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Cerebus was, during its entire run, self-published by Sim under his Aardvark-Vanaheim, Inc. publishing banner. Sim's position as a pioneering self-publisher in comics inspired numerous writer/artists after him, most notably Jeff Smith ( Bone), Terry Moore ( Strangers In Paradise), and Martin Wagner ( Hepcats).
The title character is a misanthropic three-foot tall bipedal gray aardvark ("We're all funny animals in a world of humans," says Sim) who has, at various points in his life, been a mercenary, Prime Minister of the fictional city-state of Iest, Pope (in the mammoth Church and State saga), and renegade. He is an extremely morally ambiguous character, at times sympathetic, at others almost unpalatably callous.
Inspired in some ways by the Steve Gerber character Howard the Duck, the earliest issues of Cerebus took the form of a parody of Conan the BarbarianConan the Barbarian is a literary character created by Robert E. Howard in a series of fantasy pulp stories published in Weird Tales in the 1930s. Setting The Conan stories take place on Earth, but in the mythical (created by Howard) "Hyborian Age", betwe and its genre. (Howard had even appeared on the cover of the first issue of his own comic as a parodic barbarian character.) The series developed artistic sophistication and originality very quickly. Citing as his self-originated commandment, "Thou shall break every law in the book", Sim has done everything from flipping the page from horizontal to vertical and all stages in between to alternating comics with prose narrative, to including real dead or living people (himself included) in the storyline, all in an effort to explode the conventions of the North American comic book in almost every conceivable way.
In 1979Events January-February January 1 Sino-American relations: United States and the People's Republic of China establish diplomatic relations January 4 State of Ohio agrees to pay $675,000 to families of dead and injured in Kent State University shootings., Sim, who was at the time a frequent marijuana user, experimented with LSDD-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide commonly called acid LSD or LSD-25 is a powerful semisynthetic hallucinogen and psychedelic entheogen. A typical dose of LSD is only 100 micrograms, a tiny amount equal to one-tenth the weight of a grain of sand. LSD causes of, taking the drug with such impunity that he was eventually hospitalized. (He was also, around this time, reportedly diagnosed with borderline schizophreniaSchizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behaviour, thinking, and emotion. The term schizophrenia comes from the Greek words schizo split or divide) and phrenos mind) and is best tra.) It was this incident that Sim claims led to the inspiration to produce Cerebus for 300 monthly issues. The episodic adventures strayed further and further from heroic fantasyHeroic fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy literature which chronicles the tales of heros and their conquests in imaginary lands. Typically it emphasizes the conflict between good and evil. Frequently, the protagonist is reluctant to be a champion. Selected, and the twenty five-issue graphic novel High Society segued the narrative into a complex political satireSatire is a literary technique of writing or art which principally ridicules its subject (individuals, organizations, states) often as an intended means of provoking or preventing change. In Celtic societies, it was thought a bard's satire could have phys and dramaThis article refers to the art form. For the town, see Drama, Greece . Drama is a term generally used to refer to an art form involving performances by actors, either real or computer-generated. These performances can be in a variety of media: live perfor. Sim was joined by Gerhard, who gave the series impressively rendered backgrounds that became a visual hallmark, after issue #65.
When Sim published the first Cerebus "phone book", a paperback collection of the High Society graphic novel, he angered retailers — who felt that their support had been instrumental in his series' success in an industry generally indifferent to small publishers — by offering the first printing via mail order only. The decision was a financial windfall for Sim, however, racking up over $150,000 in sales. Not long after, Sim became known for traveling to conventions and store signings in limousines (he spent $25,000 in limo service during his 1992 signing tour), and renting lavish suites at conventions at which he'd throw huge parties.
In the 1990s, Sim became an outspoken advocate of creators' rights in comics, and used the editorial pages of Cerebus to promote self-publishing and greater artist activism. Sim was also the biggest individual supporter of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; when he guest-wrote the 10th issue of Todd McFarlane's best-selling Spawn, Sim donated his entire fee — over $100,000 — to the fund. During this same period he started publishing his, and others', experiments with 24-hour comics in the back of his issues, which led to its popularity and eventual expansion into a 24-hour comics holiday on April 24.
It is generally agreed that the graphic novel Jaka's Story, a tragic character study dealing with gender roles and the political suppression of art, is perhaps the series' pinnacle of narrative achievement. However, later issues of the series became almost inaccessibly personal and began to alienate many long-time fans, his female readers especially — though the series' visual innovation remained unparalleled. Issue #186 (collected in Reads) contained a lengthy prose section of the narrative that was roundly attacked by both readers and critics for its overt misogyny. This was followed by an even harsher essay in issue #265 called "Tangent," in which Sim claimed there is a "feminist/homosexualist axis" engaged in a conspiracy to oppress men. He also argues, in all seriousness, that husbands should have the legal right to spank their wives and states outright that women are "inferior beings".
Sim himself has appeared as a character in Cerebus, most notably to berate his creation in the graphic novel Minds. A writer entering his own fictional universe is not an idea which Sim can claim to have invented (see Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, Paul Auster's New York Trilogy and Grant Morrison's comic Animal Man), although he claims to have planned the encounter as early as 1979 — more than a decade before it actually took place.
He reportedly cut all ties with his family and virtually all of his industry colleagues apart from Gerhard in order to finish the work. He has had very public fallings-out with both Terry Moore and Jeff Smith, the latter of whom Sim challenged to a boxing match in an editorial published in the comic. Smith, Sim claimed, lied about an argument the two had had over the infamous essay in issue #186, and claimed he had threatened to give Sim a "fat lip." Sim also developed an adversarial relationship with Gary Groth, the confrontational publisher of The Comics Journal, an independently published comics magazine known for punishing criticisms and a decidedly non-mainstream editorial slant.
Sim has stated (in an editorial contained in issue #297) that he regards the production of Cerebus as of secondary importance to his religious practice. A 2003 magazine interview describes Sim as reciting a prayer of his own devising five times a day, and having sold much of his furniture to donate the money to charity as an act of religious asceticism. This prayer was published in the back of issue #300.
Sim, once a very public figure in the comics industry, now rarely leaves his native Kitchener, Ontario home. The publication in March 2004 of issue #300 was met with a muted, rather than celebratory, response from the comics industry. Though Sim reports the print run for #300 was doubled from that of recent issues, that would still only come to around 16,000 copies, a far cry from the series' high of over 35,000 copies around issues #100-125.
A new quarterly publication Following Cerebus followed in August 2004, feature correspondence, essays and previously unpublished artwork from Sim.
Sim was once quoted as saying that, had he died or otherwise chosen not to complete Cerebus prior to issue 300, that however many remaining issues there were left were to either consist of blank pages, or Gerhard was to have drawn his backgrounds only, leaving Sim's contribution blank. It is not known if this plan was ever serious, and it was obviously never put into effect.