Just what is Cerebus anyway?

I imagine that if you’ve found your way to this blog already, you know what Cerebus is, but just in case you actually have a life or something, here’s a quick intro.

Cerebus is a comic book written and drawn by Dave Sim and published by Dave’s company Aardvark-Vanaheim. Somewhere in there, not too long after it started, another artist named Gerhard started doing the backgrounds. Both men and the company are Canadian if that means anything, eh.

Cerebus ran for 300 issues from December 1977 to March 2004. While the 300 issues are split up into multiple story-arcs and, if I recall correctly, some single-issue stories, the whole thing makes up one complete narative.

Cerebus, the character, is an aardvark. He is short, extremely strong, and exceedingly amoral, interested in precious little other than his own wealth and comfort. He’s been a mercenary, prime minister, and pope, among who knows what else. Well, anyone who’s read all 300 issues knows what else — which is what I’m here to find out. The name comes from a misspelling of Cerberus.

Note to self: Find out how to add words to the dictionary. It keeps flagging “Cerebus” as misspelled and that’s only going to get more annoying.