High Society is the second volume of the saga of
Cerebus the Aardvark, comprising issues 26 through 50 of the original
comic book. And unlike the first volume, it’s essentially one long
500-page story.

The overall plot is remarkably straightforward if you don’t examine it
too closely. Cerebus stomps into the city of Iest after a long slog
through the marshes. He’s tired, he’s angry, and he’s looking for a
fight. He seeks out the best hotel in town mostly so he can get into a
brawl with the hotel guards over whether he can get a room or not. And
instead, everything goes suspiciously smoothly as soon as the desk clerk
learns his name.

It turns out that it’s all thanks to being the Supervisor of the Staff
Kitchen for Lord Julius of Palnu, a post Cerebus held for a time in the
previous volume. Lord Julius (who is played fetchingly by Groucho Marx–no,
really!) funds his government by selling titles to the highest bidder,
and as a result most titles in Palnu don’t mean what you’d think they
mean. Supervisor of the Staff Kitchen is in fact the title held by
the head of Julius’ personal bodyguard. As such, then, Cerebus is
presumed to have considerable pull with Lord Julius, and has been elected
by the people of Iest to be (I think–it’s a little fuzzy) Palnu’s
diplomatic representative in Iest. Hence his popularity and inability to
get into a fight.

This is just the first twenty pages, you understand. What follows is a
wild tiger ride in which Cerebus is kidnapped, rescued, manipulated,
outvoted, elected, and nearly becomes pope. (No, not that pope. A
different pope altogether.) It’s a tale of economics, politics,
religion, interest rates, graft, teamsters, surly farmers, and a couple
of whackos who talk like Yosemite Sam. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I
suspect I missed about half of what was going on.

In one regard I prefer the earlier Swords of Cerebus collections
(four issues per volume) to the new larger format–in the smaller
collections, each issue is preceded by an introduction. Not all of them
are timeless, but they not only provide interesting background to the
story, they also chronicle Sim’s growth as a writer and artist. For me,
comics illiterate that I am, it was a fascinating glimpse at how comic
books are created. I missed all that in the current volume.

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable interlude, and one I intend to repeat
in a few months, just to see what I missed the first time around.