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[W]hat specifically is it about Cerebus that makes it special? The length?
Well, that's definitely one thing. I think a six thousand page, coherent work in any medium ought to be singled out. I mean, isn't that really the only reason people take Henry Darger seriously?
The conditions under which it was created?
The fact that it was self published, monthly, for the entirety of its run (something Bone was unable to accomplish for a much shorter span of issues and on a much more erratic schedule [and with no zip-a-toning to worry about]) should undoubtedly be recognized.
What revolutionary techniques did it introduce into comics (interspersing panel grids with pages of text?)?
Well, there are no revolutionary techniques in comics, as near as I can tell. It's all words and pictures and varying combinations of the two. I think the advances he did make in those combinations were really just to keep things interesting (see: Life's Simple Pleasures in Going Home) and not a result of any real drive to revitalize the medium.
Ultimately, what is its artistic and cultural worth, within and without the frame of reference of other comics?
I think a lot of the above lays out the most salient arguments, but to sum up, this is a 6000 page novel of sequential art, a story with a beginning middle and end, put out in monthly installments by two dedicated crafstmen. But really, why bother, when Mr. Stephen Holland of Page 45, lays it all out there, in the most strident way possible:
1977 to 2004. You think about that.
And then you tell me that this single story written and drawn by one man and his virtuoso landscape artist - month in, month out, with a beginning, a middle and an end - consistently entertaining, provocative and beautiful to behold... You tell me that this is not just a significant achievement, but the very fucking pinnacle of a relatively infant medium, which will be virtually impossible to surpass.
Go on. You sit there and have the temerity, the impertinence, and the self-incriminating illiteracy to find me one other contender to that throne.
The fact that any other letterer could possibly win an Eisner in any given year, shows how vacuous and bankrupt those awards are.
There are approximately six other creators who could give Dave Sim a run for his money in terms of inspiration, innovation, intelligence and storytelling capability combined: Los Bros Hernandez, Chris Ware, Jim Woodring, Eddie Campbell, and - if he could draw - Alan Moore. There are hundreds of others whom I admire wholeheartedly, but few of them come close to those air-thin heights, and not one of those aforementioned creators has accomplished a quarter of what Dave Sim has achieved in the awesome, demanding, infuriating, and wit-ridden epic that is Cerebus.
That the man has contributed an equal and unparalleled measure to this industry is irrelevant to be sure.
But the fact that Dave Sim is not universally regarded as the very finest comicbook creator to this point in time, is a crime of unbelievable, culpable and fundamentally ungrateful ignorance.
If, you know, you’re asking.
Amen. |
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