Celebrating the Unpopular Arts
 

365 Days of Cerebus, Day 8: ‘Cerebus’ 7

Well, I got sick and missed a couple days here, but I’ll catch up soon enough.  Anyway, back to looking at Cerebus again, and we pick things up with Cerebus 7, which has a cover by Frank Thorne.

Cerebus 7 Cover
I think this would be the first non-Dave Sim Cerebus drawing by a professional cartoonist, but I’m not sure

This issue features Cerebus heading to the Temple of the Black Sun (after figuring out where a treasure was last issue). As he’s casing the outside of the temple, Elrod reappears. Elrod goes on about being a sucker for Black Sun cocktails (made with dark ale, apricot brandy, and Borealan Whiskey), so that’s why he’s coming to the Festival of the Black Sun.  Inside the Temple is Mit the Feeble, a four foot tall priest, who makes a costume for himself based on descriptions of an ancient nameless god, and strangely enough it looks like a white aardvark.  Hijinks ensue.

This issue has some good comedy, with Elrod being so damn stupid he doesn’t realize that Mit is not Cerebus (and vice versa), which drives the plot along. Elrod unmasking Mit and then later trying to unmask Cerebus is some good stuff. There’s also the great line from Cerebus to a Temple guard that “even for a priest you talk too much”. And of course, Elrod gives us the immortal nugget of wisdom that “if a kid in a bunny suit can’t destroy a centuries old death cult from time-to-time, life wouldn’t be worth living”.

Cerebus and his view on life are highlighted here as well. At the start of the story, we learn that Cerebus is a follow of the old ways, so that instead of taking a longer but easier way to get to the Temple, he takes a difficult but direct route through the mountains. At the end, Cerebus thinks bitterly about his hand to mouth existence, which gives him no regular reward. He thinks that maybe he should settle somewhere and raise an army to capture a city-state of his own.  It’s also interesting that there’s yet another ancient god that resembles an aardvark.

Also, how does Cerebus regain his sword when he’s blown free from the Temple at the end of the story?

3 Comments

  1. BB

    Travis, I love the idea of 365 days of Cerebus! Years ago I purchased a stack of the bi-weekly reprints but never got around to reading past the first couple. I’ve read such good things about some of the big arcs collected in the phonebooks, so I picked up a couple of those, too. I’ll have to break these out and catch up!

  2. Awesome! Part of my own motivation to do this is because I have so much of the book that I haven’t read, but now I have all the issues in some form but haven’t read the whole thing in order. (I’ll have to take a day and talk about when I got into the book and what I read when….) Hope you’ll stick around for the whole year (and hope I make it through!).

    1. Le Messor

      “now I have all the issues in some form but haven’t read the whole thing in order.”
      I do that sometimes, too!
      Just two days ago, I read the 25-part Black Panther story in Marvel Comics Presents because I finally have all the installments.

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