A little while ago, while reviewing The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen I mentioned that one of the very few other
comic books I was familiar with was Cerebus the Aardvark. Man,
are you in for a treat.

I first heard tell of Cerebus when I was college, back in the early
’80s. I worked on campus one summer, and one day happened to
visit the college library. Honnold Library had a long lobby which was
used for exhibitions of various kinds, and this time it happened to
contain an exhibition on Cerebus the Aardvark. To this day, I
have no idea why it was there, or what, at that early date,
Cerebus was considered worthy of any kind of exhibition. But
there were a number of pages on display, and I enjoyed them thoroughly.

Some background: Cerebus the Aardvark is a swords-and-sorcery
themed comic book which started out as a spoof of
Robert E. Howard’s “Conan the Barbarian”–all of which I had
read by that time. The book also spoofed Michael Moorcock’s
Elric of Melniboné, albino, last king of a dying race, possessor
of the evil black sword Stormbringer, as Elrod the Albino. Elrod’s a bit
of a blithering idiot, he’s got a black rune sword of his own called
Seersucker, and he talks just like Foghorn Leghorn. Elrod was also
represented in this exhibition, and as I was reading a lot of Moorcock
just then, I was enchanted. After all, what’s not to like?

The possibility of my ever getting my hands on any of the Cerebus
comic books seemed fairly slim, though–I wouldn’t have known where to
look, back then–and I moved along.

Some years later I was visiting a friend at Stanford University, and in
nearby downtown Palo Alto I found a comic book shop. Good ol’ Cerebus
popped into my head, and there I found five intriguing books entitled
Swords of Cerebus, volumes 2 through 6 (they didn’t have volume
1). Each one collected four or five of the original comic books. I
immediately bought volumes 2 and 3, and went back for 4, 5, and 6 before
I went home. It was all lovely stuff, genuinely funny, with outstanding
dialog, impeccable comic timing, and increasingly good artwork.

One of the highlights of these early books is that Dave Sim was learning how to
write and draw a comic book in his own style–and each original issue is
preceded by a lengthy introduction in which he talks about that. He
explains his influences, and what he thinks did and didn’t work; it’s a
fascinating introduction to comic book art.

So I read ’em, and then they sat on my shelf. Eventually, a friend of
mine found me a copy of the first volume, and I read that, and re-read
the others, and then they sat on my shelf. And, having mentioned them
recently in this space they were on my mind and I happened to notice them
on the shelf, and one evening when I was tired and wired and restless and
needed something lighthearted and fun to read, I pulled Swords of
Cerebus, Vol. 1 off of said shelf and sat down to read.

Rapture! Over the next week and a half, I went through the other five
volumes, which I enjoyed (if possible) even more than the first time.
They’ve only improved with age.

Now, when I bought these, Volume 6 was the most recent; there were no
others. I had the notion that the comic book had continued publication
after that; but I’d never seen any reason to think that more collections
were available. (Granted, I hadn’t been looking.) So I fired up Google,
and went looking.

There are now approximately fifteen Cerebus the Aardvark
collections in print–and the six Swords of Cerebus books I’ve got
are equivalent to just the first of the fifteen. Clearly, ol’ Cerebus
has been successful beyond my wildest dreams–and I’ve got a lot of
reading to do.

I picked up the second of the fifteen collections last night; it’s called
High Society. The first episode in the book was so funny I had to
re-read it aloud to Jane. As for the rest, I’ll keep you posted.