Cerebus #20: Games aardvarks play

Well this is different...

Before talking about the story, I guess the first thing I should mention is that the pages of this issue are quite different from those of previous ones. Instead of being divided into a number of panels as is usual with comic books, most of the pages in this issue are divided into apparently random areas of black and gray, with a couple of all-black pages (more on this later.) Throughout the black and gray areas are different figures of Cerebus and his thoughts and conversations with other, unseen, characters. When I first started reading this issue, I was a little worried that I might have trouble following the story in the proper order, but it wasn't any problem at all.

Still drugged from the last issue, Cerebus awakes to find himself in a black and gray world, which we soon find out is the “Seventh Sphere”, some sort of metaphysical plane. Oddly, Cerebus does not appear to be worried about being in this realm, just annoyed: “...drugged. Cerebus has had the experience before,” he explains.

The black and gray parts of the pages appear to represent different areas of the Seventh Sphere. When he is in the black area Cerebus talks to Wenda and Perce, who turn out to be Cirinists, and while in the gray he talks to Suenteus Po, founder of Illusionism. And while Cerebus is able to hear Perce and Wenda when he's in the gray portion of the Seventh Sphere, they can only hear him while he's in the black. And Po, in turn, can only hear the aardvark when he's in the gray. In fact, while he's in the gray area, his spirit self is apparently disconnected from his corporeal body. As Wenda or Perce notes, “Is he supposed to, uh...stop breathing like that?”

Perce had drugged Cerebus to determine his “role in the larger scheme of things” and whether the Cirinists can use him for their own ends. Cerebus must find the proper revelation from “the Divine Mother” within the hour or he will be killed. Suenteus Po — probably just to annoy the Cirinists — offers to help and does find a revelation that satisfies Perce and Wenda. Unfortunately for Cerebus, this means that they will keep him in this drugged state for the rest of his life as an object of worship.

Naturally, Cerebus is not happy with this idea. Once again proving just how adept he is at manipulating people, Cerebus arranges a confrontation between the Illusionists and the Cirinists in the “real” world. Unfortunately, his plan to use this diversion as a chance to escape fails when Wenda gives him a sleeping potion before heading off to face the Illusionists. The issue ends with Cerebus lying unconscious both in the Seventh Sphere and, of course, in the real world.

I'm pretty sure this is the first time that Cirin and the Cirinists are mentioned. It's possible that I missed a passing reference in earlier issues, but I think I would've noted it considering how important to Cerebus they become later on. (If they were mentioned before, it must have been a brief note as part of a larger text.) This is certainly the first time Po is referred to — and I’m pretty sure the first time the Illusionists are mentioned. I wonder if Dave had already planned at this point just how important the Cirinists and Po would become to Cerebus’ story.

The actual plot of this issue is pretty thin. That sounds like I might be criticizing the issue, but I'm not. I'm just saying that the storyline of this particular issue is not as complicated as others have been. This issue does, though, begin to lay the foundations for a storyline that will reverberate through most of the 280 issues that follow. I really can't say just where the plot of Cerebus goes in the issues that were published after I stopped reading it, but I can't imagine that the Cirinists will simply vanish from the story.

I really enjoyed this one. It’s just “talking heads” — or, really, just talking head and disembodied voices — so the fun comes from the interplay between the characters and watching how Cerebus manipulates everyone as he tries to get out of his predicament. And a lot of fun it is.

I think that I already knew “the secret” about this issue — called “Mind Game” — by the time I actually read it for the first time. The random areas of black and gray that I mentioned before will, if you pull the pages apart and rearrange them as one giant sheet, form a giant picture of Cerebus. That’s just cool. I guess you would have to take apart two issues since the pages are, of course, printed back-to-back. Still cool though.