Status Updates From Cerebus, Vol. 1: Cerebus

Maybe if I'd seen more Marx Brothers movies I might have appreciated this story arc better.

"Lord Julius—Cerebus will be needing a sword..."
"You can use mine...guard it with your life—there's the juice from a thousand grapefruit on that blade..."

"Mind your manners son! I've got a tall pointy hat! Status, boy! You can argue with me, but you can't argue with status!"

Here was an amusing one.

The first multi-chapter story ended in a whimper. Probably on purpose, but I still didn't like it as much as some of the stuff from before.

Looks like Elrod wasn't just a one-time thing, then. This was a better showing but I still don't care for him much.

It really seems like all barbarian heroes have a weakness to poisons and drugs. I'm surprised this isn't exploited more often.

I haven't gotten around to reading Bran Mak Morn so I can't comment on how accurate this parody was. But it doesn't look all that good.

Unfortunately, the Elric parody is such a total flip of his actual character that it didn't really stick the landing. Could've cranked up the angst to a whole other notch and it'd have been better.

Word on the streets is that a particular sign of downfall for this comic was when Dave Sim began to use it as a mouthpiece about how terrible women are. I can believe that. Even in these early days his opinion clearly wasn't that high.

Apart from the inherent visual humour in having this funny non-detailed cartoon creature adventuring in an otherwise gritty and realistically-drawn fantasy realm, the stories are played basically straight. If you did switch Cerebus around in a standard Conan-package human barbarian, hardly nothing would change. It could do a lot more fun with the premise.

I've heard a lot about this one. Important Sword & Sorcery work that broke its creator's mind and gave us the Cerebus Syndrome trope. Been years on my list, better late than never.

Seems pretty usual fare at the start, though the first issue had a nice twist at the end.