Customer Reviews

Rick's Story (Cerebus, Book 12)

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

With "Rick's Story," Dave Sim and Gerhard created a chapter in the story of Cerebus that deserves a place with other respected graphic novels. The story carefully studies the two main characters, Rick and Cerebus, as they suffer a purgatory unique to each but shared by both. The episodes expose the characters' dilemmas with well-crafted storytelling and inventive graphic devices. At certain points, Cerebus struggles to subdue his mania by quietly arguing with the many different and distinct voices in his head. This allows Sim to show off his effective expression of dialect and tone within his drawn script. At other points, Rick slips into a martyr fantasy as expressed in friezes from stained-glass windows. As the typeset narrative continues in the margins, the windows act both as illustration and backdrop for the characters' actions.

Although it is short on feverish drama, "Rick's Story" contains much to be enjoyed and savored. The story is an evocative set piece fleshed-out with creatively integrated text and images. Despite many, sometimes subtle, back-references, anyone could enjoy this novel by itself.

I have to say, I started reading Cerebus with great expectations for the humor and art. The art does not disappoint, Sim and his background artist Gerhart are wonderful artist and storytellers. However Dave Sim has an odious attitude towars women and often comes accross as an ingorant know-it-all. Dave sim started Cerebus as a spoof of one of the most common Comic genres in the 70's: sword and sorcery. As the book progressed it became much more including comments on society, celebrity and every piece of popular fiction from the Marx Brothers to the X-Men. The early work is less heavy handed but Rick's Story is not the early work. After the collection called Church and State II, his work start to show more and more of his philosophy of life which includes a very snyde attitute towards most people and a sincere hatred of women. I don't know what his problem is and I don't really care but it makes his later work too preachy and acerbic. This particular collection involved one of the characters (Rick) showing up at an inn in an unresponsive condition. The main Character, Cerebus Just happens to be there recovering also. As the story unfold Rick begins to tell of his life and comes across as some sort of a divine philosopher or messiah. To me the concept is good, but I did not like the execution. Also, this is not an adventure book, the whole stroy literally takes place in and around the inn. As I said, my main problem with this book is the author's poitn of view. But it is a big problem. If you are not full of hate and cynicism especially towards women, I do not recommend this book at all unless you simply want to appreciate the art. I remmoend books following this one in the series even less. In fact they get worse as they go.

Rick, that is. Maybe Dave Sim as well, but that's another issue. I find this volume interesting as we get into the head of the post-"Jaka's Story" Rick, who is more than just a little insane. His hallucinations can't seem to decide whether Cerebus and Joanne are angels or demons. The artwork depicting this is quite... entertaining? Yes, the King James inspired "Ricke's Booke" is a bit tedious, but contains important hints at what's coming up in later volumes. Towards the end of the book, Rick seems to recover some of his sanity (although, how much of his "insanity" is due to his drunkeness, and how much is his normal, sober state of being?) Hey, and Missy returns! As well as a few other characters. If you like, you can stop here and imagine everyone lives happily ever after. Or you can continue to the next volume...

Not that it can be wholly quiet around Cerebus. Nearly all of this claustrophobic episode (issues 220-231 of the original comic run) takes place in a bar. Given Cerebus's massive consumption of alcohol, this is hardly surprising. The surprise is that Cerebus is behind the bar, this time, maintaining a moderately professional appearance between benders.

It's mainly a conversation between Cerebus, Rick, and their respective hallucinations or fantasies. Like any thinking person, Cerebus's mind houses different views of his past and present. Unlike others, those inner differences do bloody battle back and forth across his frontal lobes. Rick, suffering a head wound and chronic alcohol toxicity, isn't much better. So, when another person from the real world (Joanne) shows up, there are many more than just the tree of them in the room, complicated by Cerebus's self-contradictory mix of jealousy and misogyny.

Although good for the Cerebus die-hard, this is hardly the place for a beginner to get started. The Cerebus comic ran like a soap opera, with story arcs spanning years of time out here in the real world. And, as in soap operas, the present story can only be understood if the reader knows a lot about what came before. Lacking that context, a newcomer will find Rick's Story even more baffling than the experienced reader does.

//wiredweird

After the moving and intense Minds volume of the Mothers and Daughters story line, Cerebus spends the next few volumes as a bartender barely moving from a single spot. Everything grinds to a halt and as tedious as Latter Days is on account of very detailed biblical explication, nothing is happening in these volumes. You get an idea of what's happening in Estarcion as Cirin's forces have taken over and it's paid off somewhat in how Cerebus dismantles the matriarchy later (albeit briefly). This story line is so tedious Dave Sim makes a very funny meta joke towards the end of the book. Guys I would say is the low point of the series and this volume is where it begins to pick up again.

After reading this and the prior in the series I felt that at this point in his 300 issue story Sims had lost any sense of what he was doing with the tale. Essentially there is almost 80 issues I've read so far where the plot and characters hardly develop at all. Lots of skill in the drawing and dialogue but essentially no content- sad because the series was quite good for a long period of time prior to Mothers and Daughters.
And this does represent a huge amount of work sadly wasted.