Reads (Cerebus, Volume 9) [Paperback]

Dave Sim (Author), Gerhard (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The ninth volume of the Cerebus the Aardvark series, Reads, is the penultimate chapter of the larger Mothers and Daughters story. This is one of the most powerful editions in the series and one of the most ambitious narratives that Dave Sim has ever attempted.

In addition, Reads is the most controversial volume of the Cerebus series to date because of a parallel narrative involving two characters--Viktor Reid and Viktor Davis--who are both alter egos for Dave Sim. This controversy is a shame because the offensive section in Reads--which explores the relationship between men and women--represents only one possible view of this subject. When read as part of the whole series, the passages that may have seemed shocking to some, appear (like all points of this narrative) to question and provoke rather than offend. Viktor Davis is far from a reliable narrator, an idea that is reinforced by the final paragraphs of his narrative and demonstrated by the scariest of all Cerebus practical jokes. Are Viktor Davis or Viktor Reid representative of Dave Sim or simply aspects of his persona? The ending suggests the answer.

Meanwhile, Cerebus, Po, Cirin, and Astoria debate the important stuff, including our aardvark friend's genitalia, the history of Illusionism, the nature of power, and the fate of Astoria's child. Despite the bad rap, Reads is Cerebus at its finest. Like the best of art, Reads has the power to shock, surprise, amuse, and offend--and it even has a whiz-bang fight scene. What more could you want?

Product Details

• Paperback: 247 pages
• Publisher: Aardvark-Vanheim (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0919359159
• ISBN-13: 978-0919359154
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #332,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, five stars., November 13, 2010

By 

Cilantron (CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reads (Cerebus, Volume 9) (Paperback)

This is the Big One. I could go on and on about WHY you should read this, but to keep this review from being too huge, I'll shift that to the comments section.

First off, what is a "read"? In the world of Cerebus, a read is a form of literature in which the odd pages are all text where the even pages consist of a single illustration. Dave structures the first part of this volume with about 16 pages of a read describing the life of reads author Victor Reid alternating with 6 pages of a continuance of the Cerebus story line. Like many things about Cerebus, this gives me another reason to be glad I didn't read the series "live." I personally don't mind this section; I find the Victor Reid story amusing. During this portion ***spoiler*** Po convinces Astoria to give up her ambitions for power. Philosophically speaking, this is not, as one might imagine, because Astoria is a woman, but because attempting to control others is ultimately self-defeating and pointless.

The second portion is essentially one extended fight scene between Cerebus and Cirin, interspersed with text from Viktor Davis, who is pretty much indistinguishable from Dave Sim. The text portions are essentially spiraling inwards until we get to the actual point, in #186. More on that infamous section in the comments.

Part 3 of the "Mothers and Daughters" four-volume series within a series.

3.0 out of 5 stars SELF INDULGENT and Self Indulgent, October 30, 2010

By 

David (Frederick, Moldova, Republic of) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Reads (Cerebus, Volume 9) (Paperback)

I can appreciate a great deal about this book. For one thing, the narrative in the first portion is well crafted and interesting. I think it's fine and dandy to make a comic that is so heavy on text. I think it's fine for a comic to be a polemic. It is certainly self indulgent in the style (he uses and reuses some rather silly literary devices) as well as much of the content (his portrayal of himself s some sort of smoking Socrates.) What I can't really get behind is the vitriol with which the author attacks women. Okay, so MAYBE he's making a point about inflammatory writing (although what point? That it exists? No kidding.) but I don't see how that matters. It doesn't read as satire, and if it is suppose to, then it fails. He is, of course, entitled to his sexism, but it disappointed me as a reader. The arguments (in regards to women) are not only conceited and venomous, they're poorly reasoned. Furthermore, the author suggests over and over again that any man that disagrees with him is fooling himself and must be under the influence of a pernicious vamp.
I don't want to truly delve in to the many issues that I have with this work, because really, who cares? There is a lot to like about this book, and I will finish the series, and Cerebus will remain one of my favorite comics, but in the end "reads" just left me feeling mildly insulted. It's a lot of fairly dry reading to get through to be left feeling insulted.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This one didn't quite work for me, February 22, 2003

By 

Glen Engel Cox (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reads (Cerebus, Volume 9) (Paperback)

These later collected volumes are not for the uninitiated. Collecting as they do issues from the late 100s (of a proposed 300 issue run), they require a knowledge of a large majority of the previously published issues of volumes. Cerebus itself is not necessarily enjoyable by those without some familiarity with its peer comics, fantasy novels by Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, the Marx brothers' films, and the writings and lives of Oscar Wilde, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards, to enumerate only some of its influences.

Reads is one of the more unusual of the published volumes. Containing almost as many pages of pure text as traditional picture/text combination, it challenges the assumption of what a comic is. The story itself is highly irregular as well. Although it continues the ascension (where the previous volume left off), the text portion is a thinly veiled satire about a "reads" author and his publishers. I say thinly because even I could recognize the references to Kitchen Sink, Dark Horse and Vertigo, their publishers and editors, and I was not following comicdom in most of the 1990s. The satire works itself into a chaotic manifesto on the nature of art, the distinction (as Sim sees it) between male and female, and the moral rights of creation. Heavy stuff for a "funny book," especially one initially a Conan parody with an aardvark as the barbarian. I don't think Reads is quite as effective as Sim thinks it is, but it scores major points for chutzpah.

New to Cerebus? Don't start here. Find the first eponymous phone book and try that. It gets both better and worse after that, but this is truly one of those cases where you have to take the good with the bad.