shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 1, 2016 22:19:43 GMT -5
Read about 300 pages of Jaka's Story tonight, fully realizing that the next volume unlocked today. I am behind.
I've got to say: whereas the prologue was difficult to get through, the rest has been thoroughly addictive. In hindsight, I think that was my experience last time too; long wait after reading the prologue, and then I fell in love with Sim's artistry on a whole new level. This is his most captivating volume yet in that it's simpler, and is therefore so much more powerful and focused in those simple moments. Plot was never Dave's strong point, so this story about nothing (a decade before Seinfeld tried it) captures reality brilliantly, only through an artistic lens that invites us to trust that every ordinary moment we bear witness to has significance.
It's all so much more muted, even the artistry, and yet it's all so much more powerful as a result. Crazy. It's just 480 pages of people talking and living life, and yet it's so addictive that I've only stopped because I was thirsty and then checked the time.
I love how each character is multi-faceted. Just when you think Jaka, or Rick, or Pud, or Oscar is the villain or the saint, each one manages to surprise you. Lord Julius knocking Oscar down a peg or three was a highlight for me in this respect.
And the yearning through windows -- first everyone wants Jaka. Then everyone wants Jaka and Rick's relationship. That innate desire to rape that Sim unfortunately believes resides in all men surfaces on a more believable and universal level here -- not a desire within us all to physically rape a being, but a yearning to take, control (and thereby tarnish) what is beautiful and not ours. As usual, Sim's work jibes with my sensibilities far more than his ideas of what his work represents.
On another level, there's a fascinating, if unintentional, exploration of feminism here that stems from that need to take and control. Whereas the narrative sections of this piece, describing Jaka's childhood, initially offer us insight into a beautiful woman (inside and out) that we yearn to better understand, we learn halfway through that it's a sham -- a hollow exploitation of Jaka's life by a man who cares nothing for her and seeks only profit and personal glory. Not only is he attempting to take and exploit Jaka's very identity, but, in a sense, as his yearning audience, aren't we guilty of the same? Our attempts to understand were really just a parading of her miserable life story before our eyes for the sake of our perverse enjoyment.
The feminist as abuser. Heavy.
Not that I think Sim understood he was doing that, but it's there.
I look forward to finishing this volume this weekend, and I might blaze through Melmoth that quickly as well. I've got the Cerebus bug again; I just don't want to stop.
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Post by shaxper on Dec 3, 2016 2:16:32 GMT -5
Finished Jaka's Story tonight. Man, the Cirinist invasion really comes out of nowhere, doesn't it? I mean, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition and all that, but it really feels like Sim was approaching the climax of what he'd been building towards, found it dull, and so completely derailed the thing at the last moment. None of the themes or ideas of the volume up to that point carry through. It's just Sim invoking another "judge" at the end of the story to weigh in on who is good and who is bad, even though that runs completely contrary to the characterizations and sympathies Sim was developing earlier. And this is the first time the book begins to feel really anti-feminist. The Cirinists are "feminazis" -- the strawman idea of what a feminist is. Each is huge, unattractive, abusive, and hates men. Jaka even correctly infers that the nurse is a Cirinist, presumably only because she has those qualities. And Sim really goes out of his way to show their brutality and harshness; a curious thing to do in a book that used to be about an Aardvark whose only goal was to amass armies so that he could do even worse. Anyway, powerful as that final moment between Rick and Jaka is, I find myself disliking the Cirinist section of Jaka's Story. The smaller, quieter, more balanced piece Sim had been building up to that point had me far more ensnared. Anyway, to finally address josephwyatt88's observations from ages back: Bollocks, I had planned on commenting sooner but I've let stuff catch up on me a bit. So anyway, general thoughts on the volume: It's a very, very welcome change of pace and downscaling after Church & State II got a little too self consciously epic for its own good and wasn't quite tightly written enough to really pull that off - I think I liked it a lot more than you seemed to, Shax, and I stand by a lot of the gushing I did back when I finished it, I think a lot of the ideas explored in it were fascinating and the art and experiments were off the scale, but you're right - Sim was winging it a lot of the time. I doubt even he knows what the Ascension was about. So, scaling the story down to a little character piece with five central characters was a very smart idea. Jaka is one of Sim's best characters. Rick is wonderfully hapless and oblivious (Cerebus: "Listen, kid, Cerebus is in love with your wife." - and Rick STILL doesn't get it!") One of my favourite parts is the scene early on where Jaka communicates how peeved she is at him entirely through sound-effects, showing off Sim's wonderful way with onomatopoeia as she charges round the house doing her normal chores while quivering with rage. Oscar is an entertaining, warts-and-all portrayal of a writer that Sim obviously has a lot of affection for. I really liked the twist with regards to the prose in the "reads" sections - they seem excessively flowery and overwritten and it's obnoxious as hell until we found out we're reading pages from Oscar's book, and the purple prose is not a flaw in Sim's writing but a commentary on the way people like Oscar write. That was fun. Pud is fascinating. I especially love the way Pud basically goes through an entire character arc just from us watching his thought processes - we know he's lonely and miserable and has built up an idealised fantasy version of Jaka in his head, and everything indicates that he's about to take out that misery by forcing Jaka to do something awful, then he redeems himself by realising what he's contemplating and severely beating himself up over it. So the book all unfolds as something of a soap opera, with the undercurrent of anxiety over Cerebus hiding out from the Cirinists. Some of Sim's best dialogue comes from the conversations in this book - Cerebus apologizing to Jaka, Cerebus passive-aggressively battling an oblivious Rick, Oscar and Pud's debate over the word "somdomite". I love the way these characters interact, the way relationships develop around them all. Agreed on all counts. I think that was extremely overt. Though I didn't enjoy this section as much as you did, I agree with all your observations here. You know, the text sections really grew on me. This time around, they might have been my favorite part. Oscar's prose is overly floury and full of itself at times, but his seeming sensitivity towards his subject, herself, was damn powerful. It's, interestingly enough, Oscar who makes me love Jaka and seldom Jaka herself (nor the lens through which Sim depicts her without Oscar's writing). The banner at the party reads "Happy 18th Birthday, Astoria" while Julius comments upon her entrance "She doesn't look a day over 12." I suspect his intention was either to undermine Astoria or to throw Jaka a party without arousing suspicion, but Jaka takes it as the ultimate insult since she considers Astoria something of an arch nemesis for Julius' attention. I think I like Jaka's Story better. By the way, what was Thatcher's motive in doing what she did to Jaka? And what are we supposed to get from the revelation of Jaka's abortion? Did she do it so as not to become trapped? To not lose the ability to dance and look beautiful? Because she knew they couldn't afford it? I feel like Sim doesn't equip us with enough understanding to know what to make of this, even though we now might understand Jaka better than she or Rick do.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 3, 2016 10:55:45 GMT -5
By the way, what was Thatcher's motive in doing what she did to Jaka? And what are we supposed to get from the revelation of Jaka's abortion? Did she do it so as not to become trapped? To not lose the ability to dance and look beautiful? Because she knew they couldn't afford it? I feel like Sim doesn't equip us with enough understanding to know what to make of this, even though we now might understand Jaka better than she or Rick do. I took it all at face value. Thatcher is an ideologue; she is convinced that Cirinism is the one and true way, that all it does is good, and that failure to adhere to its precepts is evil. An ideologue can perform any act and justify it "for the greater good", which includes things like having someone's fingers broken or caging them and abusing them until they admit to their sinful behaviour. The freaks from Daesh are doing it right now, as did kommissars in the USSR. In the case of Jaka, execution was out of reach for political reasons... but Thatcher was certainly not letting go of her prey that easily. Inflicting as much psychological pain as possible was the only alternative available. There was probably a certain level of smug satisfaction in seeing an "enemy of the state" having to admit to her crimes. Why did Jaka have an abortion? Again, I didn't go beyond the first degree... She's the only adult in her couple, she's the provider, and her having a child would have prevented her from fulfilling that role. As the adult, she's also the one who has to make the tough calls. I don't think she was avoiding entrapment, although that's an appealing thought; I don't think so because she is already caught in a dead-end situation and seems not only to accept it, but to have an optimistic view of the future. Jaka, beyond her romantic streak and thirst for freedom, always struck me as having a practical mind, acknowledging her own faults and those of others when planning for the future (as we'll see later when she'll travel with Cerebus). I think she just did the maths: baby = no more dancing = no more money = death. Rick's angry reaction is understandable, but also typical of the man-child he is depicted as. Does he stop for one second to ask Jaka why she had the baby aborted? Does he for one instant stop to consider that his own unreliability led her to it? No, he throws the adult equivalent of a tantrum and hits her, like a four year old deprived of something he wanted really badly. It's tragic that it took such a traumatic revelation to get him to care about anything; had he been willing to pull his own weight earlier, he would have spared everyone a lot of pain... himself among them.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Dec 3, 2016 11:24:54 GMT -5
And this is the first time the book begins to feel really anti-feminist. The Cirinists are "feminazis" -- the strawman idea of what a feminist is. Each is huge, unattractive, abusive, and hates men. Jaka even correctly infers that the nurse is a Cirinist, presumably only because she has those qualities. And Sim really goes out of his way to show their brutality and harshness; a curious thing to do in a book that used to be about an Aardvark whose only goal was to amass armies so that he could do even worse. Cirinists are indeed strawmen (or strawomen!), but I don't think they represent a caricature of feminism per se... That would be kevilism, in which men are property and women have pretty much any right they can conceive of. Cirinism, in my opinion, is targetting something that touches on feminism but isn't quite the same thing; it is a stand-in for what, lacking a better word, I would call the "touchy-feely" philosophy that permeates today's society and that Sim condemns so often. Cirinism, let us recall, does not give power to women; it gives power to mothers. A woman like Jaka, who is not a mother and refuses the precepts of Cirinism, is treated as harshly as any man would; perhaps even worse. Cirinism, to me, is any totalitarian regime, complete with its unyielding precepts and dehumanizing treatment of people. Sim colours it with his own views on society, in which he suggests that men are deprived of their masculinity. After Going Home, before the Spore-led revolution, we saw how men had changed under Cirinism, being all obsessed with their babies and acting in rather effeminate ways. I find it personally very sad that Sim never seemed to acknowledge that it's entirely feasible to be a tough lumberjack kind of man and still be a doting father to one's children... I find it sad because he deprived himself of some of life's greatest joys. A father-child relationship does not limit itself to two fishing trips, as Cerebus seems to believe in The Last Day.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 3, 2016 12:42:55 GMT -5
By the way, what was Thatcher's motive in doing what she did to Jaka? And what are we supposed to get from the revelation of Jaka's abortion? Did she do it so as not to become trapped? To not lose the ability to dance and look beautiful? Because she knew they couldn't afford it? I feel like Sim doesn't equip us with enough understanding to know what to make of this, even though we now might understand Jaka better than she or Rick do. I took it all at face value. Thatcher is an ideologue; she is convinced that Cirinism is the one and true way, that all it does is good, and that failure to adhere to its precepts is evil. An ideologue can perform any act and justify it "for the greater good", which includes things like having someone's fingers broken or caging them and abusing them until they admit to their sinful behaviour. The freaks from Daesh are doing it right now, as did kommissars in the USSR. In the case of Jaka, execution was out of reach for political reasons... but Thatcher was certainly not letting go of her prey that easily. Inflicting as much psychological pain as possible was the only alternative available. There was probably a certain level of smug satisfaction in seeing an "enemy of the state" having to admit to her crimes. Why did Jaka have an abortion? Again, I didn't go beyond the first degree... She's the only adult in her couple, she's the provider, and her having a child would have prevented her from fulfilling that role. As the adult, she's also the one who has to make the tough calls. I don't think she was avoiding entrapment, although that's an appealing thought; I don't think so because she is already caught in a dead-end situation and seems not only to accept it, but to have an optimistic view of the future. Jaka, beyond her romantic streak and thirst for freedom, always struck me as having a practical mind, acknowledging her own faults and those of others when planning formthe future (as we'll see laterbwhen she'll travel with Cerebus). I think she just did the maths: baby = no more dancing = no more money = death. Rick's angry reaction is understandable, but also typical of the man-child he is depicted as. Does he stop for one second to ask Jaka why she had the baby aborted? Does he for an instant stop to consider that his own unreliability led her to it? No, he throws the adult equivalent of a tantrum and hits her, like a four year old deprived of something he wanted really badly. It's tragic that it took such a traumatic revelation to get him to care about anything; had he been willing to pull his own weight earlier, he would have spared everyone a lot of pain... himself among them. I think you're being too hard on Rick. I'm not exactly rooting for either of them here, and I'm not condoning Rick's outburst, but I do understand it. From his standpoint, Jaka murdered his son, as well as the hopes and dreams that defined him. When we meet Rick next, he's gone from a young fool idealizing his future son to a profoundly more pathetic old fool idealizing his past self. Rick was foolish and selfish, but Jaka knew this going in, as well as how strongly he wanted a son. Thus, this is a devastating betrayal, logical and understandable as it might be if Sim ever bothered to explain it. Rick isn't right. He isn't entirely wrong either.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Dec 5, 2016 13:06:55 GMT -5
And this is the first time the book begins to feel really anti-feminist. The Cirinists are "feminazis" -- the strawman idea of what a feminist is. Each is huge, unattractive, abusive, and hates men. Jaka even correctly infers that the nurse is a Cirinist, presumably only because she has those qualities.
I think the depiction of the Cirinists truly suffers under Sim's apparent shift in attitude towards women. All the Cirinists we meet early on (who are mainly spies) are reasonably attractive; the first time we see a Cirinist warrior she's not huge or unattractive; rather she looks strong, and (from what little we can see of her face) at least not apparently unattractive.
After the shift, the Cirinist warriors go from looking like female athletes to looking like fat ugly dyke stereotypes.
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Post by shaxper on Dec 15, 2016 16:59:38 GMT -5
Got halfway through Melmoth tonight and wanted to keep going, but I have guests coming over in an hour. By the time Sim was writing this volume, he was a very different person than he'd been when he first vowed to make Cerebus into a 300 issue saga. His relationship had fallen apart, he was alone, and clearly a lot had changed in him. I think that explains the previous volume only marginally being about Cerebus and featuring a Jaka and a Cirinist order that only resembled their former selves in name, and it definitely explains this volume, in which former characters are paraded across the page as nods to the reader while the true focus is placed upon Sim's newfound obsession with Oscar Wilde. It didn't fit when I last read this almost fifteen years ago, and it doesn't fit now. But Sim is so damn good at what he does, that I loved and love it anyhow. He keeps finding ways to further perfect his art, particularly inking, movement, and the passing of time with this volume: Once again, we have a volume where very little is happening and at a slow pace, giving Sim ample time to experiment without being too distracted by the demands of a plot and obligatory action. This volume is content to do very little in terms of plot and action, and I am very okay with that. It's also nice to see Sim's introduction confirming much of what we discussed about Jaka's Story, from the forced Wilde-like Prose to the idea that all humans have an innate instinct to tarnish and destroy what they are attracted to. Sim confirms all of this. But his anti-feminist tones are really amping up in this volume as well. Apparently, a world in which women are empowered inevitably results in rude waitresses running the world: The entire point of cameos by The Bug and Mick and Keith is to show just how upset they are with women being in charge. If Sim hadn't just written Jaka's Story, I think more folks would have called him out for his misogyny by this point. Sure, the waitress gets replaced by a likable young girl, but she's only likable because she's still innocent/non-empowered and seeks to serve Cerebus' every whim. If anything, that's a worse blow to feminism than the miserable waitress. Why is Cerebus in shock? Is it because he believes the Cirinists killed Jakka? That makes the most sense, but it's never actually suggested in this volume beyond Cerebus carrying Misty with him. This confused the heck out of me when I read this volume for the first time. Finally, we've got a moment where Cerebus recalls his moment of cosmic connection with Astoria from back in Church & State II: this first happened around the same time we heard "Something fell" for the first(?) time. I don't recall if this cosmic connection thing is coming back later on. Anyone have a better memory on this than I do?
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Post by shaxper on Dec 22, 2016 18:11:36 GMT -5
Nearly finished Melmoth tonight, and I'm sorry to say that I found the second half more disappointing. The power Sim found in those empty moments of Reggie waiting by Oscar's bed get lost as soon as Oscar takes a turn for the worse, and then it becomes little more than Sim presenting selected letters about Oscar's dying with accompanying art. Really not powerful or evocative, and I lose track of who is writing each letter to boot.
And I just don't understand the Cerebus side. I don't understand what snaps him out of his trauma (being dusted off??), and while I can see that he equates the young waitress with his image of a young Jakka (though why? He didn't read Jakka's Story), her souring into Sim's offensive idea of womanhood is just painful to watch. There's a clear panel where the two appear to almost be witnessing Oscar's death, but I just don't understand the connection.
I don't get this volume, and I suspect Sim didn't either. As I noted earlier, he claimed in one interview that he was always high when he worked on Cerebus. I think his brilliant artistry just usually does a better job of covering up the nonsense. In this case, it didn't.
Oh, and at the beginning of the volume, we are clearly shown that Dino Cafe is set on the edge of a cliff climbing the enormous mountain to Upper Iest, but, on page 129, it's suddenly set amid a large town on a plain.
So I REALLY think Sim got careless with this volume.
The epilogue is up next. I ran out of time for now but hope to get to it later tonight.
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Post by josephwyatt88 on Dec 23, 2016 21:45:23 GMT -5
Well would you look at that, we get to do this the other way round for once! Got halfway through Melmoth tonight and wanted to keep going, but I have guests coming over in an hour. By the time Sim was writing this volume, he was a very different person than he'd been when he first vowed to make Cerebus into a 300 issue saga. His relationship had fallen apart, he was alone, and clearly a lot had changed in him. I think that explains the previous volume only marginally being about Cerebus and featuring a Jaka and a Cirinist order that only resembled their former selves in name, and it definitely explains this volume, in which former characters are paraded across the page as nods to the reader while the true focus is placed upon Sim's newfound obsession with Oscar Wilde. It didn't fit when I last read this almost fifteen years ago, and it doesn't fit now. This being my first read-through of Cerebus and with most of what I know of Sim's personal life etc. comes from the intros to the issues and his answers to letters on the letters page I know far less about him than you obviously do, but this all makes perfect sense from what I've seen. Art imitates life - Sim's changed as much as Jaka and the Cirinists it would seem. This honestly feels like a man committed to what he'd promised his readers, a complete 300 page epic, but with other ambitions superceding Cerebus and his compromise being to meld the two together. The man obviously has a love for Graphic Novel biographies and this wouldn't be the last one he'd insert into the book - oddly now that I've finished the series and encountered the four (I think?) others that appeared, Melmoth now feels like it fits in better than it did when I read it. Still, it's the only one that doesn't even attempt to tie the main plotline in somehow and that's awkward and jarring. But Sim is so damn good at what he does, that I loved and love it anyhow. He keeps finding ways to further perfect his art, particularly inking, movement, and the passing of time with this volume: I agree with all of this. Funny how, in my opinion, Sim's ability to write a plot (or at least his interest in it) started to deteriorate at the same time as his technical skill with a pencil and his visual storytelling abilities skyrocketed. There are sections of Cerebus where even when I am truly not a fan of the writing (*cough* READS *cough*) the quality of the art still makes it compelling enough to stick with it. Again, all agreed. Why is Cerebus in shock? Is it because he believes the Cirinists killed Jakka? That makes the most sense, but it's never actually suggested in this volume beyond Cerebus carrying Misty with him. This confused the heck out of me when I read this volume for the first time. We see a flashback later on of Cerebus going back to Rick and Jaka's house and finding it a wreck, leading him to believe that Jaka had been killed. Why Sim didn't see fit to show us that earlier, or at least give us some allusion to it in the dialogue, I don't know. Finally, we've got a moment where Cerebus recalls his moment of cosmic connection with Astoria from back in Church & State II: this first happened around the same time we heard "Something fell" for the first(?) time. I don't recall if this cosmic connection thing is coming back later on. Anyone have a better memory on this than I do? Ah, again the benefits of having a monumental amount of free time on your hands to plow through the whole thing - It is indeed coming back, in fact it'll be in the next storyline (but not the next book - given that the Mothers & Daughters storyline is for some reason broken up into four relatively tiny trades).
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Post by josephwyatt88 on Dec 23, 2016 22:09:30 GMT -5
Nearly finished Melmoth tonight, and I'm sorry to say that I found the second half more disappointing. The power Sim found in those empty moments of Reggie waiting by Oscar's bed get lost as soon as Oscar takes a turn for the worse, and then it becomes little more than Sim presenting selected letters about Oscar's dying with accompanying art. Really not powerful or evocative, and I lose track of who is writing each letter to boot. I just thought it was me getting tired of the story and just wanting to move on with our main characters but you might be right, it did go a little downhill. Feels a little rushed and lazy in all honesty, and the letters section drags on for far too long. And I just don't understand the Cerebus side. I don't understand what snaps him out of his trauma (being dusted off??), and while I can see that he equates the young waitress with his image of a young Jakka (though why? He didn't read Jakka's Story), her souring into Sim's offensive idea of womanhood is just painful to watch. There's a clear panel where the two appear to almost be witnessing Oscar's death, but I just don't understand the connection. I wrote a couple of paragraphs out trying to unpack this but honestly it's all speculation - I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be Cerebus so desperate for the love of the woman that he thinks he's lost forever that even the possibility of a connection with someone who vaguely resembles her gives him something to latch on to and come out of his funk. Don't hold me to my word on that though, that's just a theory and you're right in that the effect is ruined somewhat by the continuingly troubling bleeding through of Sim's questionable views on women. Although he doesn't truly wake up until the epilogue... I don't get this volume, and I suspect Sim didn't either. As I noted earlier, he claimed in one interview that he was always high when he worked on Cerebus. I think his brilliant artistry just usually does a better job of covering up the nonsense. In this case, it didn't. That explains a lot. So, time for my own observatins: How about that epilogue? The sudden violence of it, particularly off the back of two volumes of relative calm and introspection and especially because it gets visceral and graphic in a way Sim never quite has before is really quite shocking. Just from a purely artistic standpoint it's pretty stunning to look at - the detail, the pacing, the panel layouts are all designed to be exhilarating and adrenaline-pumping, and I'm fairly sure that's the intent: Cerebus is awake, time for you to be too. Cerebus has been violent before, but it's never abandoned the pretense of being a fantasy comic and gone into full on blood-spurting, violent gore before. I get that it's basically Cerebus' Call To Arms, they've hurt him deeply and now he means business, now he's gong to MAKE THEM PAY, and it would be considerably more effective if "THEY" weren't the embodiment of everything Sim hates about oppressive feminism. It's also a little damaged by the reveal of the Cirinist Hive Mind concept which... I don't know. There are moments when it gets used somewhat effectively after this but it never quite works for me - particularly because it's never really explained? Why do the Cirinists all have telepathy? Is Cirin an extraordinarily powerful psychic that links them all together? Does being made a Cirinist awaken the powers in yourself? What's Sim trying to say, that all feminists operate like a hive and that their beliefs rob them of individuality? That's pure conjecture but I wouldn't be surprised. I'll be perfectly honest, I fell out of love with Cerebus a little at this point. The book continues to impress in many ways post-Melmoth, there are some volumes and moments that I have some affection for and I don't think there's any point at which there stops being any artistic value (and I'm even including Latter Days here, by the time we eventually get around to that that's going to be one hell of a conversation I can tell you that much) but while I was able to overlook the flaws in Cerebus, High Society, Church & State and Jaka's Story, here's where I kinda stop making excuses for it when I think about it and start saying "This part and this part are really good but..." quite a lot.
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Post by josephwyatt88 on Dec 23, 2016 22:24:43 GMT -5
Oh and also, Happy Holidays everyone!
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Post by shaxper on Dec 23, 2016 22:36:24 GMT -5
I've missed our back-and-forths. Good to have you back! How about that epilogue? The sudden violence of it, particularly off the back of two volumes of relative calm and introspection and especially because it gets visceral and graphic in a way Sim never quite has before is really quite shocking. Just from a purely artistic standpoint it's pretty stunning to look at - the detail, the pacing, the panel layouts are all designed to be exhilarating and adrenaline-pumping, and I'm fairly sure that's the intent: Cerebus is awake, time for you to be too. Cerebus has been violent before, but it's never abandoned the pretense of being a fantasy comic and gone into full on blood-spurting, violent gore before. I can't not read it from a feminist perspective. Melmoth begins by showing us how oppresive these female guards patrolling outside of Cafe Dino can be, and closes with Cerebus snapping out of his "feminine" action of being lost in his feelings and assuming a "masculine" action of just dominating everything with violence. That it feels righteous and justified is what I find most disturbing. Sim really wants us to feel that these characters deserve it. I never got the sense that it was literal telepathy. Maybe a persecution complex combined with some limited form of "women's intuition". Again, I'm looking at this from a feminist perspective because the book so thoroughly invites it. It's definitely less focused after Church & State II, and Melmoth is where that lack of focus truly becomes obvious. I feel like Flight tries to get us back on topic, but then Reads ends up being a brilliant but disturbing result of Sim running squarely in the opposite direction again. It's Guys/Rick's Story that truly is the roughest spot for me, but the climax of Form & Void just makes the whole thing worthwhile for me; the emotional climax of the series come many volumes too late. And then there's the stuff that follows... Even still, when Sim is waaaay off, he's still brilliant, and I'm still glad I read. Melmoth wasn't a waste. It was brilliant at times, and good enough at others. I'm never sorry I've read a Sim volume (well, Cerebus in Hell aside). So you've read them all now? Gonna be rough waiting two months to discuss each subsequent volume!
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Dec 23, 2016 22:37:14 GMT -5
Oh and also, Happy Holidays everyone! To you as well! Hoping 2017 brings you some good employment news
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Post by josephwyatt88 on Dec 30, 2016 15:00:53 GMT -5
I've missed our back-and-forths. Good to have you back! How about that epilogue? The sudden violence of it, particularly off the back of two volumes of relative calm and introspection and especially because it gets visceral and graphic in a way Sim never quite has before is really quite shocking. Just from a purely artistic standpoint it's pretty stunning to look at - the detail, the pacing, the panel layouts are all designed to be exhilarating and adrenaline-pumping, and I'm fairly sure that's the intent: Cerebus is awake, time for you to be too. Cerebus has been violent before, but it's never abandoned the pretense of being a fantasy comic and gone into full on blood-spurting, violent gore before. I can't not read it from a feminist perspective. Melmoth begins by showing us how oppresive these female guards patrolling outside of Cafe Dino can be, and closes with Cerebus snapping out of his "feminine" action of being lost in his feelings and assuming a "masculine" action of just dominating everything with violence. That it feels righteous and justified is what I find most disturbing. Sim really wants us to feel that these characters deserve it. That's an entirely fair assessment. I think it's a perfect little encapsulation of my feeling towards so much of latter-period Cerebus - technically an extraordinary sequence but the subtext is actually quite awful. I never got the sense that it was literal telepathy. Maybe a persecution complex combined with some limited form of "women's intuition". Again, I'm looking at this from a feminist perspective because the book so thoroughly invites it. I guess we'll talk about this again when we get to the Mothers & Daughters arc, I think there are a number of scenes that imply that it's genuine telepathy. I do like the persecution complex/women's intuition theory though - even if I think it's possibly even more unpleasant than my feminist hivemind one because yours possibly extends to all women instead of just feminists. It's definitely less focused after Church & State II, and Melmoth is where that lack of focus truly becomes obvious. I feel like Flight tries to get us back on topic, but then Reads ends up being a brilliant but disturbing result of Sim running squarely in the opposite direction again. It's Guys/Rick's Story that truly is the roughest spot for me, but the climax of Form & Void just makes the whole thing worthwhile for me; the emotional climax of the series come many volumes too late. Huh. We disagree on a couple of these but let's leave that discussion until we get to the related books. Even still, when Sim is waaaay off, he's still brilliant, and I'm still glad I read. Melmoth wasn't a waste. It was brilliant at times, and good enough at others. I'm never sorry I've read a Sim volume (well, Cerebus in Hell aside). Agreed somewhat. I don't regret the long slog through, even though it got rough at times, and like I said there's something worth reading in pretty much every volume, but there are sections of Latter Days that were far from "good enough". Still, there are people who call this the best comic ever written and I don't think they're entirely off-base. I don't think it's the absolute greatest but it's certainly one of the most fascinating and engrossing, and both from reading the book itself and reading and participating in discussions about it it's the most fulfilment and investment I've ever put into a book of any kind in years. So you've read them all now? Gonna be rough waiting two months to discuss each subsequent volume! Indeed I have, and the waits are long, but honestly I enjoy flipping back through the books, reminding myself of how I felt when I read them the first time and allowing my opinions to gestate long enough to engage in talks like this. We'll see how I feel in a year's time, though I plan to have sought out and purchased physical copies by that point (employment abiding) so a proper read-through might be in order. Sorry it took me a while to respond (you can probably guess why) and happy new year!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,391
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Post by shaxper on Dec 30, 2016 15:23:39 GMT -5
I guess we'll talk about this again when we get to the Mothers & Daughters arc, I think there are a number of scenes that imply that it's genuine telepathy. You're probably right. I'm working from very old and shaky memories. Its the style that's always "good enough" for me, not necessarily the content. Most brilliant, but not the all-around "best". There are far tighter, more meticulous, and more meaningful works out there. But nothing rivals Sim's genius. I hope this means things are looking better on your end, Joseph! Happy new year to you as well!!
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