'em anywhere within miles of the others they all waddayacall feel it and they, you know swarm."

Women, Bees, So Easy To Get Those Two Confused...

Back in the present day and a blood spattered Cerebus  haunted again by the words of The Judge - "die alone unmourned and unloved" - comes perilously close to cutting his own throat.  But the arrival of more Cirnist soldiers snaps him out of it, and he flees.  To Be Continued...

Before we wave goodbye to this, strange, slightly pointless, grotesquely padded, non-adventure it's worth highlighting a couple of things Dave Sim says in the notes at the end of the book.

Dave Sim: "While I am not specifically a church goer, nor affiliated with any denomination or system of belief, I have appropriate respect for the Church of Rome and it's attendent Power and Mystery".
And also:

Dave Sim: "I could find no workable equivalent for 'jew' (sic) and didn't want a deluge of mail questioning the existence of Judaism in ancient Estarcion."

Remember these words, they'll be a test later on.  Next up, the beginning of the "Mothers And Daughters" four book arc, and also the start of Dave Sim's swimming into more contentious waters.  Oh it'll be such fun to talk about. But first, another guest appearence...

Cerebus Zero (#51, #112/113 and #137/138)

"Nothing ever goes right" - Cerebus

A short one today. Cerebus Zero is a compilation of the five "in between" issues, #51 (Between High Society and Church and State), #112/113 (Between Church and State and Jaka's Story) and #137/138 (Between Jaka's Story and Melmoth).  These are issues that didn't quite fit either plotwise or tonally to be attached the major arcs of the story they once they were to be compiled into trade paperbacks.

#51 - "Exodus" - is a comedic tribute to the Marx Brothers film "A Night At The Opera", Lord Julius, Duke Leonardi, Elrod, The Roach and an ex-cabinet minister all end up crammed into a small room on a ship with an increasingly angry Cerebus, check out this Youtube link for the original hilarious scene it's riffing from.  When a huge load of potatos get dumped on them as well, he makes his escape before the ship leaves, off to the pub we see him at the start of Church and State I.   It's an enjoyable frippery, but I can se why it was left off the end of High Society, giving that arc a "clean" ending with Cerebus deaprting The Regency.  And it wouldn't have fitted very well at the start of Church and State either.  As with the other issues here, this isn't a problem when you are reading month to month, but when the arcs are compiled into books the starts and ends need to feel right and so trimming the odd issue is somewhat forgivable.

Cerebus, Lord Julius and Elrod discuss politics

 #112/113 - "Square One" - has Cerebus returning to the ruined hotel at the end of Church and State where Cerebus goes to collect his few possessions.  I've praised Dave Sims mastery of sequential flow before and these issues are a prime example of his craft.  The panels lead us slowly through the hotel, showing us Cerebus' genuine sadness at all he has lost, both people and possessions and there is no dialogue until the very end.  Most notable is Cerbus contemplating snd nearly committing suicide, which he does again at a later date as well.  Haunted by The Judges words that "you will die alone.. unmourned and unloved."  According to Dave Sim's notes this was seriously considered being added to later printings of Church and State II.  But I think that book ends more dramatically and satispfyingly with the full page shot of Cerebus outside the ruined hotel.

"Hmm, maybe I Shouldn't have Done That Rape.."

#137/138 - "Like-a-Looks" - This is another comedic pair of issues that definitely would jar moodwise attached to either the end of Jaka's Story or the start of Melmoth, both of those are melancholy in tone and this silliness wouldn't fit at all.  During Jaka's Story, Lord Julius showed up in a dress briefly and chatted with Oscar.  Well it wasn't the real Lord Julius, it was a Like-a-Look, used for when it's too dangerous for the real Lord Julius to attend.  The two issues look at what happens when all the doubles met up and forget who is the real Lord Julius, with plenty of joking around.  And it's Lord Julius' last major role in the grand narrative, he's relagated to cameos after this.

I Wonder What The Collecitve Noun For Them Would Be?

Nothing vital to the main storyline is revealed in these issues. Three issues are simply enjoyable fluff, hardly essential.  For me the two mainly dialogue free issues are the best, telling us a story with just Cerebus' expressions. That said Cerebus Zero is really for completists only.

Cerebus Book 5: Jaka's Story (#114-136)

"Cerebus is on love with your wife" - Cerebus

"I know, she's great isn't she?" - Rick

After the sturm and drang of Chruch and State, the focus moves to a far more intimate tale.  One that, until the very end only has five characters in it, and instead of the wide sweep of religion and politics, we get a story all about love. Dave Sim in the introduction says he was in love when he wrote it and it really shows, the whole book is suffused in it.  The love between Jaka and her husband Rick; the unrequited love of Cerebus for Jaka and also of shopkeeper Pud Withers for Jaka; even Oscar who shows up later could be said to love Rick unrequitedly.  And it is also the start of Cerebus' true suffering.  After losing everything when he returned from the moon (and there was a time jump while he was up there of a few months) he bumps into Jaka and is invited to stay with her and Rick, in the room for the child they were going to have before Jaka miscarried.  And he has to watch her everyday with another man, listening to them argue and make up and worst of all for him, having to listen to them having sex, though truthfully this is Jaka's story, Cerebus probably contributes the least to the storyline. He's just there unable to move on just yet, aimlessly passing time in the vain hope Jaka will leave Rick and come away with him.

One thing that is most notable about the book is Dave Sim has really embraced what is now called "writing for the trade".  The books are no longer from this point onwards divided into chapters matching the original issues.  If there were titles for the issues in the original runs of comics, they have been removed for the trade paperback edtion.  And this has it's advantages and disadvantages.  It does get rid of the somewhat artifical structure of having to come to a cliffhanger climax every twenty pages and allows the book to be structured along a larger scale, starting slow and building gradually to a much bigger overall climax towards the end of the book.  On the other hand it can be frustrating for readers of the month to month comics to feel like nothing is happening for ages as the plot takes time to gather momentum.  This is now called "decompression" and Dave Sim doing all this back in the late eighties, shows just how - for good and for ill - ahead of the curve he was in creating storyline structures that would become the norm for comics twenty or so years later.

"Hi Cerebus! Don't Rape Me Please"

The framing device that runs through most of the book is a "Read" (a pulp novel with pictures) based on Jaka's early life, which we find out later in the story is called "Jaka's Story" by Oscar and "Daughter Of Palnu" by the publisher (and me otherwise it'll be confusing) and is being written by Oscar based on the things Rick has told him that Jaka told Rick.  The format is plain text with a single image per page - no speech balloons and written is a flowery but rather lovely, heartfelt style.  It begins with Jaka, orphaned by age four being looked after by a grim Nurse (whose face we never see).  A loveless existance for a child who is surrounded by the opulence of the Palnu aristocracy yet she hardly interacts with anyone besides her dour guardian, her best friend being a doll called Missy.  Missy becomes somewhat important to the plot post-Jaka's Story, acting as a kind of totem that keeps Cerebus linked to Jaka even when she is not part of the ongoing narrative.  When Jaka turns five and is allowed to keep Missy in her bedroom with her, the doll changes, from friend to protector.

Missy And Jaka In The Present Day.

"Daughter Of Palnu" - Missy was transformed... changed from a beloved confident and cherished off-spring to remote sentry and fearsome talisman, unmoving and unmoveable. For her expression of perpetual amazement was gone next morning, replaced by a new reality of unblinking watchfulness, shoe button eyes fixed firmly on the infinite, back-to-back with her reflected image, the felt mouth home to an angelic choir of one, sustaining a pure singular note of calm and serenity that shielded her mistress from both harm and worry, day-upon-day.. year-upon-year...until the years numbered seven and brought forth the night of Jaka's twelth birthday.. the night she left Palnu.. forever.

Time passes, Jaka sustains a head injury that renders her amnesiac and withdrawn.  She goes through the

The Framing Device.

next few years barely speaking, her teacher and nurse the only people she interacts with regularly. Reaching eleven though and the first stirrings of adulthood occur.  At this point she becomes obssessed with two doors.  The first one leading to a dingy room and the Hidden Door.  She fantasises about what lies behind it, first a treasure trove, then another forgotton, empty room that in her mind is already "hers".  She finally decides to open the door and just finds a normal, scrupulously maintained room.  Crushed by this anti-climax she sadly closes the door, but before she can make it back to the other door, Nurse comes looking for her.  Desperatly she holds the door closed from her side so as not to be discovered where she shouldn't be.  And this small rebellion finally sparks the aristocrat inside of her:

"Daughter Of Palnu" - Without thinking, and in consequence to her very great surprise, she suddenly said her name aloud. 'Jaka Tavers'.  The air grew redolent with the scent of new power and she smiled, briefly, but with great certainty to herself.

Thus emboldened she gives orders to her nurse and begins to grow into her role as an heir of Lord Julius and a beautiful woman, also now free to practice her dancing whenever she pleases.  The whole "door" section is a cleverly designed and compellingly written metaphor for "putting away childish things" and taking the first steps into adulthood.  But Jaka's world is turned upsidedown when Astoria arrives as Lord Julius' new young bride, and then a cruel prank played on Jaka's twelfth birthday (she arrives at what should be her party only to find it's for Astoria), drives her to flee the palace with only Missy and some jewelry she pawns for a ticket out of the city.

The interesting thing about "Daughter Of Palnu" is that you're not one hundred per cent sure how truthful it is, as it's being told to the writer by a second hand source and as a later quote will show, Oscar is not above adding embellishments to the basic facts.  Nevertheless although parts of it may not be literal truth, it feels like it contains a lot of emotional truth.

In the present day part of the tale, three new characters are introduced.  Pud Withers, an overweight and

A Tribute To Comic Fans.  Er... thanks?

repressed man.  Madly in love with Jaka, he runs the grocery and bar that is next door to where Jaka and Rick live.  He hires Jaka to dance at his bar each night, but thanks to the Cirinists controlling Iest now, and
the dangerous mountain path properties he, Oscar, Jaka and Rick occupy he has no customers for Jaka to dance for and no other customers to buy groceries but her.  Yet he pays her the same amount he charges her for her daily shop and furnishes her with extra treats as well, which we find later on has eaten away at the savings he has and he is on the edge of despair about the prospect of her leaving when he can "finance" her no longer.  Rick is Jaka's husband, a decent hearted if feckless individual who's inability to find a job drives Jaka crazy.  He loves her, she loves him, they fight, they make up and while there is a lot of love between them as the book moves along it feels like that love may not be enough.  Finally there is Oscar, the author of "Daughter Of Palnu", based very obviously on Oscar Wilde, Dave Sim has managed to capture his "voice" brilliantly and while he has an ulterior motive for spending time with Rick (gathering material for his book), he seems to be genuinely fond of him and somewhat jealous of his relationship with Jaka.

The first half of the book uses repetition to great effect, from Pud and Jaka's same conversation every morning when she does the shopping, her and Rick's repeated arguments, Pud's mentally repeated converations with Jaka revealing a little more as the book goes on as he tries to pluck up courage to tell her the truth, the same nights spent getting ready to dance for customers that never come, the repeated games of trying to get a ball into a cup between Cerebus and Rick, it all speaks to a mundanity of existence that Jaka seems to be clinging to as an anchor that contrasts with what is revealed about the opulent life in Palnu she ran away from and why she ran away from it. When Cerebus apologises to her for his prior treatment of her (which is a first for him!) she defends her choices with the following speech:

Jaka: "I love my husband.  I don't know how to put it any more plainly than that.  If you stay with us you'll be safe. But I don't love you".

Then one night the routine changes, a visitor comes to the bar and she finally gets to dance for someone.  And interestingly, for what it implies about the "truth" behind Oscar's book, he also sees Jaka dance for the first time and the previous, slightly dismissive paragraph about her dancing, is rewritten to be much more positive and effusive, couching it in terms that make us really see why Jaka is loved and fantasised about by so many men:

"Daughter Of Palnu" - "Her dancing, so perfectly refined, so joyously executed, so fully and completely realised.. brought forth from that same Primal and Fiery origin which illustrates all great Art irrespective of its age or audience... Her dance was Art.  Of that there could be no serious question for it bore within it that characteristic of Invariable Brilliance that so distinguishes True Art from its poorer relations."

Rick And Oscar On The Subject Of "Church And State" and it's author.  Meta Much?

  With the new patron promising to tell more people to come and see her, and Oscar buying expensive drinks, it looks like good things are finally happening.  But the night the first patron returns a Cirinist hit squad turn up as well.  The patron goes to attack them and is cut down immediately.  Oscar is sentenced to two years hard labour for writing without a licence.  For the crime of allowing a dancer to work on the premises Pud is also instantly killed, and the Cirinists are about to kill Jaka and Rick (Cerebus being out shopping for paint) but she claims diplomatic immunity and both are arrested and taken away.

Frightened and locked in a cell, Jaka strikes up a conversation with a woman in another cell who turns out to be her old nurse.  She's awaiting execution for being an illegal immigrant and starts singing a song, then she asks:

Nurse: "Do you remember that dear?"

Jaka: "You *sniff* used to sing that to me every night for hours and hours."

Nurse: "That time you bumped your head.  Dear Oh Dear.  I was frightened near to death.  You lying there, pale as the grave.  Your eyes like saucers.  Didn't even know if you could see me.  But as long as I was singing..."

And it's fitting in a book all about Love, we find out in the end that her nurse really did love and care for Jaka in her own somewhat gruff way.  Jaka is then taken from her cell and interviewed by Mrs Thatcher, based on the thankfully late Margaret Thatcher, ex Prime Minster of Britain.  And every feminist in the UK is rolling their eyes at Thatcher being part of any feminist movement, although their conservative anti-permissiveness would chime with her views, as she accuses Jaka of dancing to arouse men's lascivious urges. Still she is pure evil in this and that also chimes with reality so there we go.  This book was being written during the tail end of the 80's when the culture wars in feminism were getting particularly bloody and bitter.  Many prominent US feminists aligned with the Christian right in America to work to ban pornography and other forms of sexual expression and it is likely that those were the feminists that influenced Dave Sim's invention of the Cirinists.  It's a type of feminism I have no time for, I'm pro-porn and anti censorship and this caused me no end of grief during my MA when I clashed repeatedly with our "Cirinist" course leader on matters of the depiction of female sexuality.

She Gets Everywhere!

But anyway, Rick is brought into the room and Mrs. Thatcher drops the bombshell that Jaka didn't miscarry, she had an abortion, and the child was male.  This causes Rick huge grief as in a conversation with Oscar earlier he had expressed his fondest desire for a son.  He is so upset that he lashes out at Jaka and agrees to let Thatcher instantly divorce them.  The story comes to a close first with a horror struck Cerebus standing in front of the burnt out shell of Pud's shop/bar and then to Jaka, back in Palnu.  Lonely and depressed, having, like Cerebus, lost everything dear to her.

Jaka's Story for me is the emotional high point of the greater storyline.  It uses the book style framing device to great effect, filling in masses of detail of the second most important character in the series.  Jaka is a flawed character in many ways, but flawed characters are interesting ones.  She is not this perfect woman on a pedastal that Cerebus has put her on.  She loves her husband, but also pushes him away, setting up the revelation of what she was really thinking when she made her "I love my husband" speech to Cerebus that occurs in a later book.  Intimate, expertly paced, heartfelt and melancholy, Jaka's Story is Dave Sim's crowning writing achievement.

Cerebus Book 4: Church and State II (#81-111)

"Cerebus is Cerebus! Cerebus is Most Holy - Cerebus is the Great Cerebus" - Cerebus

Although this book has the most issues collected in it of the whole Cerebus saga, the story slows down somewhat and finds room to breathe.  After the frenetic cross cutting between various P.O.V's in the first part the scenes get longer and a little more leisurely paced.  With Gerhard coming aboard to do backgrounds there are now fewer pages crammed with panels of characters on plain white and black backgrounds.  The level of detail to the faces is upped and the level of charicature starts to be gradually phased out.  The pairing of the two artists does result in some superb and atmospherically detailed enviroments and there is more of a sense of place as well.

Cerebus bumps into The Roach straight away, now the Secret Sacred Wars Roach (a parody of Spiderman).  He takes hims to a house where the MacGrew Brothers (his sidekicks now) and Michelle from book one are waiting.  Michelle tells Cerebus about her relationship between herself and the now deceased Weisshaupt.  How he financed her through his University and afterwards, until Lord Julius gave her 200,000 Palnu Crowns so she could live independently of him and how angry it made him.  Nevertheless she misses him greatly, though she doesn't envy the life he lived or that she'll be party to anymore of his plans after she gives Cerebus an envelope containing what he'll need to regain the Papacy.  As for why Weisshaupt would help Cerebus?

Michelle: He said if someone else would be declared to be Tarim on Earth.... He would want it to be someone like you.  Someone.. mundane.  So he would still be remembered for his political reforms.

She then tells Cerebus that despite Weisshaupt's plans, she will NOT be there when Cerebus completes the mysterious Final Ascension.  She orders Cerebus to leave and that's the last we see of Michelle.  And it's a nice exit for the character, after having her whole life manipulated by men, she final stands up for herself and there is no doubt in my mind she'll go on to live a happy independent life now, whatever Dave Sim intended.

The Three Idiots

While this is going on we cut back to some amusing back and forth between Lord Julius and Astoria, where for the first time we get a clear statement of her manifesto.

Astoria: I have nothing to say to you Lord Julius.

Lord Julius:  I know.  Isn't it grand?  It's almost like being married again. Ah, Astoria.  Blossom of my sordid youth. Why did we ever part?

Astoria:  Because I believe in state-owned prostitution, pharamceutically assissted miscarriages, ownership of men, guaranteed minimum income for women over the age of fifteen and the inalienable right of self-determination within those parameters.  And you don't.

Ownership of men?  Call me a "Kevillist" but that's a type of feminism I can get behind (though seriously, remove the "ownership of men" part and you have views that pretty much chime with my own type of feminism).

Back with Cerebus, after opening the letter from Weisshaupt (containing a picture of a cannon and the word "BOOM") that Michelle gave him as a last favour to a dying man, a somewhat saddened  Cerebus starts making his way to the Upper City.  On the way he stops and has a drug fuelled conversation with Prince Mick, who is travelling with Prince Keith (the pair of them quite obvious charicatures of Mich Jagger and Keith Richards), then first Elrod turns up in a giant spider costume, then Secret Sacred Wars Roach who starts climbing the sheer wall to the Upper City, closely followed by Cerebus.

On the way, Roach's pounding on the fourth wall gets harder as he slips into Frank Miller like narration:

The Roach: UNH! LEFT LUNG SWELLING UP.  RUPTURING FILLING MY CHEST CAVITY WITH BLOOD.  THIS IS YOUR DOING ISN'T IT EPOP?  CARDIAC ARREST.  ACUTE UREMIC FAILURE.  LEAKAGE IN THE LEFT VENTRICLE.  MUSN'T. BLACK. OUT.

Spider-Roach In Action.

Well, it amused me.  If I have a criticism of the story so far, it's that it hasn't made it very clear what the Final Ascension involves.  Something to do with the gold and a tower growing very tall is all that's really been said about it.  Anyway at the top The Roach doesn't do what the waiting Astoria wants and goes to confront Thrunk/Necross.  He gets punched miles away.  Cerebus makes it to the top as well, and yells at Astoria to go away which she does.  Literally.  She fades away to nothingness, an event that will be explained later on.  Using the cannons on the roof opposite the hotel that Weisshaupt put there in part one, Cerebus blows off Thrunk/Necross' head and kills him utterly.  The crowds part for him in awe and he returns to the hotel and goes to bed.

After more strange dreams Cerebus goes to the room full of gold, and the strange ball of light that has been pestering him since he became Pope takes possession of his head.  In some kind of dreamspace the Ball of Light and Cerebus chat about The Final Ascension.  Apparently the Ascension involves carrying a ball of gold to the top of a tower.

Cerebus:  You still haven't told Cerebus what the Final Ascension is.

Ball Of Light:  When you get to the top of the tower with the gold sphere it rises faster and faster and - BOOM - suddenly you're on the moon.

Cerebus: Heaven?

Ball Of Light:  Vanaheim, Valhalla, The Pearly Gates, the Final reward, Angel Headquarters - whatever you want to call it.

Cerebus: Really?

Ball Of Light: Yup.

The Ball Of Light doesn't seem sure of what happens next, but does assure Cerebus that anyone can do it if they have a ball of gold.  Cerebus says he'll do it as he doesn't want any old person to be his redeemer and he reurns mentally to the hotel.  there Archbishop Powers gives him the news that the leader of the Western Church has been assassinated.  The Churches are united under Cerebus and also that the assassin was... Astoria.

Pope Seduction.

Cerebus goes to visit Astoria who is chained up in a cell.  They have a long conversation so I'm only concentrating on the most important bits here.  She says that Cerebus owes her for placing him in the position where he could become Pope.  Then she begins to act seductively saying that he can't do anything to her outside marriage.  But Cerebus is the Pope and he speedily divorces himself from Red Sophia and marries Astoria.  Then he gags and rapes her.

He rapes Astoria.  And that my friends is the point I believe Cerebus Syndrome sets in for good.  Sure there are comic bits and jokes later on, but to suddenly throw something as serious as rape in changes the atmosphere of the storytelling and our relationship with Cerebus for good.  It's funny that we can accept and even laugh off things like casual murder and baby throwing, but rape is too real, too shocking to shrug off.  And it cements Cerebus firmly as a non-hero protagonist.  He's practically a villian by now.  But the impetus is to keep reading, because after this depth is plumbed by cerebus he isn't let off, he's punished, over and over.  Maybe Dave Sim didn't mean it like that, but I see what happens to Cerebus after this as nothing less than drawn out retribution for his appalling acts while holding the office of Pope.

Hey About That Rape You Just Did...

Afterwards an angry Astoria argues with him about the nature of the Final Ascension, and that it's the Goddess Terim who keeps knocking down the tower the previous times it's been attempted because it's been males doing it.  She then tells him that if he orders her execution, the Cirinists will invade as Cirin has wanted to kill Astoria herself.  But if he doesn't the armies of the Western Church will attack Iest.

Cerebus: You did it again.  Cerebus feels like the sky is falling! Cerebus can't kill you.  Cerebus can't hold you.  Cerebus can't let you go!

Later on, dressed in full Papal gear he presides over her trial.  She admits to the murder, that when she disappeared earlier she was transported to the chambers of the Western Pontiff and in a dreamlike state stabbed him to death.  As the trial moves along things become peculiar.

Cerebus:  Echoes.  That's all it is..some kind of...

Astoria:  You and I.. We're the echoes...

Then Astoria transforms into an elderly aardvark, and starts to tell Cerebus how things end.  With flames and death.  Then things snap back to reality and a shaken Cerebus and Astoria.  This weirdness along with Astoria mysterious journey to the Western Pontiff gets sort of explained in a later volume as the work of the Illusionists and Suentus Po, the person Cerebus mentally talked to in the first two Mind Games and who is appearing to him now as an old aardvark.

Cerebus tries to wash his hands of the trial but Powers tells him if he doesn't order the execution the Western Church are poised to attack.  Meanwhile a messenger bird has been sent to Cirin who decides to get things started.  It's also revealed she is one of the other two aardvarks out in the world.  Back at the trial, Cerebus has frozen up, but then he spots a box at the foot of his throne.  He opens it to find a solid gold sphere and a note saying "Good Luck. W".  He divests himself of his robes completely and jumps out of the window to start the Final Ascension.

Helping You See In The Dark

Cerebus manages to grab hold of the bottom of the tower as it hovers above Iest.  Finding he can stand horizontally and walk up the tower, he gets stuck.  Then Flaming Carrot appears.  A spoof superhero from a comic by the same publisher, most notable for giving the world the Mystery Men.  Flaming Carrot leads Cerebus in the right direction until Sponge Boy shows up, and they leave togther.  But Cerebus is at the top now and is confronted by the combined creature of The Artist, Sump Thing and Woman Thing from Book One.  He is also holding a gold sphere and tells Cerebus he combined a male and female creature, hedging his bets in case there really was a Goddess instead.  He tries to kill Cerebus after knocking away his sphere, but then the tower grows very quickly and breaks off, flinging the combined creature into space and Cerebus falls onto the Moon.

There he meets a man called The Judge, who is not Tarim, nor is the moon, heaven.  Cerebus can't speak so the rest of the book is a monologue by him.  He talks of watching civilisations rise and fall, all making the same mistakes of listening to priests.  He tells Cerebus he won't conquer the world when he gets back, though he came close.  He syas that the combined creature was cast into space for combininga female and male potential messiah.  After a digression about the military career of the first Suentus Po, he tells Cerebus that the void is Tarim and the light is Terim.  And that Terim split into many lights creating the heavens and Tarim then tried to crush Her because He's kind of an arsehole.  It's a lovely idea, shame it gets hit so hard by a massive retcon in a later book, but oh well.

Walking On The Moon...

Finally he informs Cerebus:

The Judge:  While you were gone the deadline for the end of the world came and went without incident.  All your followers have deserted you.  Cirin attacked and seized with the mercenary forces Lower Felda and all of Iest, including all the gold you had in the hotel.  You only live a few more years.  You die alone. Unmourned and unloved.  Suffering... suffering you'll have no trouble doing...And if you are ever tempted - ever - to consider your sufering unjustified.  Just remember your second marriage.

You LOSE, Cerebus.

 And with that Cerebus is returned to the hotel, which is in ruins, the crowds gone and just him alone once again with nothing to his name but his barbarian gear.  And it bloody well serves him right! The Church and State arc is an insanely epic one, it suffers a little from having events in it that aren't explained until much later in the storyline, so it's not as self contained as the first two volumes and there are some characters who depart from the narrative without explanation after seemingly having plot arcs planned for them (for example Henrot-Gutch the wizard and Charles X Claremont who is trapped in The Roaches head).  It has a huge cast and Cerebus the storyline won't ever take place on as wide a scale ever again.  It remains a fantastically riveting read though, with some gorgeous artwork as the story progresses.  With the Cirnists in power now the stage is set for another big arc, but before that happens the story takes a more intimate turn and the start of Cerebus' true suffering commences... 

Cerebus Book 3: Church And State I (#52-80)

"If you could have any amount of money...how much would you want?" - Michelle

   "All Of it" - Cerebus

The eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted a missing issue number between this and High Society.  That's because the issue in question is an "inbetween" story, that I will cover with the rest when I review Cerebus Zero after Jaka's Story.  This huge volume is the first part of the massive Church and State saga, where it's time for organised religion to get some parodic treatment, as well as kicking off the Ascension plotline which will continue right up to issue 200, making these books hard to come to just on their own. Unlike the previous two you really need to know the backstory and characters now or you'll be completely bewildered as to what's happening. Characters making a return are Weisshaupt and Red Sophia from Book 1, while we get a handful of new ones - Archishop Powers, the weedy Archbishop Posey, the independently wealthy Countess Michelle and the fantastic Mrs. Henrot-Gutch, mother of Red Sophia.

The story begins with Cerebus writing his memoirs on governing Iest.  After receiving and accepting an invitation to come and write it at the house of the Countess, both The Roach and Weisshaupt appear.  The Roach is now a parody of Wolverine - the Wolveroach - and Michalle has looked after him in the past.  She

Beware The Wolveroach

fills in some of his backstory, he's just a mentally ill, but very strong and fit man whose had his identity rewritten several times by both Weisshaupt and Astoria.  Quite sad really.  When Weisshaupt appears he offers Cerebus the Prime Ministership of Iest again.  He's managed to unite the states round it into one ecomonic block that he is President of and Cerebus suits his needs as far as running Iest is concerned.  Cerebus tells him he won't do it in no unertain terms.  But as his boorish behaviour upsets and alienates Michelle he leaves her and we next find him waking up after a drunken night out, only to find Weisshaupt arranged for him to be drugged then got him married to Red Sophia.  And dissolving a marriage is now a capital offence without the Presidents approval.  Thus a furious Cerebus is blackmailed into becoming Prime Minister again.

Weisshaupt also wants Cerebus to start writing what are called "Reads" which are pulp novels with pictures in them.  The problem (for him) in the region now is the spread of the political movement "Cirinism" which is a parody of the type of extreme feminist seperatist branches of feminism that arose from mainstream feminism in our world in the 70's and 80's.  Cirinism has it's powerbase in a nearby country called Upper Felda, it's ruled by Cirin and is a pure matriarchy where men are second class citizens and a womans worth is only to be found in bearing children.  Later we'll find out more about it's opposing view "Kevillism" which Astoria is the prime mover behind, which is based on the more political and egalitarian feminist principles (there are some that might be crying "misogyny" at just the mention of a feminism in a parodic context, I am not one of them, everything is fair game for satire I believe and at this point unlike later I don't think Dave Sim had any malicious intent).  This war between the differing ideologies will become the main focus in the next major arc, for now they are bubbling along in the background.  Weisshaupt wants Cerebus' Reads to help combat this female conciousness raising leading to this amusing exchange:

Weisshaupt: Cirin.. Or as I call her "The Cow that walks like a man"... has ruthlessly exploited the new literacy among women.  The poor things are so confused, they're starting to see political overtones in doing laundry. So I've been issuing these tracts to get them back to good, basic, traditional female values.  The stories are all the same.  Independant woman meets man.  Either she gives up everything for him and lives happily or she stays independant and goes blind... or dies of consumption... or cuts her throat with a cheese slicer.

Red Sophia: I read that one.  I rilly identified with her. 'specially when she uses the dozen roses he sent her to flog her self.

And so with no other option left to him Cerebus travels back to Iest.  Oh and gets to meet Red Sophia's mother, Mrs. Henrot Gutch.  A hilariously violent woman who fights with Cerebus  all the time, and is based on (and drawn identically to) Grandma from the UK Express newspaper cartoon "Giles".  Which is a pretty obscure reference now even for us Brits let alone Canadian and North American readers.  Furious and miserable, trapped in a job he doesn't want and married to a woman he doesn't love, it seems like there is no escape for him.  Then he is granted and audience with the Pope (the main religion in the region worships Tarim the equivalent of our Christian God and who Cerebus himself follows.  It's also split into two branches, East and West) who starts telling him the Cirinists are right, which gets him executed for heresy on the spot leaving a gap at the head of the Eastern church....

Meet the Mother-In-Law

The business of government continues.  We finally get filled in as to why Cirin and the Cirinists hate Astoria by Teresa (who had a small part in book 1).  Cirin was grooming Astoria for power and arranged for her to marry her son.  before the assigned wedding date they married in secret and Astoria became pregnant.  Before the baby was due she disappeared and when she returned she was no longer pregnant but the baby was nowhere to be seen.  She refused to confirm if she was a mother, so Cirin could not have her executed as the killing of a mother is unforgivable to the Cirinists.  Astoria then laid out her new philosophy.

Teresa: "Her beliefs were such that she felt each individual should advocate all of their own attitudes rather than the beliefs of the society or governing structure in which they find themselves.  It was the Shen Devotional beliefs - 'The Kevil' - typically Astoria had taken a system of meditation and made it into a political movement."

Which is certainly true of feminism as I came to study and be a part of in the 90's when many women such as myself rejected the seperatist, monolithic, judgemental feminism of prior decades.  Really by then you could pick and mix a feminist philosophy that matched your political beliefs easily.  I'm a postmodern feminist myself.

After a chaotic meeting with Lord Julius and Duke Leonardi, Weisshaupt is informed that Cerebus has been nominated as Eastern Pontiff, this was mainly done by Powers to spite Weisshaupt.  When Weisshaupt asks Archbishop Powers why he says Cerebus performed a miracle, Powers says that according to Weisshaupts write up of the end Cerebus' Prime Minstership he repelled the invading Hsifans single handedly "because Tarim was with him."  Powers is also quite open about the fact he believes Cerebus will be open to the Western Church doctrine.  Weisshaupt threatens to ruin the church "down to it's last half crown" if provoked.  Powers merely observes that maybe Weisshaupt's grip on power isn't as strong as he wants people to believe.

The new Pope Cerebus is assigned the nervy, trembling Archbishop Posey and immediately starts referring to himself as Most Holy and treating everyone around him like crap, well like even more crap I should say.  Much to Power's horror, Cerebus refuses to meet with him and moves himself into a hotel on the East Wall and hires mercenaries to guard him, while the crowds gather round outside to hear him speak.  He forces Posey to take a letter, basically telling Powers and the Western Church to go fuck themselves.  Making Powers yet another in a long line of people who underestimated him.  He then gives a speech demanding the assembled crowd give him all their gold as "Tarim's Mercy doesn't come cheap."  Of course the first sin Cerebus as Pope would commit would be simony.

Your money or your eternal soul

And the Chekov's Guns are in place..

The amount of gold being taken out of the economy starts a panic in the banking system and they lean on Weisshaupt to sort it out.  He moves his cannons to the roof opposite and yells his demand for the gold.  He get's so angry after Cerebus uses his "Most Holy" status to promise hellish punishments to anyone who opposes him on the soldiers he has with him that he collapses from a stroke.  Which makes the assembled crowds even more impressed and fearful of Cerebus.  After a warning from a fake Regency elf he starts to worry what will happen if his predicted end of the world doesn't happen, because he hasn't managed to get all the gold.  So he gives the crowds a second chance, they have to invade and conquer the nearby Red Marches in his name, which they do.  Things aren't so rosy in his personal life, Red Sophia walks out on him, so he asks his mercenary friend Bear to go and fetch Jaka. Which he does.  Once again, I am going to concentrate on this issue a bit as I think Jaka tends to bring the best out of Dave Sim at this point in time.


Much to Cerebus' horror, she is now married.  He angrily says that she said she would wait for him forever.

Jaka: I said I'd wait forever for you to remember. Well you DID remember.  AND YOU NEVER CAME BACK!

Then she sits sadly on the floor and thinks back to when they first met.

Jaka: I listened to your stories for hours. Your wonderful adventures.  And I thought, he wants to share his life, all the people and places. Places I'd only dreamt about.  He wants to share them.  And it's me he wants to share them with.

Cerebus: Cerebus still wants you to share his life.

She refuses, telling him that power changes people, like the people she grew up with in Palnu as Lord Julius' neice.  Even though Cerebus rips off his Papal Robe and puts his barbarian gear back on she still won't go with him.  Confessing that she has a husband she loves and that she is pregnant with his child. Sobbing, she says she worries she'll look ugly after the birth and won't be able to dance anymore. "You'll never be ugly Jaka. Never" says Cerebus and they embrace.  Then refusing the gold he tries to give her, she leaves him lonely and sad.  The most powerful person in Iest and he still can't get what he's always wanted, someone he really loves.  And yeah, Cerebus right now is a complete prick and will only be getting worse, so it's something of a triumph of heartfelt writing that you feel the yearning between them and want them to get together despite it all.

Cerebus, sunk in self pity is called to see the dying President Weisshaupt.  He drops the bombshell that there are two other aardvarks in Estarcion (the continent Iest and the neighbouring countries are in), but refuses to

Stay classy, Cerebus

tell Cerebus who they are.  He then tells him that with his death, history will judge that a wrong turn was taken.

Weisshaupt: "You represent the triumph of the mudane over the sublime.  A triumph which is extraordinary because it is so irrevocably and so intensely tragic."

Soon he falls dying on the floor and with his final breaths, asks Cerebus to absolve him of his sins, which elicit a predictable response.

Back in the hotel, Cerebus has strange and symbolic dreams of things to come and things that have been.  When he wakes up there is quite a bit of comedy slapstick with Lord Julius, Duke Leonardi and Red Sophia all taking it in turns to lecture Cerebus who has managed to get stuck in a wall.  Lord Storm'send also shows up more seriously to warn Cerebus that he's set things in motion he has no control over and that it has something to do with the mountain Iest is built on.  When Cerebus gets free of the wall, he goes to an upper floor window and comes face to face with Thrunk, a golem who looks a bit like The Thing from the Fantastic Four (and who is possessed by a discorporeal wizard called Necross which happened during an chapter in Book One).  He is wearing a Papal Robe and claims he is Tarim Himself and He wants His gold.  He smashes through the window to grab at Cerebus who retreats to find Bran MacMuffin who just mumbles something about a "huge mistake" and stabs himself through the heart.  Thrunk then grabs Cerebus and hurls him over the East Wall and down into the Lower City.  And on that cliffhanger, the first half of Church and State is over.

Thrunk attacks

And today's lesson is...

The book is the second longest of all the Cerebus books, and in condensing twenty-eight issues down I've missed out on much of the running comedy gags and minutia of the politicking and only highlighted the stuff that is relevant to the overall arc of the storyline, you might think I've perhaps gone into too much detail, but because the groundwork of so much of the next hundred odd issue is laid here that I felt it neccessary to do so to make the following reviews easier to understand.  It's a tremendously enjoyable book, Cerebus maybe the main character, but in no way is he the hero.  Yet events pivot round him constantly and the sheer variety and personalities of characters surrounding him make the books a lot of fun to read at this point in time.  While writing this book, I believe Dave Sim was self described as a secular humanist, so his view of organised religion as a snakepit of competing, yet similar ideologies and the sheeplike acceptance of even the most despicable behaviour on the part of the pontiff is a somewhat biased one.  The collision of ideologies, Tarim worship, Cirinism, Kevillism and the worship of the Goddess Terim carry on right through the next one hundred or so chapters, far beyond the end of the Church and State arc.  As it is, the first half of the arc is an often riotously funny, clever, jam-packed romp.  I haven't said much about the artwork, because it's still very much in the vein of High Society - packed pages and sparse backgrounds.  The next step up will be covered in Church and State II when Gerhard starts working on the backgrounds. Stay tuned!

Cerebus Book 2: High Society (#26-50)

"Why the heck do you wanna be Prime Minister then?" - Lord Storm'send

"For the money" - Cerebus

My interest having been sparked by his guest appearence in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, this is where my Cerebus story starts proper.Back in 1990, even in specialist comics shops, the indie comics that ended up on sale via import tended to be somewhat hit and miss.  With the first twenty-five issues impossible to find, it was in fact the rereleases of High Society that I spent my hard earned pennies on.  These are the only Cerebus comics I own as floppies as well as a trade paperback, and there is something to be said for having them like that.  Not only did you get a letters page, but excerpts from Dave Sims notebook of designs and single page guest comics too.  The painted front covers are nice as well, if Dave Sim ever decides to release a compilation of all the Cerebus covers in one volume, I'd happily part with cash for a copy.  There is strong competition from Jaka's Story and Minds, but I can honestly say that High Society is still my favourite of the whole Cerebus saga and when I was drawing comics for my own amusement back then, it was High Society that was my biggest influence.
 
Probably the most noticable thing about the book is the dramatic use of plain, all black or white backgrounds, with the characters no longer being rather overpowered by the thickly over detailed backdrops of the first book.  Obviously in retrospect this can be seen as a time saver on the part of Dave Sim, so he could keep cranking out a twenty page book at a monthly rate.  But when Gerhard joins to do the backgrounds later on, lessons have been learned and back and foregrounds work together in harmony.  But while the backdrops have become starker, the layouts start to get more experimental, with splash pages using no dialogue balloons instead there is type written "script" style storytelling as well as issues which need to be read sideways, utilising longer panels on a horizontal plane. And the comic's panel count has gone through the roof, Dave Sim has so much to say with such complex interplay of characters and plot at work that up to twelve panels per page become the norm.  Putting todays "decompressed" storytelling in comics to shame.

Mind Game II: Chatting With Suentus Po

The basic story of High Society is how a barbarian fish-out-of-water like Cerebus manages to navigate his way through the cut-throat world of diplomacy and politics.  The driving force behind his ascendency to the Prime Minstership of the bankrupt city state of Iest being the scheming ex-wife of Lord Julius - Astoria. 

Astoria raking in the cash

They meet, when after some disasterous misuse of cash that wasn't his own by Cerebus gets him almost thrown to the Tarimite Inquisition (the Head Inquisitor gets crushed just in time, by a stone moon thrown by the Moonroach whom she is also manipulating) she pulls his gonads out of the fininacial fire and promises to make him rich. Although it's not revealed until later books that she is in Iest building up a powerbase to take on the Cirinists, she is an excellent female character, a shrewd schemer who takes Cerebus to the top and he only starts to fail when he arrogantly sidelines her during his presidency.  She has her dumb muscle in the form of The Roach, here going by the identity of Moonroach, and she see's Cerebus as easily manipulated into doing as she wants as long as he has enough food, booze and cash to keep him happy.  The twenty-five issues cover the up's and downs of their electioneering, victory and complete failure to hold onto power.  There is so much stuffed into every issue that some focus is necessary here and for me the arc hits it's heights as emotional drama, out-and-out comedy and a somewhat jaundiced view of politics with the three issues - "The Night Before", "Election Night" and "The Deciding Vote."

Cerebus and Jaka

"The Night Before" reunites Cerebus with exotic dancer Jaka.  The entire issue plays out just between the two of them as Cerebus arrogantly assumes she has come to him for a handout now he is wealthy and well connected and will be happy to come and live with him.  This leads to the following, heart breaking exchange:

Cerebus: You made the right decision coming to Cerebus.  Cerebus will see to it that  you never have  to dance again.
Jaka: (tearfully) I like dancing

Cerebus: In Greater Iest dancers are considered..well.. to be perfectly honest.. It would be bad for businesss if people knew Cerebus was living with a dancer.

Jaka: I see.  And would you still kill a yak for my supper?  Or would that also be bad for business

Cerebus: (angry) If you really want a yak.. Cerebus will buy you one.

Jaka:   Thanks.  But it wouldn't be the same somehow.

Which shows beautifully and economically how much Cerebus's exposure to money and power have changed and corrupted him from the somewhat carefree adventurer he used to be.  Jaka refuses his offer, saying she came to give him a gift.  Cerebus sneers at her wasting the last of her money on it, but as she leaves him he begins to unwrap it and the final page is one devstating close up of him holding the gift - the sword he lost during a misadventure in book one - and a single tear falling upon it.

Still, this is early Cerebus when he refuses to learn anything from the setbacks in his life and so he throws himself into campaigning against the goat Lord Julius is putting up for the opposing candidate.  The next few chapters expertly capture the wheeling and dealing of the election trail as they try and muster support in enough ridings to win the election. Two newspaper's front pages are used to help keep us abreast of what is happening, one biased for Cerebus, one for the goat.  When finally election night dawns, we get an issue that superbly illustrates the tension of a close run election, with Cerebus getting madder and madder (when Elrod appears he grabs him, whirls him round his head and flings him into the auditorium) the closer the results get until finally he snaps.


Leading to some humourous panicing on the part of Lord Julius who starts trying to rustle up some protection only to find he's sold pretty much all of it to finance his campaign.. and other things.

Lord Julius: What about those two tall guys with the big spears who were walking in front of  me when we got here?

Servant:  You told me to trade them for a silver and gold bathtub in the shape of a squid.


Lord Julius:  Well that certainly sounds like something I'd do.

Moonroach and Astoria and a lot of booze.

In the event the election turns out to be a tie, and Cerebus, Astoria and Moonroach travel out to the snowy riding of the farmer Lord Storm'send.  Who, after locking Astoria and Moonroach in a shed with all his moonshine (and they manage to get apocalyptically drunk as we cut back to them during the issue) makes Cerebus follow him to where he intends to light one of two torches signalling who gets his deciding vote.  There is much slapstick humour at the expense of Cerebus trying to walk in snowshoes and tripping and falling constantly (with the lovely comic sound effect "whuffa whuffa" as he stumbles along), while Lord Storm'send lectures him on his rather jaded views about democracy.  Making it somewhat satisfying when Cerebus then punches his lights out when the torch has been lit and he refuses to tell Cerebus who it was for. The whole issue is one that needs to be turned on it's side, it uses tall panels for great effect but mainly I believe it was for sake of the "Punching" page, which uses the longer horizontal panel layout beautifully.
                           
And so Cerebus becomes Prime Minister of Iest. Unfortunately once he has a hold on power, all of Cerebus's worst instincts are multiplied, with his desire for money as his main driving force. He sidelines Astoria, and shows litle interest in furthering her causes of republicanism and getting women the vote which she is trying to push for. He treats his bureaucracy with contempt and immediately hires mercenaries to invade a neighbouring country, which turns out to be completely broke as well and Lord Julius whom they owe money to immediately adds that countries debts to Iest's.  Then when Cerebus does finally get a hold of a large amount of cash Lord Julius - the main economic power in the region - revalues the currency so as to render it worthless.  With the return of the Tarim worshipping Papacy to Iest and unable to pay his armies to fend off the invasions from all sides, even after the Hsifans join them (Cerebus became a hero to them in Book 1), Cerebus decides not to follow Astoria's advice to become Prime Minister in exile and walks out on her, with just his vest, medallions and sword to his name. Although not before sharing an emotional farewell with The Regency Elf, perhaps the only time we see Cerebus fully crying.

Along with a colourful cast, including Chico Marx as Duke Leonardi the leader of one of Iest's neighbours, incompetant kidnappers the MacGrew brothers and the Regency Elf - a sprite who only Cerebus can see in the grand hotel he lives in at the start, High Society is packed full of fun, satire and extreme politcking that never gets dry and boring.  Somehow, Sim manages to make things like summits hysterically funny, mainly thanks to his ability to write Marx Brothers style comedy.  The sheer density of the writing means repeat visits to this book are a neccessity and it obvious why, when Dave Sim chose to go the self publishing route (refusing an offer of $100,000 up front from DC in exchange for only ten percent ownership, he decided to keep full ownership and not long after the release got a cool $150,000 from the first lot of sales of the book) he chose High Society to start off with.  With a little background knowledge from the first book needed, this is very self contained coming to a definite conclusion and no cliffhanger into the next one.  High Society is a magnificent book,and will always remain my favourite of the series.