'Cerebus' comic book a publishing pioneer

In the late 1970s, Dave Sim had an idea for his newly conceived comic book.

He would create an entire lifetime for his protagonist, a barbarian aardvark named Cerebus. Sim would write and draw the story to fill 300 issues, then let Cerebus die (not disappear in a dream sequence or fade into the sunset, but die, d-i-e, die) in the final pages of the final issue. And Cerebus wouldn't die heroically but on his bedroom floor, "alone, unmourned and unloved."

This concept alone was enough to put "Cerebus" on its way to earning its first-class creative license.

Add to that the facts that the books were self-published (in Canada, no less); were not drawn in color but in black and white (well, sort of white — it is printed on newsprint that yellows with age); and were concerned with historic and current affairs (not superheroes or space adventure), and you have a one-of-a-kind comic-book enterprise.

Remarkably, the whole thing made a considerable amount of money.

Sim pioneered another aspect of cartooning by combining already printed monthly issues of "Cerebus" into large volumes, something no publisher had done before. Sim became a father of the graphic novel.

"Cerebus" became an icon of the comic-book world, breaking all kinds of comic-business rules and turning out more than 6,000 pages of material in 26 years, from 1977 to 2003.

The most fortunate development in "Cerebus" came about with a chance meeting in the early 1980s between Sim and another Canadian artist, Gerhard, who came aboard with his remarkably disciplined, crosshatched inkwork that filled the previously empty backgrounds of Cerebus' world with beautiful architecture and classic interiors.

Even though the series ended in 2003, it is enjoying an active afterlife as Sim and Gerhard fly across the continent meeting the devoted and the curious and discussing Cerebus-related topics, as they did recently at Great Salt Lake Book Festival in Salt Lake City.

Hundreds of Cerebus readers came from as far away as Ohio and Los Angeles to meet the creators and perhaps take home illustrated autographs.

Starting Cerebus' career as a "Conan the Barbarian" parody, Sim evolved his warrior aardvark into a lover and a fighter, a prime minister and then a pope, all of which provided Sim the perfect foil to explore topical issues over the years. Politics, religion, violence, issues of gender — their importance and their flaws — were the mainstay of the "Cerebus" world.

And readers loved it — particularly adults. At its height, "Cerebus" sold 30,000 copies a month.

It was the controversy in the story lines, not superheroes, that earned Sim and Gerhard mountains of awards, admirers — and enemies.

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