Ad hominem

It is a shame that one of the greatest works of contemporary Western literature, partially because it is a comic and partially because its author is a raving egomaniac, may simply disappear from the radar and merge with nothingness. It is a shame, because comics struggle so hard to be taken seriously by our lot, most of whom are in fact at their least tolerant when it comes to judging the relative merits of a work of literary art, and fail largely due to the gleaming appeal of commercial viability. A comic, for the most part, is quite expensive to produce on the same scale as a 10,000 run new novel. Thus, the economic concern is ever more pressing, and even slight financial loss considered the death knell of a burgeoning career.

Let's not mince words: Dave Sim is an asshole. So, it should come as no surprise that his character, Cerebus, whose whole life Sim chronicled in the 300 issue eponymous opus that recently found its permanent end (Cerebus dies in the final issue) in March 2004, is also an asshole. Sim has managed to alienate most of his friends in comics, many of whose careers he practically made, due in no small part to his well-articulated but not always logically grounded anti-feminism. I refrain from saying misogyny, like so many do, in part because that word conjures the image of a liquor pickled troglodyte who assumes women ought to be in a position of subjection for no real good reason. Sim, however, is a celibate, who openly deplores the materialism of modern society, intends to let his work go into the public domain upon his death, has engaged productively if indirectly with prominent feminist and psychoanalytic critics, and mostly avoids women entirely, seeing "them" as beyond hope. Sim's "problem," which interestingly always seems to be Cerebus's problem as well, is a complete idiosyncrasy mixed with harsh iconoclasm. He is a bridge-burner par excellence, whose overreaction to an argument usually ends up finding him more alone than before.

Cerebus is a compelling character not simply because he has been thoroughly fleshed out--6,000 pages dedicated to one character will tend to do that--but also because his nigh pure selfishness permits him to slip into any social role. He begins his literary life as a barbarian mercenary, later becomes prime minister of a wealthy city state, later pope, later a transcendent mystic, later an introspective bohemian, later an adventuresome nomad, later a sports hero, later a rabid comic book (which in the Cerebus universe are called "reads") fan, later a textual critic, later the ruler of the known world, but always a complete drunk. Cerebus's life view is brutally consistent, which is perhaps what made him initially so compelling and later wholly repulsive to any but the most ardent fan.

Cerebus demands precisely the kind of critical work I abhor: the unified monograph. It's hard to approach the work at this point, for there is no shared critical vocabulary upon which a community of scholars could build. It doesn't help that the work itself says so much and invites the reader to say so much more, rendering it a veritable hermeneutic black hole. A monograph could do for Cerebus what Kaufmann did for Nietzsche in the U.S.; it could provide both the imprimatur literary texts unfortunately need in this cacophonous critical environment and the groundwork later critics both wittingly and unwittingly trope.

Oh, and did I mention Cerebus is an aardvark?