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what's better, Cerebus or Bone?

Started by Monstro,

83 posts in this topic

MedicAR

MedicAR

Posted
Posted
I would suggest reading Cerebus when it was at its peak...High Society, Church & State and finally Jaka's Story. (Jaka's Story is one of the best examples of comic storytelling that I can think of.)

 

 

Jaka's story is absolutely incredible! The phonebook of that storyline was my true introduction to Cerebus. I don't remember how I got it, it may have been part of a trade to round out or a freebie, it's been way too many years to recall. I gave the once-over and was blown away!

 

Since then, I've tried to pull together the entire run. I've spent what I guess wuold be the better part of a decade doing it, but I finally won a copy of an original #1 yesterday on eBay. I didn't want to post yet for fear of jinxing it.

lol

 

Now I want to hide from the world and read it beginning to end......

 

Bone on the other hand never really took off for me. I enjoyed it when I read it, but I've never gone to lengths to actually seek it out. I like Jeff Smith's art and have enjoyed Razl, but Bone I could take or leave. Good, but not great I guess....

 

 

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MedicAR

MedicAR

Posted
Posted
First off, the Dave Sim I know is not a misogynist - he doesn't hate women.

 

However, he has developed opinions about relationships and society that are specifically anti-feminist......

 

Great post Kev! I really want to get to reading the series now and decide for myself. I think I would really like Dave Sim if I met him, given what I've seen of Cerebus, the Groucho references (Groucho Marx was a genius!), and his love of poking people with a stick, I think we'd get along splendidly!

 

lol

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sakaridis

sakaridis

Posted
Posted

 

The "issue" of Jeff's wife started the whole Sim/Smith rift, but I don't know if that was the inspiration for those stories. I'll guess that it is though.

 

Please illuminate us...

 

First off, the Dave Sim I know is not a misogynist - he doesn't hate women.

 

However, he has developed opinions about relationships and society that are specifically anti-feminist.

 

The best cartoonists tend to be social observers, and Sim is also a satirist --- Cerebus is a satirical work from the start, but it changes from a satire of Conan comics to being a satirical look at people, society, government, relationships and ultimately, religion. I think the work starts to become inaccessible to most of us who are comics fans around issue 200 when the "action" elements that the first 200 issues built towards pretty much come to an end. Issues 201-231 (Guys and Rick's Story) are more about people than anything else, and at the end of 231 Cerebus and his love Jaka go walking off into the sunset. Of course, like most love relationships and the process of growing older, Cerebus's relationship sours over compromises and the world around him changes dramatically until he ends up on one final spiritual journey before he ends his days as a cranky old man locked in a tower he built to keep the world away.

 

Incidentally, many people look at Cerebus 96 as the turning point - in that issue Cerebus rapes Astoria. It's a tough issue to read because Astoria (a manipulative political figure throughout the series), has now been arrested for the assassination (off-camera) of the Western pontiff by stabbing him in the chest. Cerebus, the Eastern Pontiff, visits her in jail and she starts goading and provoking him from the minute he walks in the room. She taunts him with sex, but uses his religion as her defense from him actually doing it. He countermands it by marrying them and forcing himself on her.

 

So yeah, Cerebus is a much more "complicated" work than the more straightforward adventure-fantasy Bone.

 

Sim is the only person that I know who completely builds arguments around reason instead of emotion, which he considers to be the major difference between men and women when it comes to decision and action in interpersonal relations. That's a sweeping and loaded statement, but his Tangents and other essays in the back of Cerebus are logic-based criticism of some pretty cheeky truths that western society has accepted to appease feminist activism. He originally thought it might encourage some debate (his intent), but instead of reasoned debate he got emotional response, and emotional responses to reading or hearing something someone doesn't like (and we see it all of time here on the chatboards) are to resort to insulting and/or name-calling instead of point/counterpoint (hence, he's labelled a misogynist for having a contrary opinion).

 

:applause::applause::applause:

 

I agree 100% with everything Kevin said!

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catrick339

catrick339

Posted
Posted

 

The "issue" of Jeff's wife started the whole Sim/Smith rift, but I don't know if that was the inspiration for those stories. I'll guess that it is though.

 

Please illuminate us...

 

First off, the Dave Sim I know is not a misogynist - he doesn't hate women.

 

However, he has developed opinions about relationships and society that are specifically anti-feminist.

 

The best cartoonists tend to be social observers, and Sim is also a satirist --- Cerebus is a satirical work from the start, but it changes from a satire of Conan comics to being a satirical look at people, society, government, relationships and ultimately, religion. I think the work starts to become inaccessible to most of us who are comics fans around issue 200 when the "action" elements that the first 200 issues built towards pretty much come to an end. Issues 201-231 (Guys and Rick's Story) are more about people than anything else, and at the end of 231 Cerebus and his love Jaka go walking off into the sunset. Of course, like most love relationships and the process of growing older, Cerebus's relationship sours over compromises and the world around him changes dramatically until he ends up on one final spiritual journey before he ends his days as a cranky old man locked in a tower he built to keep the world away.

 

Incidentally, many people look at Cerebus 96 as the turning point - in that issue Cerebus rapes Astoria. It's a tough issue to read because Astoria (a manipulative political figure throughout the series), has now been arrested for the assassination (off-camera) of the Western pontiff by stabbing him in the chest. Cerebus, the Eastern Pontiff, visits her in jail and she starts goading and provoking him from the minute he walks in the room. She taunts him with sex, but uses his religion as her defense from him actually doing it. He countermands it by marrying them and forcing himself on her.

 

So yeah, Cerebus is a much more "complicated" work than the more straightforward adventure-fantasy Bone.

 

Sim is the only person that I know who completely builds arguments around reason instead of emotion, which he considers to be the major difference between men and women when it comes to decision and action in interpersonal relations. That's a sweeping and loaded statement, but his Tangents and other essays in the back of Cerebus are logic-based criticism of some pretty cheeky truths that western society has accepted to appease feminist activism. He originally thought it might encourage some debate (his intent), but instead of reasoned debate he got emotional response, and emotional responses to reading or hearing something someone doesn't like (and we see it all of time here on the chatboards) are to resort to insulting and/or name-calling instead of point/counterpoint (hence, he's labelled a misogynist for having a contrary opinion).

 

:applause::applause::applause:

 

I agree 100% with everything Kevin said!

 

Yeah, what he said!

 

By Sims' own admission, the main story was done by issue 200, and everything that came beyond was aftermath.

 

Read the first 200 issues for a truly great graphic novel of 4000 or so pages, and read the last hundred to watch the mind of a peculiar genius at work. Half self-indulgent claptrap, half well thought out and insightful (and sometims dropdead funny) work by a master of the medium at his peak. The art is always gorgeous, and the stories are always...interesting. The letters pages and texts are thought provoking, even when he's honking everybody off.

 

Cerebus takes the contest hands down, but Bone is STILL well worth the read.

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

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Posted

The Collected Letters volumes only collect the correspondence after Cerebus ended. There's even a reply to me in there about the fact he didn't think anyone would want to see him at the 2004 Paradise Con. To my knowledge, he's never collected any of the Aardvark Comment letters and essays other than when he did individual issue reprints of the early Cerebus issues.

 

FYI Sim is launching a new title in 2009 called Cerebus Archive which will include material related to Cerebus - articles, interviews, letters, photos, etc. I don't know if he plans to include the letters pages in them or not.

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PhiGam-migration

PhiGam-migration

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Posted

this is an easy one...

 

BONE, BABY, BONE!!

 

 

easy decision for me, as the Bone characters are such a big part of comics for me...Bone was the first comic i collected growing up, and is the comic that brought me BACK to comics when it ended in 2004...Bone rules!!

 

admittedly, i have only read about 40-50 issues of cerebus...but Bone owns it for sure...then again, i never was a fan of the conan books, and have always liked cartoony things (calvin and hobbes constantly reminds me of bone, and vice-versa)..

 

i guess to make it simpler:

 

Fone Bone+Phoney Bone+Smiley Bone+Thorn+Ted+the Red Dragon et al > just Cerebus

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Kevin Boyd

Kevin Boyd

Posted
Posted
The Collected Letters volumes only collect the correspondence after Cerebus ended. There's even a reply to me in there about the fact he didn't think anyone would want to see him at the 2004 Paradise Con. To my knowledge, he's never collected any of the Aardvark Comment letters and essays other than when he did individual issue reprints of the early Cerebus issues.

 

FYI Sim is launching a new title in 2009 called Cerebus Archive which will include material related to Cerebus - articles, interviews, letters, photos, etc. I don't know if he plans to include the letters pages in them or not.

 

And I just received the press release today from AV and posted it on the Joe Shuster Awards website: http://joeshusterawards.com/2009/01/05/cerebus-archive-to-launch-in-early-2009/

 

The covers are pretty cool. I saw the Zombie Variant in person and it's stunning - it's a full wraparound cover.

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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Posted

I would start with 1 but it really starts to get good in the mid-teens and truly outstanding at issue 25. The reason for starting at 1 is that you'll get introductions to major characters that he uses throughout the rest of the series.

 

Personally, while I like both series, I've read the Cerebus High Society storyline several times and Bone just once.

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Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted
if one we're to start reading Cerebus, where should one start? is there just a regular TPB Vol. 1

 

best run is 26-50

 

start at #1 and go to #50 and you will have seen the best of the 300 issue run

 

2c

 

I think the series can be broken up very roughly into chunks like this. Each chunk has a different feel and is good for different reasons. Stopping at 50 is a disservice IMO. There's tons of interesting stuff left and you owe it to yourself to at least make it to the punisher parody in the 150's.

 

1-50

51-125

126-200

201-300

 

If you want an easy read like Bone then fine stop at 50, but if you do that you really are missing out on what makes Cerebus Cerebus. I would suggest reading the whole thing, but if you had to pick a place to stop, I guess I would say #200 because (although very interesting) it does get to be one of the hardest reads in comics in the mid 200's. But just because its hard doesn't mean it isn't good - the last 100 issues or even the last half of cerebus increased my respect for Sim instead of diminishing it. If you stop at 50 you're kind of seeing the kiddie elements of the story and if you keep reading you will be wowed by the artwork and simply the force and originality of his ideas.

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Brother J

Brother J

Posted
Posted
The Collected Letters volumes only collect the correspondence after Cerebus ended. There's even a reply to me in there about the fact he didn't think anyone would want to see him at the 2004 Paradise Con. To my knowledge, he's never collected any of the Aardvark Comment letters and essays other than when he did individual issue reprints of the early Cerebus issues.

 

FYI Sim is launching a new title in 2009 called Cerebus Archive which will include material related to Cerebus - articles, interviews, letters, photos, etc. I don't know if he plans to include the letters pages in them or not.

 

And I just received the press release today from AV and posted it on the Joe Shuster Awards website: http://joeshusterawards.com/2009/01/05/cerebus-archive-to-launch-in-early-2009/

 

The covers are pretty cool. I saw the Zombie Variant in person and it's stunning - it's a full wraparound cover.

 

Whatever happened to Following Cerebus? I assume it's dead with the release of this Cerebus Archive book.

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