Latter Days (Cerebus No. 15) [Paperback]

Dave Sim (Author), Gerhard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The penultimate volume of Sim's uncategorizable 6,000-page comics epic about a talking aardvark and medieval politics is the oddest one yet. Since its debut almost 25 years ago as a parody of barbarian comics, Cerebus has become one of the most maddeningly idiosyncratic tales available anywhere. To wit, roughly a third of this collection is given over to a nearly unreadable exegesis, in tiny type, of the Torah, to the effect that God and YHWH are different entities, and that the latter (whose name is transliterated as "Yoowhoo") is actually a false, female God. Sim accompanies this with an extended parody of/commentary on Woody Allen's career. When he's on, Sim is a master cartoonist (abetted by his incomparable background artist/architect, Gerhard), and his visual technique is tops. A chunk of the book featuring the thinly disguised Three Stooges captures their body language almost miraculously, which makes a sequence about their declining years heartbreaking. This volumeâ€"much of which takes place after the entire supporting cast of the series has died, off-panelâ€"also involves dead-on parodies of Preacher, Spawn, The Comics Journal and the Sermon on the Mount, which contains scenes of bloodshed alternately played for stomach-churning horror and for giggles; and an ending filled with abject psychological despair. Fifty pages of Sim's notes on his work follow this; they fluctuate between remarkable creative insights and sneering rants against feminism, psychiatry and "the secular mind."
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Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Aardvark-Vanheim (November 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0919359221
• ISBN-13: 978-0919359222
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #636,130 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I just wish he'd gone into the castile soap business, January 1, 2008

By 

Doktor Polidori (Boston, Ma., U.S. of C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latter Days (Cerebus No. 15) (Paperback)

Dr Bronner was able to take a good product and make it a great product by surrounding it with crank religious babble; Mr Sim took a great product and turned it into a mediocre one by interleaving it with such.

Traditionally, in Jewish sacred text study at least, the first, essential, step is to find a well-regarded teacher. This is because Torah uses ancient and often obscure language, with some uncertainty as to vowel points and proper punctuation. I don't know if the same obtains for the Quran (and sunna, and hadith), but I shouldn't be surprised if there weren't similar problems, and the same for the Christian books' Aramaic and koine Greek.

In all cases, knowledge of how people lived at the time also helps; in one case Mr Sim made an uncharacteristic turn toward a possible acceptance of lesbian sexuality based on a simple misunderstanding that up until recently, bed-sharing among the poor was nearly universal in all cold climates, orthogonal to sexual intent....

Auto-didacts are to be admired for their desire and their energy, but easily stray into idiosyncratic alleys, making their interpretations much more about the their inner selves than about the text or its application to people in general. Clouds without water, men who plough the roof.

That being said, the art was still good, especially Gerhard's, whose political and religious beliefs remain tom-me-blissfully unknown.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Text...lots and lots of text, December 4, 2010

By 

Cilantron (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Latter Days (Cerebus No. 15) (Paperback)

Starting with the three stars I give it, add a star if you like the Three Stooges. Then, if you hate Dave Sim text, subtract a star, if you love Dave Sim text, add a star, and if you say "ah, I just skip that stuff," add 0 stars (or subtract 0 stars, as the whim suits you.) Me, I'm sticking with three stars.

After the events of the previous volume, Cerebus just wants to die. Instead of dying, we get two humorous issues where he becomes a shephard and a player of "five-bar gate," the tennis/hockey game Dave invented. Then, with the help (?) of the Three Stooges and Todd McSpahn [McFarlane] he finally overthrows the Cirinists, and there is much bloodshed and mayhem. After ruling for 70 years or so, Woody Allen (why not?) shows up and gives him a copy of the Torah. The rest of the book (pages 288-511) consists primarily of Cerebus analyzing Genesis, interspersed with "diary entries" and biographical information on Woody Allen, some knocks against Freud and Jung, and the final final pages (463-511) spent on notes on everything you just read (or skimmed over, or skipped). Whew! Oh wait, he also meets the woman who will [spoiler deleted].

This is a seriously mixed bag. If you like Cerebus for the humor, there is much humor to be found here. I have a weird sense of humor, so I even find the Woody Allen diary entries funny. If you've been skipping all the text so far in previous volumes, I advise you to keep on skipping. I'll shift my comments on the text pages to the comments section.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Almost home!, December 10, 2008

By 

Cr. Prekim "bearded wonder" (Reading, PA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Latter Days (Cerebus No. 15) (Paperback)

If you've made it this far, why stop now? This is, to say the least, more than a little tedious. Sim has created a very unique commentary on the book of Genesis. He postulates that God and YHWH (the LORD in English translations) are two separate beings. YHWH, who Sim refers to as Yoowhoo, is a feminine being which more or less makes decisions that God always goes along with. I was about a third of the way through the book before I could really understand the line of reasoning (at least as much as I think it's understandable) and had to start the book over, now getting the idea. It's almost all text, really small text, that if you can get through it, it's at least as interesting (if not more refined) as the infamous Reads volume. As I say, if you've made it to vol. 15, make your way through it, it's worth it.