Cerebus #1: And so we begin

My understanding is that Cerebus started as a parody of Conan/sword & sorcery comicbooks. But, to he honest, I don’t see a whole lot of parody here. Other than, of course, the main character being an aardvark and the wizard’s dying words: “aw, nuts”. The rest of the issue seemed pretty standard s&s stuff.

There really wasn’t much to the plot. Cerebus rides into an unnamed town, his first stop an unnamed tavern, where he is hired by two unnamed thieves to steal the Flame Jewel from an unnamed wizard. Cerebus defeats several of the wizard’s guardians before finally defeating the wizard, using his wits as much as his brawn to defeat them — as well as maintaining enough mental control to fight off the mind-altering effects of the lotus blossoms the wizard uses as part of his defenses. After defeating the wizard, Cerebus demands his payment, a pouch of gold, before leaving the castle and revealing to the thieves that the Flame Jewel is just another illusion of the wizard. It is, in fact, a plain old walnut. Taking his pouch of gold Cerebus jumps back on his horse and rides off.

We do learn much of Cerebus’ basic character in this issue. He is fearless, strong, ruthless, and at least smart enough to figure out and defeat the wizard’s illusions. Though I don’t think he knew it before defeating the wizard, Cerebus did realize that the jewel was just an illusion before actually seeing it as a plain walnut.

Cerebus shows no regard at all for others — when another patron tries to stop him approaching the bar in the tavern, Cerebus chops off his hand without even a backward glance. And he shows no guilt or remorse for taking the thieves money and leaving them with nothing. The issue finishes with Cerebus telling the thieves, “So you have your ‘Flame Jewel’ and I have my pouch of gold…which may not seem exactly fair…but Cerebus has no cause for complaint.” The last panel concludes with the narrator adding, “It was, the thieves would later say the first time they had heard an earth-pig laugh…”

One thing that surprised me about this issue was the amount of narration it had. Much more, I think, than later issues will have. I do remember that some issues are nearly, if not completely, wordless. And those that are more “wordy” will have much more of the text as dialog instead of narration. It comes pretty close to the writerly sin of “telling, not showing”.

While the artwork is perfectly acceptable, I definitely prefer the look of later issues. Dave Sim’s artwork clearly improves as the series progresses and the addition of Gerhard’s backgrounds add a lot as well. The goes for Cerebus’ look as well. The, for lack of better words, shorter and stockier Cerebus is much better than the one in this issue.

And one final note. I don’t know how much of the broader story Dave Sim planned in advance — and the generic locations of this story leave me wondering — the wizard does mention Tarim’s name in an oath of frustration. Though whether this is just another made-up name at this point or a reference to the deity that will be so much a part of later stories is unknown.