Cerebus, the controversial comics masterpiece by Dave Sim, is returning in a one shot that, perhaps inspired by Mike Mignola’s latest Hellboy saga, shows us how the earth pig will be doing in Hell. The issue goes on sale in September and if successful will be followed by a four issue mini-series.
Cerebus died in issue #300 of his long running series, which was published in 2004.
Unfortunately, ongoing wrist problem have rendered Sim unable to draw, so the comic will be something of a Wondermark-inspired collage, made with the help of longtime Cerebus webmaster Sandeep Atwal, according to an interview in Diamond’s Previews, where the one-shot was announced. IN the meantime, Sim and Atwal will present an online Cerebus comic strip, as you can see from this sample.
The cover of the one-shot is a similar collage with Hieronymous Bosch.
According to the interview, The strip will be a four-panel “poor man’s Garfield”: “Sandeep and I have the same reaction: Cerebus is so hilariously pathetic that the strips pretty much write themselves. Cerebus and the Manticore. Cerebus and the Minotaur. Cerebus and the Unconsecrated Dead. Cerebus and the Suicides. Cerebus and the Ttians. Cerebus and Lucifer. If you can’t write four funny panels on that, you’re in the wrong line of work.”
Here’s the solicit text:
Cerebus In Hell #0
(W) Dave Sim (A) Dave Sim & Various (CA) Dave Sim, Hieronymus Bosch
The first new Cerebus comic since 2004! Where has Cerebus been since he died twelve years ago? Is he in hell? Purgatory? Limbo? Some strange 1980 disco with links to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Henry Kissinger? Some ancient Greek disco with links to Plato, Socrates, Aristotle? Some 1990s disco with links to The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays, and Oasis? Is he stuck inside his own Cerebus Online Disco Twitter-feed? Well, wherever he is, he deserves it, so feel free to laugh at his misfortune! This one shot leads into the Cerebus In Hell? 4-issue mini-series in 2017 celebrating Cerebus‘ 40th-anniversary!
Item Code: JUL161105
In Shops: 9/28/2016
Price: $4.00
For those who want to catch up on Cerebus, you can read it for free via download, or one page at a time on Tumblr. Despite Sim’s later religious and gender-based controversies, the earliest issues (especially High Society) are a highwater mark of 80s comics storytelling. I guess it’s like Gasoline Alley for baby boomer comics fans.
It’s in Cerebus In Hell #0
Needs more Girard.
So Rich, after you nagged us to cover this unsourced story it turns out you had transcribed the issue number wrong.
IF this is not a metaphor for the entire state of Comics Journo nothing is.
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