Since I have gone through the early years of TMNT I thought I would touch upon some highlights of one of the comics which inspired TMNT, Cerebus the Aardvark. Cerebus was created by one David Victor Sim with issue #1 premiering in December, 1977. The book ended with issue #300 in March, 2004. The comic was self-published and Dave Sim set up his own company, Aardvark-Vanaheim, to publish the comic. This blog entry will devote itself to distinguishing features made through the end of the main series. Another blog entry may look into similar features after that period.
All the information I am going to discuss below is known and can be found on other sites. I am not intending to give an overview of everything Cerebus-related, Cerebus Fan Girl goes a very good job with that. What I intend to do is to give a concise chronological summary of Cerebus the comic book, its various reprints and then I will identify the major short stories.
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| Two original #1s, from Moment of Cerebus & Comic Book Daily |
Cerebus #1
Issue #1 could seem a little weird to the first time reader because it has a banner with the words "Collector's Edition" on the back cover. This might seem a little ambitious for a new book, especially self-published by a previously little-known Canadian creator in the late 1970s. If issue #1 did not sell, there might not be an issue #2, making issue #1 worth almost nothing as a collectible. I think Sim was making fun of people who buy issue #1s just because they are issue #1s and hope to make money off it someday. (Things have become even more true now.) Cerebus #1 is unusual because it has a wraparound cover. Issue #2 and most of the following issues will not.
Cerebus #1, like many other "famous firsts", has seen its fair share of counterfeits over the years. Only 2,000 copies of the real Cerebus #1 were printed (by Fairway Press) and maybe even less got out to the distributors. There are ways to tell counterfeits from the real thing. The original cover used a color designated as Pantone Warm Red C. It should be noted that the original book's red can turn orangish through exposure to sunlight.
The book has 24 interior pages. None of the characters or events in this issue will be referenced in the story beyond the first sentence of issue #2. The inside front cover contains the "Note from the Publisher" on white text over a black background. In the future black text on a white background will be preferred. There is a preview page for the coming next issue, "Captive in Boreala", immediately following the last page of the story. (There was no preview page for issue #6 and the preview page would be discontinued as of issue #7). The letters column, "Aardvark Comment" is included in issue #1 after the preview page and notes that there are no letters to print yet. Instead it has something of an editorial which describes the difficulties in printing a self-published book. There is a list of for Canadian comic books on the side of the column, two of which has artwork contributions by Sim and none of which were especially successful.
The inside rear cover contains an advertisement for a Star Wars portfolio from Gene Day. This included eight prints of illustrations of various scenes from the movie and the cost was $8.00. These were limited to 250 signed and numbered copies. No address was given in the advertisement, how a reader was going to order a copy is unclear. Aardvark-Vanaheim could not secure the rights to publish the portfolio from Lucasfilm and all the copies other than Day's personal copies ended up being destroyed. Day would work on Marvel Comics' Star Wars comic book series until his death in 1982. This ad was mentioned but not reprinted in the corresponding Cerebus Bi-Weekly issue (see below).
Individual Issues
Cerebus #1-13 have 22 story pages, Cerebus #14 through 300 have stories with usually 20 story pages each and each issue had an individual title, or several titles (issues #52, 60-61) or were originally untitled (issues #1 & 5). Thereafter issues were officially considered part of a story arc and were numbered as entries within that arc. The book changed from a bi-monthly to a monthly printing schedule with issue #14. The book lost "the Aardvark" part of the title on the cover with issue #11.
Aardvark-Vanaheim began in Kitchener, Ontario and remains there to this day. Cerebus was originally published by Sim and Deni(se) Loubert from issues #1-70. Deni wrote the column "A Note from the Publisher" for those issues. Sim and Loubert were married (October 6, 1978), separated (August 20, 1983) and divorced (August, 1986) during the early years of Cerebus. When they separated Sim took complete control of publishing Cerebus and retitled the column to "Note from the President" (of Aardvark-Vanaheim, Inc.) and wrote the columns for the remainder of the series. Gerhard first began contributing to Cerebus with issue #65 (or 66 but the backgrounds really improved in 65) and would remain as the background artist for the remainder of the series.
The price of the comic book increased over time, originally starting at $1.00 and ending up at $3.50 Canadian/$2.25 US/£1.50 UK. For the first 45 issues, there was only one price given on the cover. The US price was added for issue #45 and the UK price for issue #100.
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| All Swords of Cerebus Volumes, Courtesy of eBay |
Swords of Cerebus
Cerebus was first reprinted in the Swords of Cerebus series. This series came in six volumes (plus a supplement). Each volume published four or five stories, around 100 pages and has the glued spines of a trade paperback. Each went through multiple printings.
Volume 1 reprints Cerebus #1-4 and adds a new short story "[The Name of the Game is] Diamonback" (with Marshall Rogers). First Printing January, 1981. The second and later printings use a different cover from the first printing.
Volume 2 reprints Cerebus #5-8 reprints the short story "Demonhorn" and adds a new short story "The Morning After" (with Joe Rubenstein & Mike Higgins). First Printing June, 1981.
Volume 3 reprints Cerebus #9-12 and adds a new short story "What Happened Between Issues #21-22" (with Gene Day). First Printing Fall, 1981.
Volume 4 reprints Cerebus #13-16 plus the short story "Silverspoon" (a.k.a. the "Prince Valiant parody") and adds a new short story, "Magiking". First Printing Fall, 1982.
Volume 5 reprints Cerebus #17-20 and adds a new short story "Cerebus Dreams" (by Barry Windsor-Smith). First Printing Summer 1983.
Volume 6 reprints Cerebus #21-24 and adds a new short story "A Night on the Town" (with Gerhard). First Printing Fall, 1984. Due to a printing error issue #25 was not included. There was a Supplement book to Volume 6 which reprinted Cerebus #25 to finish out the trilogy from Cerebus #23-24. Later printings include #25 and fix organizational issues of the first printing.
The Swords series has a special introduction for each issue contained in the book.
Trade Paperbacks, a.k.a. Phonebooks
The Cerebus story was becoming a little difficult to keep up with by the mid-1980s, having over 80 issues by 1986. People would often complain about the difficulty of filling holes in their issue sets. As Sim decided on writing out lengthy story arcs by this time, reprints were becoming more of a priority. The answer was the "phonebook", a large trade paperback collecting all the issues which comprised that arc. While Swords of Cerebus could get away with four issues per book, that was not going to cut it with story arcs spanning 25-30 issues. It was much easier keeping track of one book compared to six covering the same issues. It also allowed Sim to sell these books directly to bookstores instead of just to comic stores. The result was the ambitious phonebook series, which eventually reprinted the whole Cerebus storyline (with a few exceptions noted below).
Other than a new introduction and table of contents, the phonebooks do not reprint original covers, reader letters, editorials or backup stories found in the original issues or in the reprints. Each phonebook can contain up to several hundred pages depending on the story arc covered. The earlier phonebooks have been reprinted many times and they tend to yellow with age.
The full story is collected in sixteen volumes of phonebooks (shown above):
Book 1 - Cerebus, reprints #1-25. First Printing August, 1987. With the eleventh printing (July, 2003) the short story "Silverspoon" was added to show the transition between issues #13 & 14.
Book 2 - High Society, reprints #26-50 First Printing June 1986. It also includes the short story "Goat" which was originally published as a backup story in issue #40.
Book 3 - Church & State Volume 1, reprints #52-80. First Printing June, 1987. There is a four page story, "Elfguest" included in Issue #52 which did not make it into this volume. It was not given a "Volume 1" on its title page until Volume 2 was printed.
Book 4 - Church & State Volume 2, reprints #81-111. First Printing July 1988
Book 5 - Jaka's Story, reprints #114-136. First Printing October 1990
Book 6 - Melmoth, reprints #139-150. First Printing September 1991
Book 7 - Flight, reprints #151-162. First Printing March 1993
Book 8 - Women, reprints #163-174. First Printing April 1994
Book 9 - Reads, reprints #175-186. First Printing April 1995
Book 10 - Minds, reprints #187-200. First Printing June 1996
Book 11 - Guys, reprints #201-219. First Printing September 1997
Book 12 - Rick's Story, reprints #220-231. First Printing November 1998
Book 13 - Going Home, reprints #232-250. First Printing March 2000
Book 14 - Form & Void, reprints #251-265. First Printing May 2001
Book 15 - Latter Days, reprints #266-288. First Printing November 2003
Book 16 - The Last Day, reprints #289-300. First Printing June 2004
It should be noted that Book 1 was first published after Books 2 & 3. Swords of Cerebus was still in relatively recent circulation whereas High Society and Church & State had yet to be reprinted in any form by the time Books 2 & 3 were published. The first and second printings of Books 1-3 do not have any text on the spine of the book's cover.
Books 7-11 were not so named as their single issue counterparts. The issues covered by those four books were deemed "Mothers & Daughters". Similarly Books 13-14 were all known as "Going Home" and Books 15-16 as "Latter Days" in their single issue counterparts.
Books 1-12 are drawn in black & white while Books 13-16 have color covers. The popularity of Cerebus had declined by the late 1990s and the color books had fewer reprintings, making them more difficult to obtain than the earlier books. I have second prints of books 9-16 and was not particularly diligent about buying them when they first became available. I bought books 15-16 used.
Books 4-16 had limited first printings which were individually signed and numbered by Sim. Full availability came with the second printings. The printing information given in the books states this for all books except Book 6. Some copies of Book 1 and 3's first printings were also signed and numbered.
The price of the phonebooks varied depending on their size, anywhere from $17-30.
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| Reprint Back & Front, courtesy of eBay |
Single Issue Reprints
Cerebus Bi-Weekly
Despite the phonebooks, there was apparently still a demand for single-issue reprints after the phonebooks began printing. Comic book stores were reluctant to stock the phonebooks at first, so with these reprints regular comic book buyers had another way to catch up on the stories or fill holes in their sets.
Cerebus #1-25 were reprinted as single issues within the Cerebus Bi-weekly series. Almost the entire original issue was reproduced, including letters and vintage advertisements. The covers were miniaturized into a window within the standardized cover layout of the bi-weekly series. Both the original issue's Note from the Editor and the introduction to each issue from the corresponding Swords of Cerebus volume were reprinted.
As the name of the series suggests, each issue was published every two weeks, starting with Cerebus #1 on December 2, 1988 and ending with Cerebus #25 on November 3, 1989. The Bi-weekly series are not given their own issue number but the cover for each book states "reprinting Cerebus number [x] in its entirety" and the date of publication.
Cerebus Bi-weekly has a final issue, unofficially numbered #26 and dated November 24, 1989, which reprints the short stories "Magiking" and "Silverspoon".
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| Original vs. Reprint, courtesy of eBay |
Cerebus: High Society
Cerebus #26-50, comprising the High Society story arc, had its own series of single issue reprints, a continuation of the Cerebus Bi-Weekly series. Cerebus: High Society runs from Issue #1-25 and each issue reprints the entirety of the original issue. These were also published bi-weekly from February, 1990 to February, 1991.
These issues have a uniform format with the original covers in a small window within a larger black border. Their back covers are completely black unlike the previous bi-weekly series which would show you a miniature image of what the back cover to the original issue looked like. The original Note from the Publisher is reprinted. There is also a page or two from Sim's notebooks before the start of the story pages.
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| Original vs. Reprint, courtesy of eBay |
Cerebus: Church & State
Cerebus #51-80, all but the first of which officially comprise Volume I of the Church & State story arc were reprinted in the final bi-weekly series. These were published from February, 1991 to April, 1992 and include all the content from the original issues. The format is identical to Cerebus: High Society.
Apparently the enthusiasm for the single issue reprint had petered out by the end of Church & State Volume 1, leaving the phonebooks as the only option for later story arcs including Church & State Volume 2. Comic book shops were no longer adverse to selling the phonebooks.
Non-TPB Story Reprints
Cerebus: Number Zero, a.k.a. Cerebus No. 0
This book, printed in June, 1993, reprints the "in between issues" of Cerebus, #51, 112/113 & 137-138 which are not printed in the phonebooks. This book exists with a white-lettered title on the cover and a rarer gold-lettered title on the cover. There is different dialog on each cover, with the gold cover taking another shot at the money-obsessed collector.
Cerebus #112/113 was always a doubled-up issue with twice the number of pages as a normal issue. The next and last time this would be done was for 289/290. The story "Like-a-Looks" began in Cerebus #137 and concluded in #138 with the remainder of the issue devoted to concluding Jaka's Story. Newly-written introductions are included for each of the three stories.
Cerebus World Tour Book 1995
This book, printed in June, 1995, reprints seven early short stories, some of which were originally published in Swords of Cerebus. Sim collaborates with other artists with these, (this was prior to Gerhard joining the book). The stories included are "The Name of the Game is Diamondback", "The Morning After", "What Happened Between Issues Twenty and Twenty One?", "Magiking", "Silverspoon", "A Night on the Town" and "Cerebus Dreams." It was later reprinted with a "Not the" before the remainder of the title on the cover.
Guys Party Pack
This book reprints Cerebus #201-204. Published October, 1996.
Following Cerebus #2
Reprints "Passage". Published December, 2004.
Following Cerebus #10
Reprints "Cerebus Dreams" & "Cerebus Dreams II" (in 2D). Published June, 2007.
Other Notable Aardvark-Vanaheim Cerebus Works Outside the Main Series
In addition to the mainline Cerebus issues and their reprints, a few other books of note were published while the series was ongoing:
AV in 3D - A book containing several short stories using red/blue anaglyph 3-D. Comes with 3-D glasses. Only one Cerebus story is included, "Cerebus Dreams II." Published December, 1984.
Cerebus Jam #1 - A book of four short stories, not reprinted elsewhere before the end of the main series. The stories are "The Defense of Fort Columbia", "The First Invention of Armour", "Squinteye the Sailor", "Cerebus Versus The Spirit". Published April, 1985.
Free Cerebus - A summary of the book and the plot of High Society, Church & State and Jaka's Story. Published January, 1992. At 60,000 copies printed, this may be the most printed Cerebus non-TPB prior to the end of the series.
Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing - A collection of essays on the subject with some Cerebus artwork on the front and rear covers (interior & exterior). Published November, 1997.
Nucleus #1 - "Demonhorn". Published by Heiro-Graphic Publications, May 1979.
The Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom - The eleven-page "Silverspoon" story (originally untitled) had been originally published as single full page installments in issues #317, 319, 321, 325, 327, 329, 331, 335, 343, 345 and 349 from December 14, 1979 to July 25, 1980. Published by Alan Light.
Cerebus the Newsletter #2 - "Passage". Published by Friends of Cerebus (fanzine), April/June 1981.
Epic Illustrated #16 - "Arnold the Isshurian". Published by Marvel Comics, February 1983. Cerebus related, but does not contain Cerebus. Included here for completion.
Epic Illustrated # 26 - "His First Fifth" (color). Published by Marvel Comics, October 1984.
Epic Illustrated # 28 - "A Friendly Reminder" (color). Published by Marvel Comics, February 1985.
Epic Illustrated # 30 - "Selling Insurance" & "The Girl Next Door" (color). Published by Marvel Comics, June 1985.
Epic Illustrated #32 - "Ages of Cerebus" (color). Published by Marvel Comics, October 1985.
Anything Goes! #3 - "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" (color). Published by Fantagraphics Books, March 1986.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #8 - Published by Mirage Comics, July 1986. Crossover issue. Cerebus lettered and illustrated by Sim, toned by Gerhard. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird handled all the other artwork and non-Cerebus lettering was handled by Steve Lavigne. A reunion of sorts between the TMNT and Cerebus can be found in Miami Mice #4 - Published by Rip Off Comics in 1987. They drawn and lettered by their respective creators, the book is otherwise the product of Mark Bodé and Larry Todd. For many people, myself included, this was their "gateway drug" into discovering Cerebus.
The Comic Buyer's Guide #977 - "The Challenge" (pencils & script only, never completed). Published by Krause Publications, Augusy 7, 1992.
Spawn #10 - Published by Image Comics and Malibu Comics, May 1993. Crossover issue. Written by Sim, illustrated by Todd McFarlane. (partial color).
Getting into Cerebus
Now that I have given an overview of what is available as far as Cerebus goes, what is the best way to get into the story? I would strongly suggest starting at the beginning with the first issues and going forward because there are a lot of characters, places and incidents introduced in those first stories which are referenced and reappear in the longer story arcs. I would not suggest buying the original single issues (unless money is no object) or the bi-weekly reprints or the Swords TPBs, instead look for the phonebooks.
The phonebooks are all available digitally from Cerebus Downloads, Dave Sim's official Cerebus website. The price paid depends on how many books you buy at one time. If you bought every book individually the price would be $212.50, if you bought them all at once it would be $99.99.
If you want to buy physical phonebooks, those will prove something of a challenge. In the late 1980s, the 1990s and into the early 2000s they were always in print. Used copies of Books 1-12 should be obtainable for reasonable prices on eBay. Used Books 13-16 are go for rather high prices, especially 15-16. Most of the phonebooks (1-5, 9-11, 13, 14 & 16) have been remastered using original art and while each volume is not exactly cheap you can sometimes find good deals where pre-remastered copies can be more expensive. Try to find the latest remastered edition printing possible, there may be improvements compared to earlier remastered edition printings as more original artwork is found and scanned. As with everything Cerebus these days there is no one place you can really go to find all things Cerebus, you will need some perseverance in tracking books down.
The other stories contained in Cerebus: Number Zero, Cerebus World Tour Book 1995, Cerebus Jam and other books are not available for official download. Fortunately none of them are terribly expensive. Most of the short stories can be found on the Internet through authorized channels. Sim reprinted a remastered TMNT #8 through Waverly with 42 variant covers in 2023! The original TMNT #8 had the highest print run of any Mirage TMNT book and has been collected many times in TMNT collections. IDW also issued a colorized version of the story. Waverly and Sim also remastered Spawn #10 in 2020 with 15 variant covers but the story presented in it is in black and white at his insistence. The original book was in color and not expensive.
Cerebus #1 and #2 have been remastered as single issues, the former in 2021, 2023 and 2024. We may look at some remastered reproductions in the near very future.
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