Disclaimer: I have personally backed this project, as well as a number of other Dave Sim Cerebus Kickstarters and Patreon.

You all know how I love me some Cerebus the Aardvark, by Dave Sim! In my opinion, it’s perhaps one of the best (if not the best) long-running comic book series written and illustrated by the same person (or ‘people’, if you include background artist Gerhard – cool dude). I first discovered Cerebus, at university, of all places. Well… not so much university as the university’s library. I’ve always loved comics – when I was a child, I seriously considered becoming a comic artist, if you can believe it – and so, whenever I entered a new library, I made a beeline for the comics and graphic novels section. While others in my cohort zoomed for the physics texts, as you might expect most physics majors would, I went for the funny papers.

The university’s graphic novel section was not extensive, but still respectable. Upon its many bowing shelves, I noticed a whole row with eye-catching, phonebook-size white and black volumes, of a series I had never heard of before. I prided myself in being fairly knowledgeable when it came to all matters cartoon, but this series – this ‘Cerebus’, I had never heard of before. I took a chance and borrowed the first volume and have been a fan ever since.

The original first issue (later collected in the trade paperback – or “phonebook”, ‘Cerebus’, though sometimes referred to as ‘Cerebus the Barbarian’) has long, long been unavailable and has a huge asking price on the second hand market. While there do exist bootleg copies out in the wild (which can also fetch a rather high amount nowadays), many fans and collectors have had to resign themselves to the fact that they would never own an official copy of Cerebus #1. Well, lucky for us, Sim is collaborating with independent publisher ‘The Waverly Press’ to reprint the original issue, in new updated and remastered glory!

For $10 you can get the original, 24 page RED cover. You can also get GOLD and PLATINUM 48-page editions, which contain a plethora of additional material unearthed from the Cerebus archive. If you’re a long time Cerebus fan, or a complete newcomer, it may be worth a look, if you’re into stuff like this.

Check out the Kickstarter here.

Regards from your friend in comics,