Cerebus has just spotted a bus full of nuns.
He is not amused.
Cerebus the Aardvark is a comic book created by Dave Sim that developed slowly from episodic comedy to high drama to Author Tract. Beginning in December 1977 and ending in 2004, it clocks in at over six thousand pages, making it the longest work in comic form by a single author in the West. Somewhere around the sixth issue, Sim decided to devote the next twenty-five years of his life to producing a three hundred issue storyline with a plotted-out beginning, middle, and end.He is not amused.
Sim had begun Cerebus as a Conan the Barbarian pastiche in black and white line art, in the same vein as later independent comic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The silly parody starred a barbarian aardvark Anti-Hero, back in the days when having a Funny Animal interacting with humans was still a popular plot device. Along the way, he ran into his Love Interest Jaka, who started off as a one-shot Stripperiffic character. Umpteen issues later, she would re-appear, now fully fleshed-out. He also met the Roach, a superhero parody initially similar to The Tick. Much later, Sim would exploit the pathos inherent in the character.
Behind the scenes, Sim experimented with LSD and drove himself beyond exhaustion creating and publishing his comic book. Overwork caused Sim to have a breakdown, and he even spent a day in a mental institution.
Around issue 26, Cerebus gave up his barbarian ways, and thus began the High Society Story Arc. He ran into the manipulative Astoria and the scary matriarchal proto-feminist Cirin. Astoria's scheming got Cerebus a job as prime minister and, later, a brutish, morally warped pope. Back in the real world, Sim split up from his wife Deni Loubert, who was also co-owner of the comic's Aardvark-Vanaheim publishing company, and background artist Gerhard was brought on board starting with issue 65. His highly detailed backgrounds earned praise and became a key element of the comic, and also allowed Sim to focus on the characters and thus noticeably improve his art.
Cerebus wound up on the Moon (long story), got lectured at by an omniscient Judge who lived there(!), returned to Earth and found that his home had been taken over by the Cirinists. He ran into Jaka, now married to a guy named Rick, and also Oscar Wilde. Yes, the Oscar Wilde, or rather an Oscar Wilde. In the world of Cerebus, you see, characters can exist in multiple iterations at the same time.
The comic had, as the summary will imply, gotten more and more experimental. Sim began Painting the Medium, and diving into Postmodernism. Among other assaults on the reader's sanity, Cerebus met his creator, Dave, who sent him to the planet Pluto and also injured Cerebus' eyeball. Alan Moore (who should know) would later congratulate Sim for doing the most accurate portrayal of the mystical experiences ever put down into fiction.
By then the comic had lengthy all-text pages, some of which were used to explain Sim's ever-changing theories on the creation of the universe and on The Bible. Editorials became increasingly controversial and verbose. Mostly, they defended creator rights over comic properties, rights agreed-upon by several well-known and respected comic book creators. It could be argued that Sim's rants were fundamental to the development of independent publishers in the nineties, such as Image Comics. On the other hand, his anti-feminist views, in the beginning moderate, but growing more aggressive issue by issue and finally becoming public with the infamous issue #186, were heavily criticized (The Comics Journal specifically referred to the material in #186 as "misogynistic, nutty and loathsome"), alienating both the audience and professional reviewers.
While reading the Bible and Qur'an in preparation for the Rick's Story arc, Sim underwent a religious experience and converted to an idiosyncratic mixture of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, which also blended into his political beliefs and views on feminism and gender roles. As a result, religion began to increasingly influence the comic's story, to the point that the last two story arcs are based around Cerebus coming to the same religious revelations as Sim, although not in the same fashion. This, along with how Sim dealt with the final fates of Cerebus, the Cirinists, and their respective empires and allies, proved to be even more controversial than anything that had come before.
To paraphrase Sim himself, he set out to write three hundred issues of a life that "made sense", unlike Spider-Man or Superman, series that, to Sim, "don't make sense as a story or a life".
While Sim gave us liberty to use his characters without the threat of copyright infringement lawsuits, it has yet to be adapted to any other medium. Sim also intends to have all his work enter the public domain after his death.
Generally accepted as proving that works of astonishing scope and dedication can be achieved if you don't mind going completely crazy in the process.
Story arcs
- Cerebus note
- High Society note
- Church and State I and II note
- Jaka's Story note
- Melmoth note
- Mothers and Daughters:
- Flight note
- Women note
- Reads note
- Minds note
- Guys note
- Rick's Story note
- Going Home:
- Going Home note
- Form and Void note
- Latter Days:
- Latter Days note
- The Last Day note
In 2021, apparently with Sim's full blessing, a 70-minute animated movie called The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark (described by its creator Oliver Simonson as "the first no-budget CGI feature in history) was released online, featuring John Di Crosta as the voices of both Cerebus and Lord Julius. If this has gotten your interest, the production company uploads the daily footage (also known as "dailies") to their YouTube channel here
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An even earlier (albeit short-lived) adaptation was done for radio in the early eighties.
This comic provides examples of:
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A - E
- Aardvark Trunks: When the comic started, Cerebus had a long snout with a somewhat pig-like nose that was the same width as his snout. As the comic progressed and Sim's art improved, his snout shortened and the nose broadened, becoming more round and completely obscuring his snout if seen from the front. He also has two mouths, one on each side of his head just behind his snout. Cirin and Suenteus Po, the two other aardvarks that appear in the story, have similar mouth/snout arrangements but their snouts are more tapered and their noses aren't as wide as Cerebus' is.
- Aborted Arc: An early story arc had Cerebus and a band of mercenaries capture a commander named Krull as part of an elaborate military campaign. A later story even depicts them having difficulty keeping Krull imprisoned, seeming to foreshadow an upcoming conflict or complication. However, Sim suddenly and unceremoniously dumps the story line, ultimately having it resolve itself offscreen. Not only that, it is never mentioned how (or even if) Krull affected the campaign's outcome.
- Abortion Fallout Drama: At the start of the Jaka's Story arc, when Cerebus and his former flame Jaka reunite, he asks about her babynote and she tells him that she had a miscarriage. However, at the end of the arc, it's revealed that she actually had an abortion without her husband's knowledge, and that she would've had a son, which was what her husband wanted more than anything. Enraged and heartbroken, he punches her out and screams that he never wants to see her again, which the Cirinist government is happy to arrange although he gets a thumb broken as punishment for hitting Jaka.
- Accidentally Broke the MacGuffin: Cerebus unwittingly ruined his original destiny by selling his helmet. If he'd had the full set of helmet/medallions/sword when he came upon the Pigts' aardvark idol, it would've come to life as a mecha-like monstrosity and given him the power to conquer the world. Whoops.
- Acid Reflux Nightmare: Jokingly referenced rather than used. In Guys, Cerebus has an alcohol-induced nightmare involving Roaring Rick Veitch and his Rare-Bit Fiends. This is a parody of Veitch's actual comic/dream journal Roarin' Rick's Rare Bit Fiends, which was based off Winsor McCay's comic strip Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, whose title referenced the notion that eating too much Welsh rarebit would cause nightmares.
- Action Girl: Red Sophia in the early issues...granted, Cerebus doesn't think any of her victories have been against formidable opponents.
- Adventure: Pretty much every issue until High Society, either as standalone stories or as 2-3 issue arcs.
- Aesop Amnesia: After Minds, Cerebus tries to become a better person but eventually goes right back to the same behaviors he initially had.
- Affectionate Parody:
- Elrod is Elric of Melniboné with the personality and mannerisms of Foghorn Leghorn. It's unclear whether Sim actually likes Elric, but he considers the Foghorn cartoons to be some of the very best Looney Tunes shorts.
- One of the Latter Days chapters/issues is an Affectionate Parody of Peanuts and uses many of Schulz's narrative devices.
- The Alcoholic:
- Cerebus gets smashed whenever he can, and can knock back prodigious amounts of booze. In one scene in High Society, he pours himself a brandy snifter full of whiskeynote and in Guys, he's apparently acquainted with drinking scotch by the bucketful. In the early issues, this was usually played for laughs, but by the time Guys came around, the alcohol-based comedy is balanced by playing all the consequences of Cerebus' boozing much more seriously. For instance, Cerebus has to deal with the aftermath of very rude things he says about Bear while drunk, and in the middle of a booze pass-out, he tells "Dave" that he just wants to die.
- Unmarried men of the Cirinist society tend to be sequestered in bars because the state provides free room and board for them and all the alcohol they can handle. The thought process is that they will either get tired of that lifestyle, shape up, and leave to find a wife, or eventually drink themselves to death. Guys is set in a bar and deals with this concept in multiple fashions.
- In keeping with his real-life basis, F. Stop Kennedy can't stay away from his gin, and spends many evenings on the boat ride with Cerebus and Jaka drunkenly soliloquizing on the roof of his cabin.
- All for Nothing: No particular character ends up accomplishing their goals, least of all Cerebus. Despite his attempts to become a better person and maintain a relationship with Jaka, both of these fail by the end of the book and he ends up dying alone, unmourned and unloved, just as the Judge predicted. Despite his religious upbringing and eventual conversion in Latter Days, he still ends up being dragged into Hell for his troubles.
- All of Them: Cerebus is pretty straightforward about his greed:Regency Elf: If you could have any amount of money... how much would you want?
Cerebus: All of it. - Alternative Calendar: Cerebus creates a 4-month calendar...or tries to.
- Ambiguous Ending: The Last Day ends with Cerebus being pulled into the light, screaming for God to help him, after he realizes that Rick (the one decent person he knows and the chief prophet of his religion) isn't among the souls beckoning to him on the other side, all but confirming that he's condemned to Hell with either his friends or demons assuming their form. However, Sim floated the possibility that Cerebus could be overreacting in interviews after publication, and the cosmology established in the initial chapter for the book is also sweeping enough to offer other interpretations of what happens to his soul.
- Animated Adaptation:
- Some time in the 80s, Sim made some animation cels for some very short Cerebus stories. Never came to anything beyond that.
- The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark, a feature-length CGI movie, was released in 2021. It was done over a period of 14 years on pretty much no budget, and... not to put it too bluntly, it shows.
- Animate Dead: Happens in the first issue.
- Antagonistic Offspring: Astoria is revealed to be Cirin's daughter, and the two found different feminist movements that are ultimately at odds with each other over the role of mothers and daughters in society. While they attempt to communicate, they are unable to reconcile their differences by the end of the comic. This ends up foreshadowing Cerebus' relationship with his son in The Last Day, as Sheshep Ankh ends up spurning his father to pursue his own warped religious goals. Cerebus even dies attempting to kill him.
- Anthology Comic: Some of the one-shot specials (Cerebus Jam, The Cerebus World Tour Book, etc.) fell into this category. Each story within was helmed by a different guest artist (sometimes solo, sometimes in collaboration with Sim).
- Anti-Climax: Used several times throughout the comic, to the point where it almost becomes a Running Gag of sorts.
- The end of High Society sees Cerebus ready to give his life in a war...only for the opposing army to be entirely made up of old friends of his from the previous phonebook.
- The beginning of Flight continues Cerebus's evasion of the vengeful Cirinist army from the previous phonebook and sees him heroically call upon the citizens of Iest to fight back against their oppressors with anything they can find. Some do heed his call...and the action cuts to Cerebus watching in dismay as they're completely slaughtered, then cuts back to the Cirinists standing over their bodies.
- The penultimate issue ends with Cerebus pulling out a sword and preparing to pursue and kill his crazed son, Sheshep Ankh. The final issue begins with him trying to jump out of bed, only to immediately pull a hamstring and fall to his death. By this point, Sheshep has walked out of the room and doesn't know what's happened...and likely wouldn't care if he did.
- Anti-Hero: Cerebus, although before things got serious, he was really more of a parody than a straight example.
- Arc Welding: Cerebus did this a lot. There were very few minor, throwaway characters. Just about anyone who talked to Cerebus at some point is revealed to be important to the plot somehow.
- Arc Words
- Whenever "Something fell!" shows up, expect something major to happen soon. It doesn't even have to be said to have power. At the end of Going Home, Jaka nearly falls off a gangplank but recovers and gets Cerebus out of a really dangerous situation. At the end of Form and Void, she does fall down while trying to climb over a fence, and proceeds to add salt to an already open wound and cause Cerebus to finally and utterly reject her. It even shows up unsaid in the final issue, as Cerebus breaks his neck falling out of bed and dies.
- "G'wan! Beat it! Scram!". It's originally advice given to Rick by Cerebus as a way of getting rid of pesty women, but it takes on a much darker significance later on when Cerebus hits Jaka with it at the end of Form and Void, screaming the "SCRAM!" at her.
- "Mungu Mkono" (Swahili for "the Hand of God") shows up for the first time in Form and Void being spoken by the Ernestways' African porters. In Latter Days, it's the trigger that leads Cerebus to fully accept his religious role.
- "Devils, vipers, and scorpions." It's a generic term for women who don't fit the ideal mold conceived in Rick's Story and then expanded on in Latter Days, and shows up frequently in Rick's religious writings and Cerebus' exegesis on the Torah. It also happens to be Sim's full initials.
- "You can get what you want and still not be very happy." While this only explicitly shows up once (as Cerebus' twisted "lesson" in the baby-throwing scene in Church and State), it's repeatedly shown over the course of the entire comic to be the fundamental theme to Cerebus' life. He desires three things in life more than anything: money, power, and Jaka. When he finally has the first two (as Prime Minister and Pope) his selfishness and suspicion of everyone around him keep him from enjoying them. When he finally has Jaka, he takes Rick's "be happy for two" advicenote too literally and quashes his deepening fear that they could be trapped in a blizzard if they don't reach Sand Hills Creek before winter. That, combined with the slowly widening gulf between he and Jaka, the incredible blow to his self-identity caused by his favorite author killing himself, and the shock of learning that his father died and was buried while he was running around with Jaka and he's now an outcast from his hometown takes such a toll on his nerves that the final break is explosive. When he finally acquires all the issues of his favorite "read" Rabbi and tries to make a guide to it, he learns what it's actually about and goes insane from the shock. When he falls for the reporter at the end of Latter Days, the relationship eventually goes awry in a way far worse than what happened with Jaka, eventually causing Cerebus' final downfall.
- Armoured Closet Gay: Upon discovering that he's intersex, Cerebus seems to internally struggle with and suppress homoerotic thoughts about his friend, Bear. He ultimately remains homophobic well into his old age.
- Art Evolution: Sim's artwork and character designs showed drastic improvement over the course of the first hundred issues or so, especially after Gerhard took over backgrounds, freeing Sim to focus on the characters. The art also took another leap when Sim began experimenting with photorealism in the later issues of the "Chasing YHWH" arc. He carried this technique into his later works glamourpussnote and Judenhassnote .
- Ascended Extra: According to Sim, Jaka was originally supposed to be a one-shot character.
- Aside Glance:
- Cerebus does one in High Society after learning that his would-be kidnappers used their real names (and real signatures) to sign the ransom note.
- He also does one in Reads in the Beat Panel between Astoria telling him he's a hermaphrodite and his reaction.
- Assimilation Plot: In a very roundabout way, this is the essence of the "merged permanence" and "male light/female void" material in issue #186, namely that the void continually seeks to absorb the light in order to meld the two together, bringing stability to the void at the cost of the light's power and uniqueness.
- Ass Shove: At one point in Guys, Bear gets so mad at Cerebus for cheating during their Five Bar Gate games that he knocks Cerebus out with a shot, then picks him up by the tail, "inserts" one of the game balls, and tamps it in with the handle of his mallet. Marty then shows up, says that he used to have experience in dealing with Cerebus' condition, and produces something that looks like pasta tongs if they were designed by the Inquisition. Bear walks away holding his butt in sympathy pain.
- Ate His Gun: Ham Ernestway kills himself in this manner, just like his real life counterpart.
- Author Avatar: Two explicit ones in-story: "Dave", who mainly just appears as a voice in Cerebus' head, and Viktor Davis, an author whose career resembles Sim's. (Sim's full name is David Victor Sim.) Some readers believed that Rick was one for Sim, which Sim has denied.
- Author Filibuster:
- Reads, in addition to the comic material, has two lengthy prose sections, with parts spread over each individual issue in the arc. The first is a fictional depiction of a "reads" writer who lets his greed get the better of him and sells his work to a big-name publishing company, and what happens to him and his work afterwards.note The second, narrated by Viktor Davis, is hard to succinctly describe, but features a surreal attack on the readers' perceptions of the fourth wall, and also introduces the "male light/female void" material in issue #186, which is where the serious misogyny accusations began.
- Sim's notes, both in the individual issues and the phonebooks, for content and for sheer verbosity.
- Becomes most troubling with "Chasing YHWH", which is basically Sim filtering his religious beliefs through Cerebus' exegesis on the Torah. This culminates in the opening pages of The Last Day, which is a combination of the Big Bang theory and Sim's unconventional views on the God/YHWH problem.
- Author Powers: "Dave"'s conversations with Cerebus in which he's speaking in Cerebus' thought balloons with nothing to differentiate his words from Cerebus', and yet somehow always manages to make it clear which of them is speaking at any time. He also alters reality around Cerebus in ways that only a completely omnipotent being could, although he makes it clear to Cerebus that, while he is Cerebus' creator, he isn't the god Tarim that Cerebus normally worships.
- Author Tract: The entire comic eventually turned into a dual tract built on Sim's controversial views on gender differences and his even more controversial religious beliefs.
- Automatic Crossbows: The Roach (in his Punisherroach identity) wields two "pearl handled semi-automatic" belt-fed crossbows that shoot explosive-tipped bolts and have a firing rate similar to a machine gun.
- Back for the Finale: Most of the more notable characters show up in the afterlife in issue 300...then it's possibly subverted since Cerebus might be in Hell and his old acquaintances might be demons who lured his soul into a trap.
- Backstory:
- Cerebus's past before becoming a wandering mercenary, such as his stint as a city guard.
- Jaka's Story fills in some important parts of her childhood and adolescence. However, as these parts are from Oscar's read about her based on anecdotes from Rick, the reader doesn't know what really happened and what is Oscar filling in the gaps with his florid writing.
- A large part of Minds is dedicated to revealing the backstory of the Cirinist movement and its rise to power.
- Badass Pacifist: Suenteus Po; although he definitely wasn't always that way, when "onscreen", he manages to solve all of his problems with reason and will. He encourages Cirin and Cerebus to try to do the same at least once...and it fails miserably, though they do show him just enough respect to wait until he's out of sight before they start beating the shit out of each other.
- Barbarian Hero: Cerebus is a deconstruction/parody of this. His simple-minded, unsubtle way of thinking and approach to pretty much everything in life end up biting him in the butt several times as he fails to think through things or learn from his mistakes.
- Bathroom Stall Graffiti: During Cerebus' interrogation of Astoria, she reveals that she originated the "One less mouth to feed is one less mouth to feed" line Cerebus used in one of his sermons.Astoria: It's a direct quote from my Kevillist Manifesto. Where did you...?
Cerebus: Cerebus read it on the wall of a latrine once.
Astoria: Immortality is mine. - Batman Can Breathe in Space: The sections involving the Judge and Cerebus at the end of Church and State and "Dave", Cerebus, and Cirin in Minds have them on the surface of the moon and floating around in outer space (respectively) with no ill effects at all.
- Beat Panel: Happen every now and then, with Cerebus' reaction to Astoria telling him he's a hermaphrodite combining one with an Aside Glance.
- Becoming the Mask: Apparently, some of Lord Julius's "Like-A-Looks" get far too deep into the role.
- Beer Commercials: Parodied throughout Guys. In several issues, the opening page is nothing but a shot of a bottle of booze produced in Palnu, with increasingly silly labels as the arc progresses. Sim mentioned at one point that he was amused by the thought that, with their political power nullified by the Cirinists, Julius and Baskin would have converted Palnu into one giant distillery to feed the Cirinists' bars-for-single-men movement.
- Berserk Button: Talking about hurting or threatening Jaka within earshot of Cerebus is an effective form of suicide. This has been done both humorously and...not so humorously.
- Best Her to Bed Her: Yet another layer of the Red Sonja parody. Red Sophia's father hires Cerebus to torture the man who besmirched her honor. During the journey her logorrhea is too much, they fight, he wins, she pledges service. (He refused to demand sexual favors from her at that point, instead trying to teach her a lesson by using her as a pack mule. She didn't learn; Sophia is simply Too Kinky to Torture.) The eventual torture is forcing the blackguard (who saw her naked) to marry Sophia. However, years later she ends up married to Cerebus (she much more happy about the prospect than he, given the circumstances).
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Subverted. After Cerebus kills the two Cirinists who had talked about hurting Jaka while she was imprisoned, he recalls Bear talking about how swiftly the Cirinists track down anyone who harms one of their own. He considers cutting his own throat rather than face that prospect, and even has his sword to his neck for a few panels before changing his mind and fleeing.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Lord Julius in his first appearance.
- Baskin, who saves Lord Julius from an assassin in Flight.
- Big Eater: Boobah has a pretty big appetite. It tends to get him into trouble.
- Black Cloak: Po and the being who thinks it is Death both dress in long, hooded black cloaks during the "Mothers and Daughters" arc.
- Black Comedy:
- Cerebus's brief tenure as Pope does this, especially his "sermons" which inevitably get someone killed.
- Generally, the comic's humor doesn't so much go away as get darker as it goes on.
- Black Swords Are Better: Inverted as another layer of Elrod being an Elric parody. His sword Seersucker is black because of rust, and it shatters against Cerebus' sword when Elrod attacks him with it.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Starts with the epilogue of Melmoth and continues right through the Mothers & Daughters arc. These issues make very clear just how messy swordfighting can be, and Punisherroach's semi-automatic crossbow pistols shoot exploding bolts whose effects on their targets are made quite clear.
- Body Double: Lord Julius' "Like-a-looks". As Julius is based on Groucho Marx, the joke is in lampshading the fact that anyone with the right build, walk, attitude, and a painted-on mustache can look like Groucho/Julius. It was never entirely clear who was the real Lord Julius after that, especially after a mob of increasingly absurd Like-a-looks (including Elrod the Albino!) invaded the palace and all claimed to be the real one. In a reprint, Sim mentioned the story was inspired by the scene from Duck Soup where Chico and Harpo both impersonate Groucho using greasepaint and the right props.
- Body Surf:
- Elrod as Deadalbino (a direct parody of the DC character Deadman).
- Charles X. Claremont is revealed to have done this in Church & State, becoming trapped in Super Secret Sacred Wars Roach's head.
- Bookends:
- The first issue ends with Cerebus deceiving his employers to make off with treasure. The final issue ends with Cerebus himself being deceived into going towards the light when he dies before realizing it may well be Hell.
- According to Sim, Cerebus' father saw that his newborn son was born an aardvark and left the room to return with a club to kill him before being stopped by his mother. Cerebus' life would end due to trying and failing to kill his own adult son, born a (subtly uncanny) human.
- Boom, Headshot!:
- Cerebus finishes off the wizard Necross, in the form of the giant stone Thrunk by shooting him in the head with a cannon.
- Punisherroach kills a few Cirinists in this fashion with his crossbow pistols.
- Cerebus' plan to root out the remaining Cirinists who have blended into the normal civilian population involves having the men in each community vote on all the women to determine if any of them should be put to death for being too much of a devil, viper, or scorpion. Those who don't make the cut are summarily executed in this fashion. This later extends to men through the "complete dick" rule, where any man voted by at least ten of his peers to be a complete dick gets the same treatment.
- Bound and Gagged: Happens to several characters, but Cerebus gets this treatment the most. Usually (but not always) done comedically, especially in Latter Days where he spends a long time tied up while the Three Wise Fellows test him and eventually cracks from boredom.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Cerebus learns in Minds that he's a character in "Dave"'s story. This affects his life to varying degrees through Guys and Rick's Story, although the last time "Dave" is mentioned in-story is when Cerebus thanks him, Tarim, God, and whoever for Jaka showing up again and that aspect seems to vanish as the religion-centered material becomes really prominent.
- Breather Episode:
- Issue 51 was a self-contained, comedic story set just between High Society and Church and State.
- Issues 137 and 138, set between Jaka's Story and Melmoth (both extremely moody and emotional stories), tell a light-hearted story about Lord Julius and his staff.
- The largely comedic Guys comes between the Mother and Daughters arc and Cerebus' emotional reunion with Jaka.
- The first few issues of the Latter Days arc bridged the heavily emotional ending of Form and Void and the main portion of the new arc where Cerebus finally defeats the Cirinists once and for all.
- Briar Patching: Weisshaupt is forced to resort to this when Pope Cerebus threatens his men with eternal damnation if they obey his orders.
- Brick Joke: In The Last Day, an aged, decrepit Cerebus has a scene where he begs God for "a last proper fart" before he dies. Guess what the last thing he manages to do after he falls out of his bed but before breaking his neck and dying is?
- Bring My Brown Pants: Cerebus, as a kid, got so scared during a church service in his hometown that he wet himself.
- Broken Ace: Cerebus is many things: a peerless warrior, a charismatic leader, a shrewd planner, and eventually becomes Prime Minister, Pope, a revolutionary figurehead, an acclaimed athlete, and the head of his own religion. Unfortunately, these impressive accomplishments are undone by his self-destructive tendencies, his social ineptitude, or outright bone-headed decisions, leaving him a pathetic figure when all is said and done.
- Brown Bag Mask: After Cerebus ditches the "Spore" costume, he realizes that the white paint he used on his face is indelible, and spends the next issue or two with a paper bag over his head.
- Butterfly of Doom: "Dave" reveals to Cerebus in Minds that the entire series, except for the first issue or so, has been a chaotic, fractured version of what should have been Cerebus' real destiny—bring the Pigt altar to life with the aardvark artifacts (his helmet, medallions, and sword) and lead the Pigts to conquer the world—because he didn't have all three of them at the time.
- Butt-Monkey: Cerebus himself, frequently.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": In Estarcion, books are called "reads", although they are much more heavily illustrated than normal books.
- Captain Ersatz: The Cockroach parodies many comic book characters, including Captain America, Batman (both his original iteration and Frank Miller's take in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns), Moon Knight, Wolverine, and Venom.
- The Cat Came Back: In High Society, Elrod turns up at the Regency Hotel unannounced to meet Cerebus, much to the latter's annoyance. Cerebus beats Elrod over the head and pays a taxi driver to take the unconscious nuisance to the docks and put him on the next boat going far away. Of course, by the time Cerebus returns to his hotel room, he finds that Elrod, now sopping wet, has somehow managed to beat him there. This makes a lot more sense in hindsight when Elrod's true nature is revealed.
- Catchphrase:
- Bear's constant use of "Whattyacall".
- Cerebus' "G'wan! Beat it! Scram!" advice to Rick.
- The Conniptin war cry:Might makes Right! Might for Right! Might for Might! Right for Might! Fight! Fight! Fight!
- Cerebus's favorite swear word: Tarim (the name for the god that he worships for most of the series). He starts using it as a Battle Cry in War of the Independents.
- Celebrity Endorsement:
- In a sense. Sim, for his entire career, has been a very outspoken advocate for independent comic writers and titles, even creating a how-to book for self-publishing.
- Sonny Strait has confessed to being a fan and is mentioned by Sim several times in Collected Letters.
- Celibate Hero: Played straight at first, then subverted, then completely averted. At the start of the comic, Cerebus seems completely uninterested in any kind of romantic or sexual hijinks, the prime example being when he ignores Red Sophia's attempt to seduce him. The only exception is when, while drugged, he first encounters Jaka and falls in love with her, although he forgets about her when the drug wears off. Then, in High Society, Cerebus is mildly affectionate with Michelle and drops a hint that he might actually have a history with women, and then briefly reunites with Jaka and reveals that he never completely forgot her. Later, in Church and State, he clumsily tries to win over Michelle but messes it up thoroughly, and then is manipulated into getting married to Red Sophia while very drunk, which leads to an overnight marathon of consummating the relationship. From them on, Cerebus shows a strong interest in sex, with Red Sophia, Joanne, Jaka, and "New Joanne" as his confirmed lovers.
- Centipede's Dilemma: Cerebus tries to win a Five Bar Gate game using this trope, asking if he breathes in or out when tossing the ball. Cut to panel of his panicked partner contemplating it. Cut to panel showing said partner having won and saying, "I breathe out!"
- Central Theme: Quite a few, though how they're rendered changes as Sim changed his real-life views.
- Deception: Very few characters are forthcoming about their true feelings and intentions over the course of the comic, and Cerebus himself gradually ruins his own life by failing to be honest with himself about his feelings or wants in the final half of the comic.
- Power: Most of the series is centered on the rise and fall of political systems and empires, but the power rarely stays still for long, does any good for its followers, or makes the people in power any happier than they were before. Conversely, the happier and more grounded characters are shown to spurn seeking power for humbler goals.
- Art: Many artist characters emerge over the course of the story, whether they be painters, dancers, writers, or even comic book authors. The pursuit of art for its own sake is contrasted with artists who "sell out" (which is directly addressed in the first part of Reads), and how art affects society is explored along with how art can be repressed.
- Gender: The relationship between men and women is explored on a personal level, and is eventually relevant on a religious and even cosmological level.
- Religion: The power of genuine belief and how belief can be leveraged for further power.
- Chainmail Bikini:
- Red Sophia's standard attire, which is only fitting since she's a direct parody of Red Sonja. This leads to a funny remark from Cerebus about the side effects of such attire.[Sophia and Cerebus are drinking and talking; she'd tried to put the moves on Cerebus earlier, to no avail]
Sophia: Enough talk, you furry gray celibate. What do you think of these?! *whips her top off*
Cerebus: They'd probably heal if you'd stop wearing that chainmail bikini. - Inverted by the Cirinists; often their eyes are the only parts uncovered.
- Red Sophia's standard attire, which is only fitting since she's a direct parody of Red Sonja. This leads to a funny remark from Cerebus about the side effects of such attire.
- The Chain of Harm: Cerebus' relationship with his parents is heavily implied (and
confirmed by Sim) to be pretty bleak, and any attempt to reconcile with them is cut short when he fails to make it back to his hometown before they pass away, earning his shunning by the entire community. In turn, his rosy memories of raising his son in The Last Day prove to be completely unfounded, as his son emerges to confirm that he was always neglected by his father and spurns him entirely in favor of his mother. This is heavily implied to be a factor in why he's even more power-hungry and egomaniacal than Cerebus was in his prime. - Character Development: Cerebus tries to force himself to undergo this after his talk with Dave, resolving to become a better person. It doesn't work out.
- Characterization Marches On: The Artist. Remember in his debut appearance how he was just a friendly, over-enthusiastic dimwit who was perfectly happy to be an Extreme Doormat? Remember what he was like later on in Church and State?
- Character Title: The series as a whole and some of the individual phonebooks which focus on secondary characters (or in the case of Melmoth, Oscar Wilde).
- Charles Atlas Superpower: The Roach from his Captain Cockroach incarnation onward, although he thinks it was through mystical means.
- Cheap Gold Coins: Zig-zagged. In early adventures, Cerebus might make off with sacks of gold, but after the Cirinists' abortive attempt at ascension uses up all the gold in the economy, he's able to buy lifelong room and board with one stray gold coin hidden in his room.
- Cheeky Mouth: Actually justified here, in that Cerebus has two mouths on opposite sides of his head. Suenteus Po and Cirin are the same.
- Chekhov's Gun: When we're introduced to Cirin, or rather, Serna, we only initially see her hand dissecting and reconstituting a flower as she converses with her lieutenant. Whatever powers this scene implies she has aren't shown even as she becomes the main antagonist, but long after her empire has been overthrown, Cerebus' wife and son, who have betrayed him and his faith, are revealed to have found and conversed with Cirin and "extracted" the knowledge gained from her plant experimentation to facilitate gene splicing and cloning experiments, which are essential to their mad plan to construct a new religion after Cerebus himself dies. In this way, the first scene we see with Cirin ends up foreshadowing how her legacy will undo Cerebus' own long after both characters are old and/or dead.
- Chessmaster:
- Weisshaupt stands out as the most accomplished, but Astoria and Lord Julius are also particularly adept.
- Suenteus Po is a literal version; he is perhaps the wisest character in the series yet is so humble that he believes any sort of action on his part that affects the world, in any way, would be arrogance. Thus, he spends all his time and intellect on playing chess...by himself. This is the only thing he does for several decades.
- Chess Motifs: Scattered throughout the first half of Mothers and Daughters, with the most explicit being the final mental meeting between Suenteus Po and Cerebus in Flight, where they play chess and their moves reflect on each others' lives in various ways.
- Chick Magnet: Cerebus (makes no sense, but...) and Dirty Drew. This even extended outside the comic; one promotional artwork◊ for Hepcats featured Cerebus at a strip club being told by one of the dancers that Jaka was right about him being cute.
- Child Hater: Cerebus. Most kids aren't too crazy about him either.
- Child Soldiers: In the Mothers and Daughters arc, Cerebus recalls killing a particularly annoying kid who also happened to be a captured enemy soldier.
- The Chosen One: Subverted. Cerebus was supposed to be this for the Pigts and would have had a grand destiny were it not for a seemingly-innocuous decision he'd made prior to his first encounter with them.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Elrod, The Roach, and The Regency Elf all qualify.
- Cluster F-Bomb: normalroach has a furious, profanity-laden tirade at the start of Melmoth about how he's had to change himself to conform to the new Cirinist regime, although he shuts up right quick when he notices some Cirinists looking at him suspiciously.
- Combo Platter Powers: Parodied with the "reads" character Rabbi. He had hundreds of peculiar and highly specialized powers such as dextrorotatory breath—making the plane of polarization of light spin to the right by blowing.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The parodies of real people in the comic essentially fell into "take this famous person and drop them into the comic."
- Companion Cube: Missy, Jaka's childhood doll. Taken to ridiculous extremes in the latter parts of the story.
- Congestion Speak: In issue 68, Cerebus catches a cold and becomes horribly stopped up, which messes with everything he says. The issue ends with this confrontation between him and his rival Adam Weisshaupt:Cerebus: *shouting out his bedroom window* Weiddhaupd! Whad do you wand?
Weisshaupt: *shouting from the rooftop across the square* I want the gold, aardvark! All of it!
Cerebus: Na golt?! You're duts!
Weisshaupt: 'Nuts' am I? Look more closely, aardvark! I'm not alone up here! I have company! *points to a row of cannons beside him* I want the gold...and I want it now!
Cerebus: [to himself] Uh-oh.
DEXD: na shid hids na fan *SNIFF* - Conjoined Eyes: Cerebus. Neither Suenteus Po nor Cirin have them.
- Constructed World: Possibly subverted, as it is implied if not outright stated that the world Cerebus inhabits eventually becomes ours.
- Convenient Miscarriage: Subverted. Jaka reunites with Cerebus in the middle of Church and State II after a long separation, only to tell him that she is now married and expecting a child. Cerebus is angry, but eventually relents and gives her some money for the baby. When he next sees her (at the start of Jaka's Story), her pregnancy is seemingly handwaved away with a single line about a miscarriage. It looks like Jaka has fallen victim to this trope...until the end of the story arc, where we learn that Jaka actually had an abortion behind her husband's back. This leads to the end of her marriage, and to her eventually getting back together with Cerebus. Abortion in the story is very illegal, and while Jaka's husband did want to have a child, her main motivation for lying to him was to protect him from criminal liability if she was found out...although her telling Cerebus that she was afraid having a baby would make her ugly casts some dark shadows on her motivation.
- Cool Airship: Seen from a distance in Form and Void.
- Corrupt Church
- In a sense. The Cirinists started out as a benevolent association of mothers who grouped together to bolster their communities. The movement spread like wildfire, and when it began to meet resistance from multiple fronts, a disciplinary / defensive section was formed...which then took over the movement when the aardvark Serna, Cirin's best friend and co-founder of the movement, stole Cirin's identity, usurped her leadership, and had Cirin humiliated and punished as a traitor.
- By the time of High Society, the Church of Tarim has been corrupted from within by selfish and greedy individuals.
- Corrupted Character Copy:
- The titular character is inspired by Conan the Barbarian, but is more a deconstruction of the Barbarian Hero archetype the character popularized. Conan's barbarian upbringing and savage ways hid a strong code of honor and chivalry that rendered him nobler in some ways than the civilized characters who looked down on him. Cerebus, in contrast, is more openly amoral and cynical and respects women less and less as the comic continues. While initially the comics were a lightly satirical take on the Conan comics run, later issues would deconstruct Barbarian Hero more directly by making Cerebus become corrupt with the power granted him. Finally, where Conan is prophesized to become the good king of Aquilonia towards the end of his life, Cerebus is prophesized to fail at all of his grabs for power and die a lonely, unmourned death.
- He's also one not just to Howard the Duck, but the Funny Animals genre that inspired him in turn, particularly the Looney Tunes cast. Like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, Cerebus is a cartoon animal who uses cunning and trickery to outwit the world of boorish and self-serious human characters he's surrounded by. While Bugs Bunny is usually a Karmic Trickster of sorts, Cerebus takes these trickster character traits to their logical endpoint and his actions eventually become more cruel and monstrous despite the same relative tone, to the point where he's throwing babies to their death and kicking old men off of roofs with the same comic rhythm. Like Daffy, he rarely gets what he wants and slowly suffers Sanity Slippage over his misfortune, but unlike Daffy, his self-destructive traits and increasingly bleak life are played for drama as much as comedy.
- Cosmic Plaything: Ultimately subverted in Minds when Cerebus finally accepts that it's his own fault that his life turned out the way it did.
- *Crack!* "Oh, My Back!": This happened to Cerebus a lot over the course of The Last Day; being almost 200 years old, it's not at all surprising. It's also what leads to his death; a hamstring gives out on him as he's trying to jump out of bed, causing the fatal fall.
- Crapsack World: Estarcion in The Last Day, thanks to "New Joanne" and her revolt against Cerebus' social movement, has become a hellhole of every kind of societal perversion and corruption.
Most of those that are mentioned are stereotypically conservative ideas of the absurd depths of depravity a completely liberal culture could sink to. - Creator Cameo: Sim makes two major appearances, first in Minds and then in Rick's Story. Also, Viktor Davis shows up in Reads and is mentioned as being a friend of Rick's in Rick's Story.
- Creepy Child: The bully who stabbed Cerebus as a kid.
- Crossover:
- Cerebus guest-stars in issue #8 of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The book is drawn by Turtles creators Eastman and Laird, with the exception of Cerebus himself, who is drawn by Sim.
- Cerebus also appeared in the highly self-referential Spawn #10.
- Flaming Carrot appears in one issue of Church and State (issue #104, to be precise) during Cerebus's ascension. Much like Cerebus was drawn by Sim in the Turtles crossover, Flaming Carrot was in this issue drawn by his creator Bob Burden.
- Death from The Sandman (1989) appears in a single panel in the opening pages of Flight.
- The short-lived Cerebus Radio show had brief cameos by impersonators of Rocky and Bullwinkle in the adaptation of Issue 6. Bullwinkle does the pull-a-rabbit trick and pulls Cerebus out of his hat.
- Cerebus has also appeared as a major character in the first issue of Dave Ryan's War of the Independents alongside other characters such as The Tick, Fone Bone, Savage Dragon, and others. How big of a part he'll play in the overall series remains to be seen and, due to various problems, will likely remain to be seen for quite some time.
- Cult: Several show up in the early story arcs, including the Cirinists prior to their seizing power.
- Culture Police: The Cirinists, in a rather idiosyncratic and selective way. Anything they believe is harmful to the welfare of mothers and children will make them go into full Knight Templar mode. Pretty much anything else, they will ignore completely.
- Curb-Stomp Battle
- Cerebus killing the Cirinist at the end of Melmoth.
- Cerebus killing Cirin and her guards in an alternate scenario in Reads. This one is subverted when he actually fights Cirin. It initially seems the trope is going this way, then Cirin uses her size and strength to her advantage and nearly kills him.
- Cuteness Proximity: The new fathers in Latter Days are a Deconstructive Parody. The TPB's annotations confirm that Sim detests this behavior.
- Daddy's Girl: Astoria, in the squickiest way possible.
- Damsel in Distress: Jaka, in her first appearance.
- Dark Action Girl: Geet-A, Red Sophia's clone, who seems to do nothing but grunt and fight.
- David Versus Goliath: Anytime Cerebus has a one-on-one fight with anyone, they're always much, much bigger than he is, with Necross being the most extreme example. This becomes his main disadvantage when he fights Cirin in Reads.
- A Day in the Limelight: Jaka's Story, Rick's Story, and the Lord Julius story that comes right before Melmoth.
- Dead Guy Junior: A non-human example: In Latter Days, Cerebus becomes a shepherd and has apparently named one of the sheep Elrod, who had been more-or-less killed almost 100 issues prior.
- Deadpan Snarker: Astoria, Cerebus, Michelle, and especially Lord Julius.
- Death by Falling Over: How Cerebus himself dies.
- Death Is Cheap: Parodied with Captain Cockroach's sidekick, "Bunky", until the Cerebus Syndrome kicked in.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Subverted. During Cirin and Cerebus' fight at the end of Reads, Cirin manages to take Cerebus' sword from him, and proceeds to give him several serious cuts. However, Cerebus is able to dodge each enough so that none are incapacitating (aside from blood loss), and eventually is able to counterattack in a way that makes the sword useless to Cirin.
- Death Seeker: In Latter Days, Cerebus eventually decides to stop aimlessly wandering around waiting to die and let the Cirinists do the job. However, the Wise Fellows get to him before the Cirinists do.
- Decided by One Vote: The outcome of the election in High Society.
- Decompressed Comic: Several issues and story arcs featured long sequences of characters simply moving around or going about tasks with little or no dialogue. One particular one is after the Judge returns Cerebus to Estarcion after their adventure on the Moon. Cerebus spends several pages in silence exploring his now-empty house, reminiscing on the people that used to be there, gathering his belongings (and sticking a finger with his sword in the process), finding a single gold coin, and leaving.
- Deconstruction: The later books do this to the earlier books. In the earlier books, any violent or morally questionable action Cerebus takes is treated as being all in good fun. Once Cerebus Syndrome set in, the consequences of Cerebus' actions are thoroughly explored and often very unpleasant.
- Decoy Damsel: Astoria, in her first appearance.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Parodied. Elrod offers his friendship to Cerebus after their first encounter and subsequently follows him around, but is oblivious to the fact that Cerebus wants nothing to do with him.
- Defictionalization: Happens in-universe: Joanne, introduced in the last "living with Jaka" scenario in Minds, appears in Guys as an actual character.
- Dem Bones: The skeleton mooks in Issue 1.
- Department of Redundancy Department:Cerebus: Elrod of Melvinbone plans to come and steal your gold tomorrow.
Roach: Aha!
Cerebus: Aha? You mean you've heard of him?
Roach: Heard of him? He's coming tomorrow to steal all my gold! - Destructive Romance: The "you could make Jaka love Cerebus 'that way'" scenarios in Minds all end up wrecking Jaka, Cerebus, or both. In the first, Cerebus and Jaka are married, but Cerebus is completely controlling of and callous toward Jaka, and nothing she does is right with him. Cerebus, inside the scenario but talking with "Dave" in his head, is shocked at how miserable Jaka looks, and "Dave" notes that she is planning on leaving him the instant an opportunity shows up; as "Dave" puts it, "I can make her love you—but I can't make her love stronger than her need to be happy. Or her instinct for self preservation." The next, where Jaka has to be happy no matter what, shows that her being constantly happy irritates Cerebus to the point that he's violently abusive. The last, where Jaka has to be happy no matter what and Cerebus will never hit her, starts off on shaky ground as while things are seemingly fine, Jaka is noted to be the breadwinner while Cerebus is something of a lazy freeloader (ironically similar to Rick and Jaka's relationship), and the moment Cerebus sees Joanne, he starts lusting after her with no consideration for Jaka. They eventually do the deed, but Cerebus immediately dismisses Joanne afterward and goes home to find that Jaka has committed suicide, leaving behind a note that reveals that she had discovered the growing affair and had it confirmed by Joanne, and she couldn't take getting in the way of Cerebus' happiness but couldn't stand to be without him, either.
- Dirty Old Man: Sophia's father, who lampshades it himself, albeit accidentally.
- Disney Villain Death: The Artist/Woman-Thing/SumpThing gestalt monster dies in this manner when the top of the tower it and Cerebus are on breaks off and dumps it into the upper atmosphere, where it eventually burns up on re-entry.
- The Ditz: The Artist in his first appearance and Elrod more generally.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Astoria's break with the orthodox Cirinist movement came from her declaring that a mother had a right to kill her own child, and that the state had no right to stop her or indeed even to know whether she had done so or not—effectively, arguing for infanticide to be placed within the penumbra of the right to privacy. One gets the impression that Sim was thinking about something in particular, there, and that he had some definite opinions about it...
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": Cerebus' son prefers to be called "Sheshep" over his birth name "Shep-Shep".
- Doorstopper: The fandom has dubbed the TPBs as "phonebooks" due to the size of most of them.
- Doppelgänger: The Regency Elf has one, but she insists that they look completely different.
- Double Entendre: Cerebus telling Michelle that it's okay that the only guest room available is a girl's room, as he's slept in women's rooms before. Michelle gets the joke and plays off of it.
- Downer Ending:
- The Last Day. Cerebus is apparently dragged into the very afterlife he was trying to avoid, abandoned by God, and the world he left behind is a complete mess that will probably do nothing but get worse as time goes on.
- Even before this point, many of the individual arcs (Church & State, Jaka's Story, etc.) ended on a depressing note.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Bran Mak Mufin stabs himself in the chest when Cerebus' papacy crumbles.
- Ham Ernestway eventually can't take his personal deterioration any more and shoots himself. Getting away from Mary probably factored into it as well, but that's not revealed.
- Subverted by Cerebus following the Judge's speech after his first ascension. He briefly ponders throwing himself to his death following the complete overturn of his power by the Cirinists, but decides to go to a tavern, spend the single gold coin he found, and just do nothing.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him
- Surprisingly the Cirinists, who were the closest thing the series had to a Big Bad.
- The T'Gitans in the first phonebook.
- Drowning My Sorrows: In Guys, while in the middle of a drunken bender, Cerebus' true feelings are revealed when he calls out to "Dave" that he "just wants to die."
- Drunk with Power: Cerebus becomes this when he is appointed Prime Minister, and to a much greater extent when he becomes pope.
- Dude Magnet: Jaka Tavers, who is not only Cerebus's one true love, but also attracts Rick, Pud Withers, Pud's old customer, F. Stop Kennedy, Ham Ernestway, and others. Justified in that she is a dancer dedicated to her art.
- Dumbass Has a Point: One issue has Red Sophia, not the biggest thinker, hold a monologue where she goes over Cerebus' current behaviour, explains why it makes no sense in the light of his supposed motivations, and makes a reasonable deduction as to what his real motivations are and suggests that he just admit them to himself. All the while, Cerebus is listening in silence with a sullen "this is hitting a nerve" look on his face.
- Dungeon Crawling: The first issue. Plot-wise, it isn't all that different from a Dungeons & Dragons session.
- Dying Alone
- "You live only a few more years. You die alone, unmourned and unloved." The Judge ended up being half right. Cerebus does die alone, unmourned and unloved, but lives for much longer than the rest of the cast except for Cirin.
- Cerebus' father...which leads to Cerebus being shunned by his home town.
- Dying Race: Elrod is the last ruler of one, but this is eventually subverted when his true nature is revealed.
- Ear Ache: During the climactic fight at the end of Reads, Cerebus gets most of his right ear cut off.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The Mothers & Daughters arc and the first half of Latter Days. Unfortunately for our (anti)hero, Sim decides to subvert it both times.
- Eating the Eye Candy: In the "affair with Joanne" section of Minds, Cerebus and Joanne have meet-ups to chitchat while Jaka and Joanne's husband are away. Cerebus increasingly lusts for her as this continues, which is highlighted by one page that's just first-person views of him tunnel-visioning on her breasts when her tops make it clear that she's not wearing a bra.
- Eldritch Abomination:
- Some of these show up in the early issues.
- Rick, in his insanity, sees both Cerebus and Mrs. Thatcher in this fashion in Rick's Story.
- Emotions vs. Stoicism: This is, loosely, the core of Sim's take on the differences between the sexes. His view is that the essence of masculinity is an adherence to logic and reason with little influence by emotion, while the essence of femininity is an almost total consumption by emotion and the need to placate those emotions and keep happiness as the ultimate goal, regardless of the consequences. This interplay/conflict is deeply interwoven into the overall story, but is especially prominent in The Last Day, as "New Joanne"'s overthrow of the social order Cerebus established has given everyone free reign to do whatever they want to do, which has led to a complete societal collapse.
- The Empire: The Cirinist-ruled region of Estarcion.
- Ending Fatigue: Some readers may have been feeling this near the end, but the person suffering most was actually Gerhard. Basically the last person that Dave hadn't driven away from the comic with his crazy, Reclusive Artist behaviour (although by this point he and Dave never spoke outside work), he revealed in an interview with The Comics Journal that even he was lost as a reader and became very frustrated with the drudgery of working on a book "even I couldn't read anymore." It was to the point that he motivated himself to finish The Last Day with the mantra "done by Christmas, done by Christmas...", because Dave happened to mention at one point that the book would be "done by Christmas" if a certain amount of pages were finished per day. Gerhard also admitted in the same interview that after Cerebus was finished, he was so burnt out by the experience he didn't feel like drawing for nearly six years afterwards.
- Ending with a Scream:
- Form and Void concludes with Cerebus going through a Trauma Conga Line due to being shunned by his hometown for missing his father's death and burial because he was running around with Jaka, Jaka rubbing salt in this wound by basically telling him that it's his fault for not being decisive enough about them getting there sooner, and then after yelling at her to go away, she's arrested and carted off because the government had earlier found that they had a gun, which is illegal for unmarried couples. Now utterly abandoned, Cerebus rends his clothes, grinds dirt into his face, and on the last page he pounds the ground with his fists and screams in mixed rage and grief.
- The Last Day, and the comic itself by extension, ends with Cerebus' soul screaming for God to help him as he's dragged into the light, convinced by Rick's absence that the afterlife is essentially Hell.
- Enemy Mine: Cerebus and the Roach work together to support Astoria's political maneuvering in High Society.
- Establishing Character Moment: In the first issue, Cerebus is hired to steal a priceless gem from a sorcerer. He spends the issue storming the sorcerer's tower, overcoming all its obstacles through a combination of master swordsmanship and knowledge of how magic works. In the end, he kills the sorcerer and hands over the gem to his employers, only for them to find that it's turned into a walnut. Cerebus tells them he knew all along that it was just an illusion and that it would revert to its true form upon the sorcerer's death—but he'll still be taking his reward from them now. All of which demonstrates Cerebus' three main traits: he's a deadly warrior, smarter than he looks, and a complete asshole.
- Even Evil Has Standards: During the Church and State arc, where Cerebus is at his most amoral, he reveals that he is disgusted by pedophilia. This plays into his confinement by the Wise Fellows in Latter Days when he tries to scare them off by stating the most evil thing he could think of....The WORST part was trying to get the DIAPER on after!
- Evil Genius: Weisshaupt
- Evil Matriarch: Cirin, as the leader of a matriarchal fascist state created by her vision of the Cirinist movement.
- Evil Sorcerer: Necross the — Ha Ha — Mad
- Evil Twin: Red Sophia has one, although she was created via magic rather than the...usual method.
- The Exile:
- Suenteus Po is a self-imposed version. He's fully aware of his Weirdness Magnet nature and is resolved to interact as little as possible with the world to keep his "magnifier" from affecting things too much. It doesn't work.
- Near the end of the Latter Days arc, it's revealed that an exception to the edict about executing "evil" women was created if said women were really beautiful. These women were exiled to "Fruitcake Park" for 20 years, with the thought process being that they'd either become less "evil" (in which case they're released) or lose enough of their beauty that killing them wouldn't be an issue anymore. The female reporter sarcastically notes "No wonder they're calling this 'The Age of Enlightenment...'." This was, in part, an excuse for Sim to indulge in his passion for photorealism, with each of the "fruitcakes" drawn in stunning detail.
- Expository Hairstyle Change:
- After they're forced to clean up their acts by the Cirinists, Mick and Keef are shown with unflattering bowl haircuts. They're not happy.
- As part of his fanboying over being around Ham Ernestway, Cerebus has Jaka cut his hair into a flattop mimicing Ham's hairstyle, but Ham doesn't even notice.
- Expy: Used frequently throughout the comic, when it isn't outright incorporating real historical figures:
- Cerebus is, of course, Conan the Barbarian, (rough hewn barbarian destined to change the world) as well as Howard the Duck (small cartoon animal in a world of realistic humans who struggles with society and cosmic occurrences).
- The Roach becomes an expy of a different superhero many times over the course of the comic.
- Elrod the Albino is one for Elric of Melnibone.
- Red Sophia is one for Red Sonja.
- Cirin is, less obviously, one for Darth Vader. Both are the masked, imposing leaders of a tyrannical empire. They are both ruthless overseers of white-clad troops and communicate with telepathy. They are both skilled at physical combat and inborn mystical powers. They both are eventually revealed to be the parent of a spunky brunette political leader they imprison. The construction of the Golden Ascension Orb mirrors the construction of the Death Star. They are both revealed to be linked in destiny to the main character, with Luke and Vader being Skywalkers and Cerebus and Cirin both being aardvarks. They both duel the protagonist in a space-bound battle that leaves the main character maimed 2/3rds of the way through the saga. They are both revealed to be Fallen Heroes who betrayed their comrade and took up a new identity as they chose to become evil. Finally, both characters are revealed to be far older than suspected when unmasked. While Darth Vader's suit is emblematic of the Dark Side, Cirin's white robes reflect Dave Sim's motif of Light being evil and duplicitous.
- Second-Face Smoke: In the last issue of Rick's Story, Bear, Marty, and one of the Starkey brothers show back up at the bar after many years away with their respective wives. Bear and Jaka share a contemptuous look, and as Bear walks by Jaka, he takes a drag off his cigar and drops a smoke ring on her head, which leaves her outraged.
- Eye Scream: "Dave" likens Cerebus and how he's turned out and is affecting "Dave" to an infected lump at the edge of Cerebus' eye which has to be drained and bandaged. "He knows Cerebus is squeamish about eyes." Indeed, he does. The Injury to the Eye Motif is even referred to by name.
F - J
- Failed a Spot Check: Red Sophia tearfully talks to Cerebus about their marital problems, not in the least bit noticing that Cerebus is in some kind of magical trance and has his head in a glowing sphere.
- Failure Hero: Played with, in that the title character is first and foremost a selfish anti-hero who manages to lead an accomplished life with successful ascensions to power. Despite this, the one constant in Cerebus' life throughout the comic is an inability to achieve lasting success and happiness in any of his ventures even when it appears to be in his grasp. While at first this is played for comedy, the comic gradually plays this for drama and pathos as the story becomes less episodic. Memorable examples include giving away magic artifacts that would have enabled his conquest of the world had he kept them for one more issue, his inability to be with Jaka, and managing to die alone, unmourned and unloved despite founding a major religion and being tricked into going to hell.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Cerebus never seems able to hold on to his gold for long, and he never seems able to be with Jaka. The Judge notes that Cerebus never succeeds in conquering Astarcion, and "Dave" goes to the trouble of walking Cerebus through multiple visions of how any relationship with Jaka would end in tragedy because of his flaws. While they do briefly get together at the end of Rick's Story, their growing differences culminate in a final breakup at the end of Form and Void.
- Fantastic Drug: One early issue featured "buz". One shot is one hundred percent addictive and provides all the nutrition an adult needs in one day. A villain uses it to subjugate and rule his entire city.
- Fantastic Racism: The Hsiffies are demonized in the early issues in the same way that Asian races have been in Real Life.
- Fatal Flaw: Cerebus' fixation on Jaka, combined with his simple-minded, self-absorbed outlook on life. In his mind, they are meant to be together simply because he loves her. When "Dave" shows Cerebus in Minds that Jaka doesn't love him romantically anymore, and that Cerebus doesn't understand Jaka at all, he can't handle it and tells "Dave" that he could make Jaka love him "that way". "Dave" responds by showing him multiple possible futures where the two are in a relationship, all of which are horribly flawed no matter how Cerebus tries to get "Dave" to fix things so they will work, due to Cerebus' inherent selfishness, controlling ways, and propensity for violence, which are fundamentally incompatible with Jaka's needs for happiness, freedom and artistic expression. Their time together in Going Home and Form and Void is marked by their initial happiness and passion slowly but steadily crumbling as their personalities and what each wants for the future clash more and more, and eventually explosively crashing. At the end of Latter Days, Cerebus falls for the reporter who looks a lot like Jaka, and this sows the seeds for his eventual ruin and demise.
- Faux Action Girl: Although Red Sophia has beaten opponents before, we never see any of that onscreen.
- Femme Fatale: Astoria
- Fingore: Rick's left thumb is broken (off-panel, albeit very loudly) at the end of Jaka's Story as punishment for striking Jaka.
- First Church of Mecha: The wizard Necross transferred his soul into a giant golem (the Giant Stone Thrunk, a parody of the Thing) and, several issue later, declared himself the god Tarim. Cerebus was running a messiah confidence scheme on the town at the time and got deposed when "Tarim" showed up. Cerebus eventually shot him through the head with a cannon.
- Flashback: Melmoth, Flight, and Minds each have at least one.
- Flat "What": In Rick's Story, Cerebus has this reaction to Joanne being startled at seeing him after he walks out from behind the bar (she'd assumed he was as tall as her since she couldn't see the boxes he was standing on to be able to reach the top of the bar).
- Foreshadowing:
- "You die alone, unmourned and unloved." Sure enough, come issue #300, that's exactly what happens.
- Cerebus getting his right ear cut off is foreshadowed multiple times before it finally happens near the end of Reads
- Two characters transform themselves into new forms through magic to oppose Cerebus’s papacy and ascension in Church and State. Necross transforms himself into the Giant Stone Thrunk to usurp Cerebus' office, and the Artist fuses with Man-thing and Sump-thing to become a messiah that a god of any gender would accept. These foreshadow Shep-Shep's plan to be worshipped through his clone and the revelation that Cerebus is intersex, respectively.
- Cerebus tells Weissaupt to go to hell as he's dying in Church and State, leaving before hearing him use his last words to agree. Sure enough, in the final issue, Weissaupt is among the many characters beckoning Cerebus' soul into the light before the latter realizes it may not be Heaven.
- The first thing we see Cirin doing is experiment with a flower before reconstituting it. Her knowledge of plant experiments is pried out of her and used by Cerebus's insane son as the final tool to ensure Cerebus's legacy will crumble after he dies.
- The cover of issue #99 is a disturbing picture of Cerebus' screaming head wearing a Pope hat, illuminated by blazing fire underneath it. In the moment, this could reflect the recent issue where Cerebus used his papal powers to marry Astoria and rape her, a damning action in its own right. But it also foreshadows Cerebus' ultimate fate at the end of the comic where he becomes the unhappy head of a major religion again before being dragged off to Hell after death.
- Two instances in Minds:
- Cerebus recalls a childhood memory of being so terrified by a village pastor's description of Hell that he urinated himself in fright. The comic ends with him panicking as he realizes the light he's being pulled into is likely not Heaven.
- Cerebus is shown by "Dave" that his own character flaws will ensure that no relationship he has with Jaka will be happy. When "Dave" shows up again in Rick's Story and improbably manages to reunite them, it initially seems to be an example of him throwing Cerebus a bone. But sure enough, their relationship gradually breaks down over the course of the next two books until it definitively ends because of their differences as people. For that matter, his dalliance with Joanne that leads to Jaka's suicide in Dave's third vision foreshadows her own appearance and short-lived relationship with Cerebus in Rick's Story, and Cerebus' final wife, named "New Joanne", being conflated with Jaka and heralding the ruin of Cerebus's life and legacy.
- Towards the end of Rick's Story, Rick tells Cerebus to go to hell after casting a binding spell on him. After Cerebus dies, his soul realizes he may in fact be going to Hell when he realizes that Rick is missing from the crowd of people beckoning him towards the light.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: High Society was the point where Cerebus pretty much stopped being a sword-and-sorcery comic. Also, several entire story arcs either shove Cerebus into the background or tell stories in a time or place where he isn't. Melmoth (which tells the story of the death of Oscar Wilde) is the most obvious of these, as well as Jaka's Story and Rick's Story. Also, another one of the later trades consisted almost entirely of Cerebus giving an exegesis on the Torah.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Cerebus (four-fingered hands, three-toed feet), and Sheshep Ankh, who looks human aside from his three-toed feet.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: In the letters pages, a regular correspondent mentioned Cerebus throwing a baby off a roof. In a later issue, Astoria berates Cerebus for that action. He replies to her (and to the letter writer), pointing out that he threw the baby from the front steps; he threw an old man off the roof. Next issue had a letter from the original correspondent feeling crunchy for having been corrected by Cerebus himself.
- Freudian Excuse:
- Flashbacks indicate that Cerebus may have once been a relatively sweet child, but growing up in a close-minded, religious logging community and being bullied for his aardvark nature to the point of being stabbed by another child affected his outlook and mood, and the validation he received from his first victory as a barbarian instilled his current mindset into him forever.
- It is implied that Cirin or rather Serna was also ostracized for being an aardvark, and her takeover of Cirin's "five cornerstones" movement is the culmination of her rise to power as the militant arm of the movement, fueled by her anger and resentment for how she was treated.
- Jaka's traumatic backstory is also visited in Jaka's Story, which shows her to be a neglected child of privilege who was heavily implied to have been molested.
- It becomes rapidly clear from his introduction that being Cerebus' son has done Sheshep Ankh's mental state no favors.
- From Nobody to Nightmare:
- The Cirinists were originally a group of mothers who worked together to help their community. Over the course of the first third of the series, they go from a creepy Monster of the Week to a major political party to an oppressive fascistic matriarchy and eventually the closest thing to a Big Bad the series has.
- The woman that Cerebus eventually calls "New Joanne" was originally a writer for a religious magazine. By the end of the series, she has undone Cerebus' social reforms and has established a government that runs on "everyone is free to do what they want", which has turned society on its ear.
- Cerebus himself goes from an anonymous mercenary at the beginning of the story to becoming a becoming a bloodthirsty Pope, and then later the messiah and leader of a major religious upheaval.
- Full-Circle Revolution: In Latter Days, the society created after the overthrow of the Cirinists is very successful for many years, but eventually decays into an even worse situation.
- Funetik Aksent: Sim has a true gift for writing dialogue in this fashion, with everything from Chico Marx's fake Italian accent to Alan Moore's Britishisms to Cerebus's dialogue when sick or drunk showing up perfectly rendered yet still easy to parse.
- Funny Animal: Cerebus initially started out as just another one of this style of work.
- Funny Background Event: In one issue during the Guys arc, Cerebus and the rest of the guys are being lectured by an elderly Cirinist about cleaning up their lives and finding wives to settle down with. At the same time, through the window in the center of the panels, a young lady is at the edge of the cornfield across the street doing a striptease, clearly meant to be a show for the guys. She waves and walks away as the lecture wraps up, and the view cuts to all the guys sitting down with blank stares and with their legs crossed and hands stuck between their legs.
- Funny Puke Bucket: Cerebus gets roaring drunk, then wakes up the next morning to find Red Sophia in bed next to him...and he's wearing the top of her Chainmail Bikini. His political rival Weisshaupt then walks in and asks Sophia about the previous night. Upon hearing her mention "Oh, at least twelve times...I lost count [...]", Cerebus pukes in a chamber pot.
- Gambit Pileup: Pretty much describes the politics of Iest.
- Genius Bruiser: Subverted. Cerebus is one of the best warriors on Estarcion and rather intelligent. However, he is entirely unsophisticated, being interested only in fighting, drinking, indulging his short temper, and (eventually) sex, and can be shockingly dim-witted at times.
- Genki Girl:
- The Regency Elf.
- Jaka acts this way in Going Home, but not really anywhere else in the series.
- Genre Shift: From an adventure parody to...whatever the hell it became.
- Giant Board Game: In Flight, Cerebus and Suenteus Po engage in a kind of trippy astral experience depicted as a gigantic game of chess. Cerebus is standing on the board and the pieces are each at least twice his height, and Po appears as a titanic figure in the distance who is large enough to reach down and move the pieces as a person would move pieces on a normal-sized game of chess. Po reveals a piece of his past with each of his moves, and each of Cerebus' moves are compared to a character in the story and how being around Cerebus affected them. The symbolism of this extends past the actual "game", as Suenteus Po realizes that he made a mistake in the game, revealed by Sim to be Cerebus' "magnifier" at work.
- God Is Evil: The foundation of Sim's religious beliefs (and, by extension, those Cerebus eventually adopts) stems from a very specific way of playing with the trope. Sim's argument isn't that God is evil, it's that the YHWH of the Old Testament and God are separate entities, the YHWH being a fragment of God that separated from him around the dawn of creation, gained sapience, and proceeded to try and become just like God, which only resulted in the YHWH developing a massive inferiority complex.
- Go into the Light: Subverted. Cerebus dies, and is eventually dragged kicking and screaming into the Light. This, plus Rick not being in the Light with all the other characters, pretty much indicates that Cerebus went to Hell given that by the comic's end, the Light was associated with the YHWH. This was all fine and good until Sim suddenly decided he wanted an even more Broken Base than he already had. In the author annotations to the trade paperback of The Last Day, Sim mentioned the possibility that Cerebus actually went to Heaven and was just panicking needlessly at the last second.
- Go Mad from the Revelation:
- Word of God in regards to Rick's behavior in Rick's Story, as a result of the events at the end of Jaka's Story.
- A comedic version happens when Cerebus finds out the truth about the Rabbi comic, which shatters him so badly that all he can do after is shuffle around saying "DAARRR! Pret-ty flowers! Pret-ty sunsets!".
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- Gotta Catch Them All: Cerebus spends years tracking down all the issues of Rabbi so he can make a guide to them.
- Graceful Loser: Astoria giving up her political maneuvering once and for all in Reads.
- Grail in the Garbage: Revealed at the end of High Society when Cerebus kicks over a bag of loot, revealing the albatross statue.
- Greater-Scope Paragon: Suentus Po is a figure with a such a tremendous impact on the setting's history, to the point where it's called into question if there's more than one individual with his name. When he finally appears, he reveals that he's been in hiding for some time so he can stop influencing the world, and he encourages the other major characters to do the same.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Cirin is the authoritarian leader of the Cirinist movement that overtakes Iest after Church and State, but while the effects and enforcers of her regime impact Jaka's circle in Jaka's Story, she never personally concerns herself with Jaka. While she does confront Cerebus himself in the latter half of the "Mothers and Daughters" arc, they never have a rematch and her forces remain a background presence in the following books until their ignominious defeat in Latter Days. Even then, Cirin's knowledge and experiments play a vital role in Shep-Shep's plans to rule as a god at the end of the book, even though she's mentioned to be in even worse shape than the elderly, infirm Cerebus.
- The Great Flood: During the Judge's monologue in Church and State II, he mentions a prior civilization of sentient redwood trees that accidentally set off a climate catastrophe that causes a worldwide flooding event every 12,000 years. The civilizations in existence when it happens call it "the Great Flood", while the redwoods that are around call it "oh no, not this again."
- The Grim Reaper: Subverted; the figure all in black with the hourglass believes it's Death but it's actually a self-deluded minor entity who gets wiped out of existence by its own devices.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Sophia's mother will snap at a moment's notice, with the target usually catching her cane upside the head.
- Happy Ending: Near the end of Rick's Story, Jaka shows up at the bar out of the blue. She and Cerebus joyfully reunite, and eventually leave the bar. By the end of Form and Void, this is completely subverted.
- Has a Type: While Cerebus' true feelings are for the blonde Jaka, the story's twists and turns leave him paired with two redheads:
- Weisshaupt cons Cerebus into getting married to Red Sophia for a large part of Church and State. Cerebus isn't happy about it, partly because of the circumstances and partly because his sense of honor and desire to do the right thing by Sophia is grating against his anger over the manipulation, although it does teach him to enjoy sex.
- In the last "living with Jaka" scenario in Minds, Cerebus cheats on Jaka with the red-headed Joanne, which leads to Jaka committing suicide.
- In Guys, after Joanne shows up for real, she and Cerebus have a brief relationship that ends badly. She then starts putting the moves on Rick, partly to screw with Cerebus.
- Head Hat: As part of Cerebus' "Spore" costume, he has two Cirinist skulls mounted on his shoulders. Readers will recognize this as a visual cue to Spawn's skull-shaped clasps for his cape.
- Hearing Voices: This is how "Dave" communicates to Cerebus in Minds. Cerebus hears "Dave" as a voice in his head; the reader sees both Cerebus' and "Dave"'s speech balloons coming out of Cerebus' head.
- The Hecate Sisters: The three major women characters in the comic conform to the archetypes, particularly in regards to their relationships with Cerebus:
- Jaka is the Child, being a beautiful dancer who causes Cerebus to second-guess his life decisions and yearn for a simpler life. When they finally meet again and get together, her flighty and childish personality causes Cerebus to grow disillusioned with her. We learn in Jaka's Story about how she was shaped by her childhood experiences. Her life goals are dancing and being taken care of in luxury. She ultimately forgoes having a child because she fears she will lose the youthful beauty her dancing aspirations depend on.
- Astoria is the Mother, being somewhat older than Jaka and being sensible and more collected than the others. She spends her time manipulating and guiding other characters to fulfill her aims by playing on their wants and desires. Cerebus struggles to assert his agency in her power struggles, causing them to fall out and become enemies when she fails to control him. She wishes to become a political reformer and seize equal rights under whichever society is in control. She attempts to get Cerebus to impregnate her in order to consolidate her power and spite her own mother.
- Cirin is the Crone, being the eldest (or at least middle-aged) and the most openly antagonistic of the three to Cerebus. Her domineering personality means she seeks to instill a fascist rule over the setting and punish any citizenry who resist her, including Jaka and Astoria, the latter of whom is her own daughter. She and her army are all adorned like nuns and despite her propaganda hailing her as a loving matriarch, she'll ultimately kill any children who inconvenience her and dreads the idea of Cerebus possibly impregnating himself and challenging her with his own race of aardvarks. The real Cirin is a more positive example of the Crone archetype, patiently passing wisdom on to Cerebus when they meet.
- Heel Realization: Played for laughs with The Artist at the end of issue 25, when he thinks he was being insenstive about Claremont's death.
- Heinousness Retcon: Cerebus's rape of Astoria in Church and State earns him condemnation from the Judge and is implied to haunt him on some level for a long time in the comic...until Astoria tells Cerebus herself several phonebooks later in Reads that she apparently was trying to get him to have sex with her so she could bear his child and threaten her mother's plans. Afterwards, Cerebus appears to have internalized this and when he considers the things he's done wrong in his life during Guys he thinks to himself that "at least he didn't rape anybody."
- Heir Club for Men: When we first meet Rick, his one desire in life is to have a son. Finding out that Jaka aborted that son causes him to explosively snap and punch Jaka, and sets in motion the mental instability he shows in Rick's Story.
- Hermaphrodite: Cerebus is revealed in Reads to be one, with both male and female genitalia and reproductive systems. This becomes a plot point in multiple fashions in later story arcs. Bear unknowingly lampshades this in Guys when he's chewing out Cerebus over a hissy fit: "It's like you're part chick or somethin'!"
- Hermit Guru: Po was retconned into being one by the time he actually showed up in Mothers & Daughters.
- The Hero Dies: Readers knew for a long time that Sim's plans were to have Cerebus die in the final issue. Sure enough, in #300, as he's lunging out of his bed to try to kill Sheshep Ankh, a hamstring gives out, causing him to fall and break his neck when he lands.
- Heroic BSoD:
- Happens to both Rick and Cerebus at the end of Jaka's Story, although Cerebus's isn't revealed until Melmoth.
- Cerebus is in one at the start of Latter Days, as a result of the emotional trauma at the end of Form and Void.
- Heroic Fantasy: Parodies this (at first).
- His Own Worst Enemy: While Cerebus faces and triumphs over many antagonists during the course of the comic, he consistently proves to be the biggest impediment to his own happiness or success because of his greedy, selfish, shortsighted nature. Case in point: his own creator invades the comic to show how often he has ruined his own life, his relationship with Jaka deteriorates partly because of his inability to be honest with her or understand her fundamental desires, and even after defeating the Cirinists and establishing his own empire, he still ultimately dies alone, unmourned and unloved because of how he treats his new family.
- Hive Mind: According to Bear in Melmoth, the Cirinists are like this. The real Cirin's confession indicates that he's right.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Astoria has no qualms about trying to use and manipulate Cerebus as a tool through which she can gain power, but she always has an attitude of disdain and a degree of contempt toward him over his bluntly unsophisticated ways. This reaches its peak in Church and State II when she offers herself to him in exchange for him letting her escape from prison, but in a way that is blatantly cock-teasing and mocking of how he would be going against his marriage vows to do so. What she apparently didn't consider was that Cerebus would be amoral enough to overpower her and take what she was offering by force, abusing his power as Pope to "legitimize" the rape by first declaring that he was no longer married to Red Sophia and was now married to Astoria, and then re-marrying himself to Red Sophia when the deed was done.
- The entity who believes itself to be Death is annihilated from existence by the gems he thought were giving him his power.
- Hollywood Healing: When Cirin and Cerebus approach Mars in the Minds arc, and Cirin notes the planet's symbolism for childbirth and healing in their religion, their injuries are magically healed except for Cerebus's severed ear which isn't restored.
- Homoerotic Subtext:
- Cerebus reveals in Minds that he has nursed an attraction to Bear and is rather conflicted about it. His dream about Roaring Rick Veitch is heavily loaded with subtext as well, which Veitch lampshades.
- Oscar is very obviously flirting with Rick, but Rick's completely oblivious.
- Honor Before Reason: Jaka tries to call this on Cerebus when he plans to personally confront the forces closing in on Iest near the end of High Society.
- Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action:
- Cirin had a human son, Sir Gerrik, who was betrothed to Astoria several years prior to her appearance in the story.
- Cerebus and "New Joanne" have one child, Sheshep Ankh.
- House Wife:
- Red Sophia retires from her Action Girl life-style and briefly becomes one of these in Church and State. She still keeps wearing the Chain Mail Bikini all the time, though.
- Jaka during her marriage to Rick, although she works in Pud's tavern in the evenings as a dancer...or she would if Pud ever had any business.
- Humongous Mecha: Sort of. The Pigt idol (the giant aardvark statue) would have functioned as one of these had things gone a little differently.
- Hybrid Monster: Artist, Fred, and Ethel merge into a three-headed monstrosity.
- Idiosyncratic Cover Art: The covers for issues #291 - #299, when put together, form a 360° panoramic view of Cerebus' room where he spends his last day.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The four story arcs after Flight roughly form the sentence "Women read minds, guys." (a hint about women in the storyline having telepathic powers).
- Ignored Epiphany: Issue #200 has Cerebus realize that most of his problems are his own fault and that chasing Jaka is hopeless. He resolves to do better and put the happiness of others before his own. Over the course of the next hundred issues, he falls hard back into his old ways.
- I'm Dying, Please Take My MacGuffin: In issue 6, a fleeing, dying man tells Cerebus about some lost treasure in the Black Sun Temple.
- Inner Monologue: Cerebus has these. Sometimes, they turn into arguments between different parts of his personality.
- In the Hood: Po's disguise in the Mothers & Daughters arc. Po is revealed to be rather cunning. He knows that there is nothing inconspicuous about his disguise. He simply chose it so that people would think he was The Grim Reaper and be too scared to approach him.
- Irony:
- At one point, Sim pointed out the irony of readers' horror at Sheshep Ankh's sphinx cloning experiments when said readers were completely accepting of Cerebus, who by his very nature is equally monstrous in the most literal sense of the word.
- Given Sim's disdain for homosexuality, it's very ironic that a tall, burly, bearded, hirsute man who's an object of Cerebus' conflicted attraction is named Bear.
- It's All About Me: Cerebus is a low-key version. He isn't portrayed as openly arrogant or egotistical, but is described at one point as having "a self-absorption that borders on the pathological." Every decision he makes and every action he takes is done to satisfy his desires and whims and to fulfill what he thinks will be better for himself, with considerations for others coming second, if they occur to him at all. Even when he seems to be in normal interactions with others, this "me first" tendency is bubbling under the surface. This gets him into trouble in many, many ways over the course of the comic, upsetting plans and fracturing friendships and deeper relationships, and leads to his eventual downfall when his inability to learn from his mistakes ends up costing him everything.
- Jerkass: Cerebus himself. Heavily deconstructed, especially in Minds.
- Jerkass Ball: Jaka hears the reasons why Cerebus is being shunned by his hometown (namely, not being there for his father's death and funeral because he was running around with a woman), and then hits Cerebus with what amounts to "it's your fault for not doing what you wanted to do." He doesn't take it well at all.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zigzagged heavily with Cerebus throughout the comic. Certain arcs see him capable of showing a softer side, hidden depths, or varying degrees of camraderie, even if his goals in life are unerringly self-serving. He genuinely appreciates his friendships with Bear, Boobah, Marty, Michelle, and the House Elf, and remains in love with Jaka for most of his life.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Many arcs, particularly Church and State, show Cerebus overcome with emotion or remorse for his actions, only to fail at becoming a better person and instead sink to new depths. By the end of the comic, each cosmic epiphany or revelation about the world and his own nature he receives from others fails to curb his worse impulses, and he ultimately does end up dying alone, unmourned, and unloved because of his actions.
- Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Probably at its most extreme in Flight. One issue would end with a Cliffhanger and then the next issue would go on to something entirely unrelated, just to mess with you.
- Judge, Jury, and Executioner: When the Cirinists find Pud's tavern in Jaka's Story, after killing the old man who attacks them, their leader declares Pud guilty of a moral crime and immediately proclaims "Death." This is agreed upon by the other Cirinists, and he's summarily executed. Subverted, however, when it comes to Jaka and Oscar. The leader also says "Death" for Jaka, but after Jaka announces who she is and who she's connected to, one Cirinist proposes "Questioning". She does this repeatedly, which leads to the leader apparently giving in and Jaka being arrested. Oscar is questioned and arrested for not having the proper legal permission to be a writer—as the lead Cirinist states, "No artistic license."
- Jumped at the Call: Cerebus, once he finds out that he has been chosen as the new pope.
K - O
- Kavorka Man: Despite being a short, disgruntled, rude, alcoholic, selfish, smelly, grey Funny Animal creature in a world of realistic humans, Cerebus nevertheless attracts no shortage of beautiful human women, including Jaka, Astoria, Michelle, Joanne, Five Bar Gate Groupies, and "New Joanne", even in old age. This may be partially explained by the mystical "magnifier" ability all aardvarks are said to have, which distorts people around them into heightened versions of themselves.
- Keet: The Artist when he debuted in Issue 25. He drops this when he reappears in High Society and by Church & State...
- The Lad-ette: Sim has great disdain for "women who attempt to be men", so depending on how generous you want to be toward his intentions, Mary Ernestway can be seen as either a mean-spirited exaggeration or a particularly barbed deconstruction. Based on Sim's interpretation of Mary Hemingway's diaries and filtered through his usual parodic formula, she's a boorish buffoon—loud, unnecessarily profane, tending to put exaggerated emphasis on every third word, and coughing up and spitting loogies like it's a sport. She also seems to take pride in the fact that she has out-"manned" Ham, who is little more than a shell of his former self and has what little personality he has left crushed whenever he's around her. Mary's also a terrible shot, and leads the group around in circles on their travels, leaving Cerebus and Jaka stranded in the forest in the wake of a blizzard when they flee after Ham kills himself.
- Lampshaded Double Entendre: How Cerebus makes the Artist understand that Sumpthing and Woman-Thing are not fighting each other, but are actually...well, you know.
- Lampshade Hanging: Minor typos and inconsistencies nobody but the author could have possibly picked up on are returned to, expounded upon, and made into plot points.
- The Last Dance: Subverted. Cerebus goes out to singlehandedly face an enemy horde near the end of High Society, only to realize at the last second that the army consisted of former allies who stop their attack and make peace upon recognizing him.
- Last of His Kind: Elrod claims to be the last member of a dying race. Ultimately subverted in Reads when his true origin and nature are revealed.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Cerebus in the first issue. Subverted in that (1) he probably only made the mission slightly more difficult than it would have been and (2) that the mission's success was still mostly due to his participation.
- Lemony Narrator: Cerebus in Latter Days appears to be narrating portions of the story to the reader. At the end, we learn that he's actually telling the story to a female reporter.
- Light Is Not Good: Inverted and then played straight. Prior to his religious conversion, Sim depicted a creation myth (given by the Judge at the end of Church and State) in which the female Light was essentially raped by the male Void in which it resided, causing the Light to completely shatter and form the physical universe. After his conversion, the male void became God and the female Light became YHWH, God's Adversary. Cerebus is physically dragged into the Light after his death in the last issue, screaming for God to save him.
- Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Aardvarks are not at all common, but have appeared enough times throughout Estarcion's history that it's not a cause for public wonder. That three aardvarks are running around at one time, on the other hand, is exceedingly rare.
- Long-Lived: Surprisingly downplayed, but it becomes apparent that this may be a trait inherent to aardvarks. Suenteus Po is so ancient he has played multiple roles in Estarcion's lengthy history. Both Cerebus and Cirin survive all the way until the end of the story, with Cerebus in particular outliving the rest of the cast and the end of the story taking at least decades later. For what it's worth, Cerebus is so elderly and infirm that he dies by falling out of bed, and Cirin is said to be "in worse shape than [him]".
- Lord Error-Prone: Silverspoon
- Lousy Lovers Are Losers: Cerebus' potency and actual talent in bed are rarely mentioned, aside from the marathon of his wedding night with Red Sophia and siring Sheshep Ankh with "New Joanne". However, one thing that is consistently shown is that he is very much not a good lover. His self-absorption, temper, and lust for power foul his relationship with Red Sophia, and she eventually reaches a breaking point and leaves him. In Minds, along with the aforementioned traits, "Dave" shows that circumstances would make him either be a controlling, verbally abusive asshole of a husband to Jaka or a physically abusive one. Even when he has "Dave" make things as good as they can be, he ends up having an affair with his neighbor Joanne, only to coldly dismiss her once they've actually done the deed...and Jaka commits suicide when she finds out. When he and Joanne hook up in Rick's Story, he hides the fact that he's planning on leaving town with Bear should Bear ever show back up, and this leads to a heartbroken Joanne dumping him when she eventually finds out. He and Jaka finally reunite, but the relationship slowly but steadily crumbles as it becomes more and more clear that they are fundamentally incompatible, and comes to an explosive crash at the end of Form and Void.
- Love at First Sight: Cerebus and Jaka. Granted, Cerebus was under the effects of a mind-altering drug at the time, but he still cared about her even after it wore off.
- Love Cannot Overcome: Try as they might, Cerebus and Jaka are ultimately never able to be happy together no matter how much either one of them tries. While they do reunite free from attachment at the end of Rick's Story, their differing personality traits and values prove too insurmountable for them to stay together after the calamitous events of Form and Void.
- Love Dodecahedron: One of the key themes of Jaka's Story. Jaka is married to Rick and loves him. Cerebus loves Jaka. Pud Withers...well he feels something for Jaka. And just to mix things up a bit, Oscar clearly has a crush on Rick.
- Love Triangle: The Roach thinks one of these exists between himself, Astoria, and Cerebus.
- Loving a Shadow: "Dave" himself points out that while Cerebus does love Jaka and is convinced that they're meant to be together, what he actually knows about her as a person is embarrassingly scant, and the realities of them being in a relationship would be nightmarish, especially for her. Sure enough, when they finally enter a relationship with each other, their differences and attitudes are ultimately too insurmountable, leading to a confrontation that causes Cerebus to finally and forcefully reject her after they arrive in Sand Hills Creek...though he would ultimately marry a woman who looks exactly like Jaka, suggesting that his infatuation with her beauty never left. This in turns leads to the Sudden Downer Ending of The Last Day.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Cerebus, the Regency Elf is Your Daughter...sort of.
- Lysistrata Gambit: There's at least one moment of Deconstruction of this in Rick's (prose) memoirs. Of course, we are talking about post-Reads Dave Sim here, so there are a few... weird ideas there, but the point is made that if a woman feels compelled to use her body to "punish or reward" her man, the relationship might not be the healthiest one to begin with.
- MacGuffin: The albatross, which was vital to establish who would be the proper pope over the Eastern and Western Churches of Tarim in the High Society and Church and State arcs. Searching for it is a running plot thread throughout High Society. It's eventually found in one of Cerebus' bags of loot and seemingly destroyed, but a different one shows up in Church and State.
- Madness Mantra: After Cerebus learns the truth about his beloved Rabbi comicsnote , he snaps and commences to shuffling around his palace saying "DARRRR! Pret-ty flowers! Pret-ty sunsets!". It takes Konigsberg saying "Mungu Mkono" to him to snap him out of it.
- Mad Scientist: Necross (technically a mad wizard, but still...)Necross: Being Crazy and evil at the same time is no picnic believe me.
- Magical Incantation: Right before Rick leaves the bar for good in Rick's Story, he casts a containment spell on Cerebus, a kind of low-key quasi-voodoo ritual involving pieces of a twig and a spoken incantation that keeps Cerebus from being able to leave the bar. It also has the side effect of removing and killing Cerebus' "magnifier". The spell works until Jaka shows up and moves one of the twig pieces, breaking the spell.
- The Magic Goes Away: All of the weird esoterics and mysticism that are prevalent throughout the comic to the conclusion of Minds slowly but surely fade away to be replaced by the more directly religious themes. This kicks into high gear when Cerebus' "magnifier" is destroyed.
- Magnetic Hero: Discussed and deconstructed, as it's revealed in Minds that all aardvarks possess an inherent "magnifier" ability that slowly warps events and people around them into more dramatic distortions of their real selves, explaining why Cerebus is constantly surrounded by his eccentric cast of characters and why he's constantly being sucked into heightened adventures without really meaning to.
- Malaproper: Cerebus occasionally mangles his words, almost always when Dave's wanting to play off his lack of sophistication. For example, after Dave leaves the bar without drinking any of his Coors Lights in Rick's Story:Jaka: *after drinking what she thinks is water* Yuck! It looks like water but it tastes like...watery beer!
Cerebus: It's called Cool's...Right. - Male Gaze: Those parts of Jaka's Story told from Pud Withers' point of view, especially in the evenings when Jaka's sitting around in her dancing costumes.
- Manipulative Bastard:
- Weisshaupt and Astoria both play on Cerebus' sense of honor and responsibility to manipulate him in their schemes. It works until it doesn't.
- Cerebus himself also shows some talent at this on occasion.
- Masculine, Feminine, Androgyne Trio:
- In the comic's final issue, after Cerebus dies, he sees in the light his best friend Bear, his former lover Jaka, and his favorite author Ham Ernestway standing together and apparently welcoming him, only for them to turn distorted and horrific and drag Cerebus' soul into the light. This ties into Dave Sim's unusual religious beliefs regarding the God/YHWH argument, as he believes the YHWHnote tries to cover all genders at once, and refers to it as "he/she/it", as opposed to God who is inherently masculine. This makes the apparitions take on a dual meaning—they're not only the three people Cerebus is most eager to be with (and are thus the perfect lure to trap Cerebus), they represent the three aspects of the YHWH—masculine Bear, feminine Jaka, and neutered Ham ("unmanned" by both his wife's hints about his sexual preferences and his suicide).
- Played with from a characterization standpoint by the aardvarks themselves. Suenteus Po is male, Cirin is female, and while Cerebus thinks of himself as male and everyone treats him as such, he's the androgyne as he has both male and female genitalia and reproductive systems, although he's not aware of it until Astoria points it out in Reads.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!": In Church and State, at one point, a bunch of his followers are cheering him as he walks into his HQ. Cerebus interrupts them with, "ANYONE WHO MOVES BEFORE MOST HOLY COMES BACK OUT WILL SPEND ETERNITY SIPPING LAVA THROUGH AN IRON STRAW!" The next panel is a hundred frozen followers, and a hundred separate "Oh crap" thought bubbles.
- Masturbation Means Sexual Frustration: The Sandman parody in Women is kicked off by the Roach having his heart broken, which causes him to turn into Swoon. As Swoon, he spouts meta commentary, stands around looking moody and feeling sorry for himself, and masturbates under his robe. Cirin takes him to task about it when she finally runs into him and notices how crusty the end of his mask's snout is.Elrod (as Snuff): Yo' diddlin' yo'self under there agin, aren't you, son?
Swoon: It...comforts me. - May–December Romance
- Astoria and Lord Julius, back when they were married, anyway.
- Cerebus and "New Joanne." Her age isn't revealed but when the reader first sees her, she appears to be somewhere in her 20s, whereas Cerebus has lived a long, long time and looks it.
- Mayfly–December Romance: Cerebus and Jaka (although Cerebus' incredibly slow aging isn't revealed until the last two phonebooks, and their romance is long over at that point).
- Meaningful Name: Sheshep Ankh plans to start a new religion based on himself using a sphinx as an avatar. Quite fitting for someone whose name is based on the Egyptian word "shesepankh", which means "living image" and is thought to be where the word "sphinx" comes from.
- Medium Awareness: Cerebus has this forced upon him by "Dave" in Minds. As a result, in Rick's Story, as he's debating on whether or not to open the package Dave left at the bar, he wonders if his stagnation has pissed off Dave and/or Dave's readers enough to want him dead.
- Memento MacGuffin: Missy, Jaka's childhood doll. Cerebus carries it around in Melmoth but eventually leaves it behind, and it shows back up with Jaka in Rick's Story. In Form and Void, it's also how the Cirinists know it was Jaka and Cerebus that took Ham's gun and fled after he killed himself, since they found it at their campsite.
- Mind Screw: Happens both to the reader and to Cerebus. The latter is the whole point of the various "Mind Games" issues, and is in large part how Cerebus interacts with Suenteus Po before they meet face-to-face. The reader gets slapped with this in the second prose section of Reads.
- Miniature Senior Citizens: Lord Storm'send is only about as tall as Cerebus (around three feet).
- Mirror Character: Cerebus and Cirin are both power hungry and prone to violent outbursts. Both are unexpectedly strong (he's a shrimp, she's middle-aged). Both tend to zealously guard their egos. Finally, they're both aardvarks.
- Misery Builds Character: Super Secret Wars Roach invokes this in Church and State II:Roach: And we ALL know the only way to create character... don't we?
Fleagle: Conflict?
Roach: Bingo. *punches Fleagle* - Missing Mom: Cerebus' mother is seen in one panel and heard speaking at times, but never makes a meaningful appearance. Cerebus is said at one point to have a desperate need for a mother-substitute.
- Mistaken for Servant: Michelle, although she seems more amused than annoyed.
- Mixed Metaphor: Cerebus has a tendency to drop these.Cerebus has made his omelet and now he has to lie in it.
- Momma's Boy: Pud Withers, in a very dark and twisted fashion. His diary entries are addressed to her even though she's dead. He even apologizes to her as he's praying to Tarim for forgiveness for starting to act on his plan to rape Jaka.
- Mommy Issues: Astoria (Cirin's daughter-in-law) has enormous philosophical differences with Cirin, and took several opportunities to screw with Cirin both personally and politically in her backstory.
- Money, Dear Boy: A rare in-universe (sort of) example. When Cerebus asks "Dave" why he created and drew him, "Dave" replies "mostly fame and money."
- Monochromatic Eyes: Elrod's eyes are completely white blanks.
- Monster of the Week: For the most part, the first 25 issues followed this format.
- Mood-Swinger: The Artist.
- Mood Whiplash: The first two or so years were a spoof of Conan, and then things get serious and by the end the comic became an Author Tract. Considering the fact the entire run (save for a couple of standalone issues) are widely available in collected graphic novels, to experience this trope read the first volume and then immediately skip to either Church and State or any of the post-Women collections.
- Mouth Stitched Shut: One of the indignities heaped on the real Cirin after Serna usurped her was that her mouth was sewed shut. When she speaks to Cerebus, the scars around her mouth from the stitches are still visible.
- Mr. Exposition: Several characters get their moments of this:
- The Judge in Church and State, especially during his interpretation of the creation of the universe and the fate of life on Earth.
- Po in the Mothers and Daughters arc, as he's talking with Cirin, Astoria, and Cerebus.
- In Women, the real Cirin gives Cerebus a lengthy explanation of certain things that the Cirnists would really prefer he not know about what's going on around him.
- Sim himself in Minds, giving Cerebus multiple lengthy Info Dumps about, among other things, the history of the Cirinists, what his medallions actually are, and most importantly, just how much of a Jerkass he really is.
- Mushroom Samba: Mick gives Cerebus a codeine-laced drink, which causes him to start acting hilariously out of character, becoming extremely friendly and clingy. However, once it wears off, he throws up.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Among the many selfish and cruel things that Cerebus does in the story, his impulsive rape of Astoria actually seems to be one of the few that haunts him, having dreams and visions of her in its aftermath and absorbing the Judge's proclamation that he deserves to suffer and die alone because of it. This ebbs away when she tells him that she was actually trying to manipulate him into having sex with her for her own ends.
- The Napoleon:
- Take a guess who it is.
- Cerebus's boss during his brief stint as a shepherd during Latter Days. One of the main reasons he got hired is that the boss liked having someone around who was even shorter than him.
- Near-Villain Victory: In Church and State II, The Artist comes very close to killing Cerebus but is undone by his overconfidence and failure to account for the frailty of his position.
- Never Gets Drunk: The Regency Elf can match Cerebus drink for drink but never gets affected by it.
- Nice Guy:
- Rick was deliberately written to be one in Jaka's Story. He's a bit of a deadbeat who can be Innocently Insensitive and self-centered (and when he appears again in Guys he's notably Took a Level in Jerkass, though it's debatable how much that was intentional on Sim's part) — but in the world of Cerebus, where everyone is either a corrupt and self-centered Jerkass or a delusional idiot, he does stand out as a remarkably nice person. This is due to Sim's idea that it would make the Love Triangle more interesting if the guy who stood between Jaka and Cerebus was really likable himself. As he stated in the intro in the Jaka's Story phonebook, Rick is "the nearest I will ever come to the portrayal of a good and thoroughly decent human being; completely without guile or malice."
- The Regency Elf might be the only character in the series who's just sweet-natured and kind; her worst trait is being prone to childishness.
- The actual Cirin is a polite and friendly old woman who bears having her cause usurped by her best friend with a smile.
- Suentus Po in the present day is nothing but cordial and insightful when he finally appears, though he does put Cirin in her place when she threatens him. He even makes a point of remaining isolated so his magnifier effects won't impact anyone else.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- Cerebus started off as a parody comic and never really left its roots in this regard. Many celebrities were parodied, including Groucho and Chico Marx; Oscar Wilde (twice!); Woody Allen; Mick Jagger and Keith Richards; Margaret Thatcher; F. Scott Fitzgerald; Ernest Hemingway; and The Three Stooges. Even famous fictional characters were parodied; for instance, Elrod is a combination of Elric of Melnibone and Foghorn Leghorn while the McGrew brothers are parodies of Yosemite Sam and the Roach parodies several very popular comic book superheroes over the course of his appearances.
- Weisshaupt is a combination of Adam Weishaupt and George Washington, in a reference to the claim in the Illuminatus! trilogy that the former had murdered and taken the identity of the latter.
- No More for Me: When a gardener spots what appears to be Lord Julius in a dress (actually one of his Like-a-Looks), he pulls out his flask, takes one last swig, then throws the rest away.
- No Name Given: The Artist's name is never revealed.
- Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Cerebus is the only one of the three aardvarks who's seen without pants, and doesn't seem to have anything going on downstairs even though he's been shown peeing standing up and can have penetrative sex. This gets explained roundaboutly by Astoria when she reveals that he has both male and female genitals. They're somehow arranged so that his penis is tucked into his vagina except when he needs to use it, and his fur conceals his vagina.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Cerebus (and the other two aardvarks) are drawn in a very simple style, with liberal use of zip-a-tone. The rest of the world, characters included, is drawn much more realistically, and with no zip-a-tone whatsoever.
- No Sympathy: Astoria treats the Cockroach this way near the end of High Society, even after the guy nearly kills himself by becoming a substitute wheel for her coach.
- Not a Morning Person: Rick in Jaka's Story. Getting out of bed is a massive struggle for him, and even when he's finally up and moving he's slow and sluggish, with a tendency to drift right back to sleep as soon as he comes to a stop. Jaka can wake him in a hurry with a "wet willy", but he's back out soon after.
- Not Himself: Cerebus, whenever he gets drugged. He's much nicer, almost goofy, and is very physically affectionate, especially after Mick gives him the codeine-laced drink.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain:
- In the first issue, Cerebus demonstrates that he's not just some cute cartoon animal when some random guy tries to grab his tail.
- There's also The Artist. Remember back in Issue 25 when he was a friendly energetic guy? If you've read Church and State, you might not.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Lord Julius. He often has multiple plans running at once and goes to great lengths to make everything he says and does entirely incomprehensible so nobody knows whether they're doing what he wants or not. When Cerebus starts writing his memoirs, he points this out several times.
- Of Corpse He's Alive: In one of the stories in the Cerebus World Tour Book, a drunken Cerebus mistakes a corpse for a living person and befriends it.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Cerebus' reaction to The Artist, Fred, and Ethel in Church & State after seeing that they've merged into a three-headed chimeric beast.
- He gets a few more memorable ones througout the comic, such as when he makes it to Sands Creek and hears a lock click, and when he realizes after dying and going towards the light that he doesn't see Rick.
- Astoria gets a few as she recognizes that Cerebus's Ascension is at hand in Church and State.
- One Head Taller: The pint-sized Doris is just slightly taller than Cerebus. Granted, this was more of a one-sided crush than an actual relationship.
- One-Winged Angel: The Artist eventually becomes one-third of a three-headed monstrosity, with Sump-Thing and Woman-Thing being the other two parts.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Crotch-Face
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Cirin's attitude toward Astoria on account of their bitter rivalry and shared personal baggage.
- Opening Narration: Issues 1-26 each had this.
- Orphaned Punchline: Invoked by Cerebus in Latter Days when he recounts the most disgusting thing he ever said and spares his audience everything but the punchline.note
- Our Hero Is Dead: Elrod's death in issue #22. The cover even advertised it as "The Death of Elrod". However, later on, when Elrod learns what he is, he winks out of existence, and thus, actually does die.
- Ow, My Body Part!: In The Last Day, this almost becomes a Running Gag due to Cerebus' many, many aches and pains. However, the final instance isn't so funny, as it's when his hamstring gives out and foils his attempt to go after Sheshep Ankh to kill him, leading to the fall that kills him.
P - T
- Painting the Medium: Used in many ways over the course of the comic, sometimes obviously and sometimes less so.
- After Cerebus wins the election in High Society, the several next issues' panels are turned 90° counterclockwise, signifying that his world has been "knocked sideways." In the penultimate issue of the same storyline, where the crisis is a fact, for a few pages the panels "spin" around so that the reader has to keep turning the comic around in order to read it.
- During Minds, "Dave" brings Cerebus close to Cirin to show that her telepathic denials of the truths he's trying to show her are so strong that they're actually distorting the "reality" around her, depicted as the edges of the panels fragmenting.
- Parental Incest: Among the many things Sheshep Ankh reveals to Cerebus is that he and "New Joanne" are in such a relationship.
- The Peeping Tom:
- In Minds, Cerebus first notices Joanne while lying in bed reading, and watches her through the bedroom window as she's hanging her laundry on the clothesline, wearing a very baggy dress and no bra.
- In one of the early Latter Days stories, while Cerebus worked for Gurzky as a shepherd, he spent a lot of time in the bushes watching Gurzky's wife while she bathed.
- Perpetual Frowner: Cerebus' standard expression rarely varies from a frown or scowl.
- Perpetual Smiler: The real Cirin, despite everything that has happened to her, is unflinchingly pleasant and cordial, even to the Cirinist stenographer who lives with her and takes down everything she says to report to the aardvark Cirin. She only drops the smile when said stenographer finally has all she can take of Cirin's Infodump to Cerebus and leaves to report where he is.
- Persona Non Grata: At the very end of Form and Void, Cerebus is shunned by his hometown for not being there for his father as he was dying and then missing his father's funeral, because he was running around with a woman. Sand Hills Creek is Orthodox Tarimite and very old-fashioned and patriarchal, and this is seen as one of the most shameful and disrespectful things a child can do. The only way he finds out why is because he happens to catch someone outdoors before he can get home.
- Pie in the Face: "Dave" first makes contact with Cerebus in Minds in this manner.Cerebus *internal*: A sign!
- Pig Man: ...or "Earth Pig Man", in Cerebus' case, considering he's a humanoid aardvark. In the early issues, he often referred to himself as an "earth pig born."
- Ping Pong Naïveté: Cerebus, while definitely short-sighted and out of his depths when it comes to politics, is written in the first half of the comic to be a worldly, street smart mercenary who is able to consistently outmaneuver or outwit most of the other characters with the skills he's picked up as a barbarian, picking apart the sheltered worldview of Claremont X. Claremont's young charges. In the comic's latter half, however, he's written to be surprisingly oblivious and naive despite reaching middle-age, failing to pick up on, among other things, various social graces, other character's motivations and mental states, and the fact that he has a vagina.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Cerebus. He's three feet tall but is a very accomplished fighter and swordsman, and can hold his own against just about anyone in a fight. The only character who comes close to defeating him is Cirin.
- Plucky Girl: The real Cirin
- Post-Script Season: All lingering plot threads and character arcs were pretty much resolved by the end of Minds, but the series ran for another 3 arcs/100 issues... some people believe he did this solely because he'd earlier stated that the series would run for a total of 300 issues. Sim himself stated in an interview with The Comics Journal:Cerebus #1-200 [is] the completion of the story. The yin and yang. The ultra-female reading. The ultra-male reading. I'm attaching an allegory to the Big Bang. You make up your mind which one's the pit and which one's the top of the mountain.
- Potty Failure:
- At one point in Guys, as an unconscious Cerebus is being carried off somewhere, someone notes a horrid smell and yells, "If he's shat himself again..."
- In The Last Day, the elderly Cerebus is at least mildly incontinent and wears an adult diaper. He pees himself a bit at one point and is visibly grossed out at the feeling.
- Precision F-Strike:
- Cerebus' reaction of "Shit." to Jaka rejecting him in favor of her husband in Church and State II is the first time that word shows up in the comic's run.
- "Death"'s reaction to his fate in Flight.Well, fuck me. *poof*
- "Dave" near the end of Minds.Cerebus: Shut up!
"Dave": No, my little gray creation, you shut up and you fucking listen for once in your fucking life! - The reactions of Cerebus and the Starkey brothers to Bear's girlfriend showing up at the bar."Oh, fuck!" "Ah, shit!" "Aw, pess!"
- Prison Rape: Cerebus' rape of Astoria occurs while she is imprisoned for the assassination of the Lion of Sepra; as her arms are chained to the wall, there's no way for her to effectively fight him off.
- Private Eye Monologue: The Frank Miller take on the trope is parodied when Super Secret Sacred Wars Roach begins to take on elements from Miller's version of Batman in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
- Proper Lady: Michelle is elegant, classy, and the master of her domain wherever she is...even when she's acting as a mother figure for Super Secret Sacred Wars Roach and the Mc Grew brothers.
- Public Domain Character: Sim has stated that the comic will enter the public domain when he dies.
- Punny Name:
- A sexually-repressed Momma's Boy named Pud Withers.
- The Aardvark-based cult called the "Pigts".note
- Purple Prose: This pops up a few times.
- The sections of Jaka's Story which depict Jaka's childhood, later revealed to be a novel that Oscar has been writing about Jaka based on anecdotes from Rick.
- The sections of Rick's Story that are written very much like the King James Bible.
- Mary Ernestway's diary readings are a loose example.
- Put on a Bus to Hell: At the end of Form and Void, in the wake of Jaka and Cerebus' relationship finally collapsing, the Cirinists who have been pursuing them since they fled the Ernestways show up, revealing that they found where Cerebus and Jaka had camped, and thus found the gun they took with them; under Cirinist law it's a capital offense for unmarried couples to possess a gun. Jaka is carted away in tears and is never seen in the flesh again, leaving Cerebus alone to vent his grief and rage. Sim never revealed Jaka's final fate, although he hinted at least once that due to her being a public celebrity and Palnu royalty, and with her and Cerebus now permanently separated and thus not an issue to the Cirinists anymore, she was probably placed under permanent house arrest rather than executed.
- Rage Against the Author:
- Pops up in Minds when Cerebus tries to butt heads with "Dave" over how his life's gone. "Dave" decisively puts paid to his complaints.
- A lesser example shows up near the end of Rick's Story when Dave actually shows up in the bar to talk with Cerebus about his life at that point.
- Rage Against the Heavens: At one point in Minds, Cerebus sees flashbacks to various points in his life that connected to his faith in Tarim...including that he furiously denounced Tarim after thinking that Jaka had been killed by the Cirinists, which Cerebus tries to backslide on in embarrassed panic.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Cerebus and the T'Gitans
- Rape as Drama:
- During the Church & State arc, while interrogating a captive Astoria, Cerebus finally has enough of her mind games and taunts and rapes her. In Women, during the confrontation between Cerebus, Astoria, Cirin, and Suenteus Po, Astoria's comments about the "rape", as she specifically calls it, imply that she deliberately goaded Cerebus into the assault in the hopes that he'd impregnate her as a way to screw with Cirin even more than she already had, but she didn't get pregnant.
- This pops up twice in Jaka's Story:
- As a child, Jaka fell and received a head injury that left her comatose for days. While bedridden, she had hallucinations which included squid-like things around her bed; these were later implied to be manifestations of repressed memories of being molested. In discussions about this scene, Julius was hinted to be the culprit, but Sim later Jossed this.
- Near the end, Pud's inner narration of his interactions with Jaka begins to turn very dark, as he starts contemplating raping her. However, when he finally works up the nerve to attempt this, it's interrupted by a customer.
- As a child, Jaka fell and received a head injury that left her comatose for days. While bedridden, she had hallucinations which included squid-like things around her bed; these were later implied to be manifestations of repressed memories of being molested. In discussions about this scene, Julius was hinted to be the culprit, but Sim later
- Really Dead Montage: An entire page is devoted to one after Cerebus breaks his neck and his body finishes falling to the floor, with the flashback panels interspersed with the life fading from Cerebus' eyes.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Artist gives one to Cerebus...in space, no less.
- Rebus Bubble: In one of the specials, Cerebus introduced an apprentice to the world of alcoholism. After he gets the boy drunk, the boy starts bashing his master (using speech bubbles with a picture of the master in a clown costume), and, after the master finds out, murder ensues.
- Refusal of the Call: Both Cerebus and Michelle initially do this with Weisshaupt's schemes. Cerebus eventually gives in. Michelle doesn't.
- Rejection Ritual: Sand Hills Creek has "lockout", a form of shunning signified by the townspeople closing and locking their doors as that person approaches their homes. Cerebus suffers this for missing his father's death and funeral while running around with Jaka, which is seen as immensely disrespectful and shameful. The only reason he finds out why it's happening is because he manages to catch one old man outside.
- Revenge:
- The motive behind Cerebus's actions in Melmoth and Flight, partly because of how the Cirnists have taken over society and partly becaused they mistreated Jaka.
- The Roach's first incarnation is as The Cockroach, a parody of Batman who seems to be out for revenge for his parents' murder.
- Reverse Cerebus Syndrome:
- Issue 3. In all honesty, the first two issues were basically straight-up fantasy adventures that happened to star a Funny Animal and had some comic relief thrown in here and there. Issue 3 was where the parody started becoming apparent.
- Guys, Rick's Story, and Going Home. Although each has significant serious material, as a whole they are more humor-focused and could also count as one huge Breather Episode considering how dark Form and Void was.
- Latter Days subverts this. The first half of the book is extremely light-hearted. Then the Three Wise Fellows die during a Time Skip and things stay pretty bleak for the rest of the arc and series.
- Right Through the Wall:
- One page in Jaka's Story consists of Cerebus lying in bed with a tear rolling down his face as he hears Rick and Jaka in their bedroom.
- Played with in Going Home when Cerebus and Jaka have a quickie in the carriage they're riding in. The Cirinist driving the carriage can hear everything that's going on and looks like she'd rather be run over by the horses.
- The Rival:
- Weisshaupt eventually becomes this to Cerebus once Cerebus becomes Pope, although he changes his mind on his death bed.
- Cirin views Cerebus as this until Minds, when "Dave" reveals to her that her worst fear about Cerebus, namely that his uniquely hermaphroditic body could lead to him impregnating himself and possibly siring an entire race of aardvarks, can't happen because the stab wound he received as a child permanently damaged his womb. From that point on, to her he's merely a nuisance to be removed when it's convenient.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
- Cerebus in Melmoth cuts down two Cirinists in a rage after he overhears them talking about mistreating Jaka in prison. One spits blood on him as she lays dying and he hacks her to pieces.
- Both Cerebus and the Roach in Flight.
- Robe and Wizard Hat: Worn by Necross the - Ha Ha - Mad prior to his becoming the giant stone Thrunk.
- Running Gag: One gag that ran roughly from the early issues through Church and State was that if Cerebus got wet, his fur gave off a hideous stench that even he could barely tolerate.
- Sand in My Eyes: Cerebus claims he has soot in his eyes in the last issue of the High Society arc. The Regency Elf isn't fooled.
- Scenery Porn: Gerhard's background art is so very, very pretty.
- Screw Destiny: Po's advice to Cerebus in Mothers & Daughters regarding the Judge's prophecy is essentially this. Cerebus resolves to do just that at the end of Minds.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Jaka tries to get Cerebus to invoke this trope in High Society, when Iest is under siege. He refuses and slaps her in disgust. He later apologizes, but still claims that she was in the wrong for trying to convince him to run out on his men.
- Astoria does this for real in Reads, taking Po's advice to abandon her political scheming and pursue one of her childhood dreams.
- Screw Yourself: Cerebus could (in theory) do this due to how his genitals are arranged.
- Secret Diary: As part of her manipulations of Jaka to get a signed confession of immoral behavior, Ms. Thatcher reveals that Pud had such a diary, reading some excerpts that are very tawdry and show how much he was lusting for Jaka, which rattles Jaka badly.
- See You in Hell: When President Weisshaupt is dying and fails to tell Cerebus who the other two aardvarks in Estarcion are:Cerebus: Go to HELL!
Weisshaupt: I shall, Great Cerebus. I shall. - Seinfeldian Conversation: Most of Guys consists of these.
- Self-Deprecation: Even Sim takes a crack at his own outspokenness on the front cover of issue 290. (See below under Take That! for further details.)
- Self-Insert: Sim shows up in person near the end of Rick's Story and converses with Cerebus on the stagnation of Cerebus' life.
- Sequential Symptom Syndrome: Cerebus does this to con someone into believing they had a plague, so the symptoms were largely psychosomatic.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness:
- The character known only as "The Judge", a seemingly omnipotent being, never actually does anything with his limitless powers and knowledge because he is too busy making long, long, long expository speeches using very big words. How long? In his first appearance, he speaks uninterrupted for five straight issues.
- In a later issue, The Judge appears out of thin air to inform Death that he is about to die. And also that he is actually not Death at all, just delusional. It takes him more words to tell him this than the entire word count of the previous two issues combined. Leading to a funny moment when "Death's" only response to this verbal tsunami is to say "Well, fuck me," and die.
- Parmoorians have a well-deserved reputation for long-windedness.Astoria: It's all one sentence... note
Cerebus: Cerebus usually passes the time counting adverbs.
- Sexy Shirt Switch: At the start of Church and State, Cerebus has an Oh, Crap! moment when he wakes up wearing Red Sophia's bikini top.Oh Tarim, no...
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Lord Julius is literally shooed out by Cerebus right before Cerebus does his rather infamous interrogation of Astoria.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: One of the longest setups in comic history, although if Sim's life hadn't taken the...odd directions it took, it begs the question of whether or not the end would've still been as dark as it was.
- Shout-Out:
- The Sandman (1989) gets two prominent nods:
- Women features The Clueless: Swoon (The Roach, parodying Dream), Snuff (Elrod, dressed as Death), Sulk (Despair if she was Red Sophia's mother), Sleaze (Desire, implied to be modeled on Astoria), and Kay Sarah Sarah (the Roach as a female parody of Destiny).
- In one issue during Latter Days, Cerebus says that Mr. Gurzky had a lot of "reads" and let Cerebus borrow them whenever he wanted, including a 75-issue read called Morpheus, which is both the name used by the comic's incarnation of Dream and how long The Sandman ran.
- Issue 275 is a huge Shout-Out to Peanuts, right down to Cerebus wearing Charlie Brown's yellow shirt with the black zigzag.
- The ending of issue #200, featuring "Dave" looking at a drawing-board containing the previous page of the comic and saying "Whatta maroon!", with an inserted picture of Cerebus with buck teeth and a carrot in the background, is a clear reference to the classic Looney Tunes short Duck Amuck.
- Cerebus' "Spore" persona is a walking parody of Spawn, costume and all.
- The Sandman (1989) gets two prominent nods:
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Cirin tries to pull one of these on Po in Reads. It doesn't work. Cerebus pulls one on Astoria later on in the same book. It really doesn't work.
- Sickening "Crunch!": The reader is treated to the text equivalents when Rick's thumb is broken at the end of Jaka's Story and when Cerebus' neck breaks in issue #300.
- Signature Headgear: Elrod wore a tall, conical cap in his early appearances, and tried to invoke it as a status symbol when Cerebus tried to brush him off.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!
- Slashed Throat: Cerebus almost does this to himself after killing the Cirinists at the end of Melmoth, based on his memory of Bear's campfire story of what might happen in retaliation for such an act, but changes his mind and flees instead.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Consistently and thoroughly on the cynical side. Almost every character, particularly Cerebus himself, is self-interested and duplicitous to the extreme, and every halfway sympathetic character seems to suffer or become broken by the world. It seems to be inherent in the system, as every cosmological revelation Cerebus has about the universe is profoundly bleak. The wisest and most conscientious character in the story, Suenteus Po, advocated having as little impact on the world as possible, likely due to having reincarnated several times, with each life having some kind of significant social impact, and knowing that as an aardvark his "magnifier" is a source of problems. It would be more accurate to say the comic slides down a scale of being cynically humorous to being despairingly cynical as it goes on.
- Smart People Play Chess: Taken to extremes by Suenteus Po, who has grown so weary of the world that he hides in his small apartment and plays chess against himself...for decades. All of which seems to have been a way to protect his secrets from the Big Bad, who can read minds. When she tries to read Po's mind, she sees chess...and nothing else.
- Smoke Out: Necross the Mad does a combination of Smoke In and choking on his own smoke.Necross: I've simply got to switch to mirrors! Those smokey entrances are murder on the bronchial passages...
- Smug Snake: Po admits that both Astoria and Cirin are experts in guile and trickery, but he also accuses them of being overconfident to the point where they have both dangerously underestimated Cerebus.
- Something That Begins with "Boring": Julius tries to play the game with Cerebus while they're riding in a coach, but Cerebus has no patience for it.Lord Julius: I spy with my little eye, something that is purple.
Cerebus: Extensive bruising about your head and shoulders if you try to keep playing idiot games. - Spanner in the Works: Cerebus and Elrod, but in different ways:
- In the first "Mind Games" issue, a Cirinist does a fortune telling of sorts on Cerebus and deems him "a random factor with immense and disruptive capabilities." We later learn that Cerebus has a "magnifier" ability, a kind of unconscious probability altering that works to intensify the overall effects of whatever is happening around him, including the personality traits and abilities of the people around him and any magic that is present, and then causes things to fall into disarray once the effect is gone. This is later revealed to be a trait common to aardvarks; Suenteus Po secluded himself from society in large part to keep his from causing trouble. The container spell that Rick casts on Cerebus in Rick's Story drives out the magnifier and kills it.
- Elrod's prescence just naturally seems to make anything he's involved in go off the rails, especially any of Cerebus' plans. He's a physical incarnation of chaos, so this comes naturally to him.
- Speech Bubbles: These were one of the distinctive features of Cerebus; they could be incredibly expressive and as artistic as anything else that was going on in the comic.
- Splash Panel: Sim played with the idea of 2-page splash panels by putting the left half on the final page of an issue and the right half on the first page of the next.
- Status Quo Is God: The first 25 issues typically followed this pattern: No matter how much money Cerebus made on a job or through one of his schemes, he'd either lose it or simply waste it away and be forced to continue his career as a wandering mercenary.
- Stepford Smiler: Cerebus becomes one to increasing degrees in Going Home and Form and Void to try to keep Jaka on an even keel, per advice from Victor Davis via Rick on how to handle women who are fundamentally unhappy. By the last few issues of F&V, the facade has enormous cracks, and shatters explosively in the final pages of the arc.
- Story Arc: Cerebus is broken down into 10 major arcs: Cerebus, High Society, Church and State, Jaka's Story, Melmoth, "Mothers and Daughters", Guys, Rick's Story, "Going Home", and "Latter Days." Church and State has two parts, and the arcs in quotation marks have two to four distinct sub-arcs fitting under the general titlenote Each arc and sub-arc tells a distinct story, lasting anywhere from 11 issues (Flight) to almost 60 issues (the entirety of Church and State), and each is collected in its own TPB.
- Straw Critic: Oscar's description of "reads" fans probably counts. See Take That, Critics! below.
- Straw Feminist: The Cirinists and Kevillists are straw second-wave and third-wave feminists, respectively.
- Stripperific: Almost all of Jaka's dancing costumes (at least, the ones that are depicted) are quite revealing.
- Suicide Is Shameful: This is a deeply-ingrained belief for Cerebus. Thus, he's shocked when Brak Mak Mufin kills himself, and is rattled to his core when Ham Ernestway does the same, mainly because he idolized him so much and for him to die by his own hand says some seriously shameful things about Cerebus in his self-estimation.
- Sword Fight: Guns don't show up until Form and Void, so almost all the fighting in the comic up to that point is swordfights.
- Take a Third Option: Astoria in Reads, after Cerebus gives her an ultimatum.Cerebus: You can shut up and leave...or you can shut up and die!
- Take That!:
- Sometimes Dave Sim's mockery of superhero comics ceases to be Affectionate Parody and enters the realm of outright disdain.
- Sim tends to resort to name-calling with anyone he disagrees with (such as calling Scott McCloud a weenie and calling Heidi MacDonald a moron). Whether or not this is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek is...not very easy to determine.
- Sim had public fall-outs with Jeff Smith and Terry Moore, infamously publishing an editorial accusing Smith of lying about an argument they had over issue #186 and challenging him to a boxing match, to which Smith replied, "Get stuffed."
- From the famous feuds file again, Sim also managed to piss off Gary Groth, editor-in-chief of The Comics Journal, and the journal's subsequent hostility to the comic was also alluded to in several Take That, Critics! outbursts. The feud between Sim and Groth reached such a height that it led to an infamous Award Snub, where one of The Comics Journal's lists of the best comics very noticeably left off Cerebus, despite the fact that at least one Journal writer admitted in an interview that Cerebus should have been on the list, but that Groth did not allow it.
- Sim opened the "Tangent" essay in issue #265 by slamming Carol West, who had resigned as Aardvark-Vanaheim's administrative assistant in disgust after seeing the first draft of the essay.
- Miz Thatcher, which surely must've caused Sim embarrassment; he has since said that she was right all along, as his politics shifted to being more obviously ultra-conservative about the same time as his religious conversion and he reinterpreted the themes of Jaka's Story in that vein.
- The front cover of issue 290 is a movie poster parody that describes Cerebus as "the latest issue of the comic book liberals love to hate". The rest of the text degenerates into further pointless Strawman Political insults, ends in "OKAY OKAY JUST STOP WHINING! PLEASE!" and then restarts but changes the description to "the latest issue of the comic book that many people buy".
- Take That, Critics!: In Melmoth, Oscar Wilde's high opinion of Daughter of Palnu and his unflattering description of "reads" fans is basically Sim both being defensive and taking a swipe at comics readers who disliked the direction he'd been taking the comic in since Church & State.
- Talk Show: Women features one (the daytime version), with Red Sophia and her mother as the guests.
- Tarot Motifs: The cover art for the issues in the Reads arc as well as the cover for the phonebook.
- Telepathy: Women in Cerebus have a degree of mind-reading ability, and in the case of the Cirinists, take it almost to a Hive Mind level. The real Cirin reveals to Cerebus that women who are especially talented can actually influence the thoughts of others, or even outright brainwash them. She speaks from experience, since this is how Serna stole her identity and usurped her.
- Textplosion:
- In the comic's world, a very popular form of literature is "reads", which are essentially Light Novels. Reads portrayed this by interspersing the normal comic pages, which told the main story, with two other stories depicted in the "reads" style, with pages of text accompanied by occasional full-page illustrations.
- The latter half of Latter Days revolves around Cerebus giving a very idiosyncratic exegesis on the Torah. This is depicted almost entirely in text, with occasional pics of Cerebus examining the Torah scrolls with a magnifying glass and other small illustrations.
- The first two are deliberate parodies; the diary, not at all.
- Theme Naming: A few instances.
- The "Mind Games" issues all deal with mental weirdness of one form or another.
- The "Chasing YHWH" arc in Latter Days, a pun on Chasing Amy and dealing with Cerebus'...unusual...exegesis on the Torah.
- The names of the Three Wise Fellows are Yiddish variants of The Three Stooges' names, in keeping with their use in the story as Old Testament-style prophets.
- Theseus' Ship Paradox: Inverted by Sheshep insisting that the sphinxes are an extension of him because they were grown from his brain tissue. Cerebus naturally thinks this sounds crazy.
- They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In-universe, part of Latter Days is used to express Sim's disappointment when The Three Stooges brought on Joe Besser and later Curly Joe Derita.
- Third-Person Person:
- Cerebus, almost all the time; it's eventually revealed to be a normal speech pattern for the people in his native lands. The only times he breaks this are in the very first issues, and in High Society when giving political speeches.
- Jaka in her first appearance . This was retconned as her trying to pass herself off as a northerner, although this isn't revealed until much later, so the reader is left wondering why she started talking differently for a good portion of the series.
- This Loser Is You: Sim confirmed that the sexually repressed, mother-dominated Pud Withers, who fantasizes about assaulting Jaka, was a slam on comic book readers.
- Those Two Guys:
- Roach and Elrod, at times.
- The McGrew Brothers quickly degenerated from antagonists to comic relief.
- Ham and Mary's two gunmen from Form and Void.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Among the societal delinquents and weirdos clustered outside the gates of Cerebus' manor in The Last Day is a man with his hand under the skirt of a young girl whose face has a completely mindless, blank stare.
- Time Skip:
- An unspecified amount of time took place between the end of Church and State II and the beginning of Jaka's Story, but it was enough time for Cerebus' proclamations as Pope to be proven false and for the Cirinists to take over and seize his gold.
- In Form and Void, Cerebus has a number of small time lapses due to fatigue and loss of consciousness while he and Jaka are trapped in a blizzard.
- The first few issues of Latter Days featured several skips, in which Cerebus seems to go into a fugue state and lose large swathes of time.
- Several decades are skipped between the end of Latter Days and the start of The Last Day.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Cerebus and each of his love interests, since he's only three feet tall and they're normal-sized women. In Rick's Story, this catches Joanne off guard the first time she sees how short he really is. He had put boxes on the floor behind the bar so he could reach the top of the bar and she assumed he was a normal height, having never looked back that far.
- Title Drop: First issue.
- Token Wholesome: Michelle, the only morally upright character in the series, and definitely the most morally upright female character.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Cerebus and The Artist in Church and State.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Red Sophia, much to Cerebus' annoyance.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Cerebus' love of raw potatoes comes up several times; he even yells at someone to "[...] leave the skin on! That's the best part!" *CRUNCH*
- Tuft of Head Fur: Cerebus has a thatch of actual hair between his ears, in contrast to Suenteus Po and Cirin who both have a full head of hair. In Form and Void, he has Jaka cut it into a flattop just like Ham's, and as he ages through Latter Days it markedly thins, to the point that when The Last Day comes around, all he has left is a few strands.
- Tyop on the Cover: The origin of Cerebus' name.Dave Sim: "Not to worry," I said, somewhat less than eager to reletter the logo and figure out how to squeeze in an extra letter and transpose two others, "we’ll just say that Cerebus is the name of the cartoon aardvark mascot."
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Happens pretty much every time Cerebus is granted any kind of real power. In High Society, most of the brutal repression happens offscreen, with the reader only seeing Cerebus' orders and hearing reports of the aftermath, to the point where it's almost Played for Laughs and easy for casual readers to miss, but Church and State brings his tendencies toward cruelty front and center. It's generally implied that he's not so much Drunk with Power as that he sees anyone who disagrees with him as a threat.
U - Z
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Cerebus is an aardvark, and all the women that he has relationships with in-story are anywhere from attractive to stunningly beautiful.
- Undignified Death: All over the place. As a rule for the series, the bigger the character is in status and stature, the more likely it is for them to suffer a pathetic end:
- Necross the - Ha Ha - Mad, after becoming the Giant Stone Thrunk, has his plans to usurp Cerebus as Pope ultimately thwarted when Cerebus blows off one of his legs with a cannon and then does the same to his head as he begs for his life.
- Claremont X. Claremont's plans to harness the powers of Man-Thing and Sump-Thing is cut short when he's crushed between them having sex.
- The Artist's attempt to ascend with his mighty new body fails without fanfare as the tower underneath his feet shrinks and he falls off into space. The Judge confirms that he burns up in the atmosphere without notice.
- Cerebus himself dies when a hamstring gives out as he tries to jump out of bed, causing him to fall and land on his head, breaking his shriveled neck.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: It's not said outright, but while Jaka was living under Julius' roof after Jaka's Story, she apparently became very spoiled to having all the new clothes she could get, and a lot of her and Cerebus' travels in Going Home prior to the boat ride are to various shops so she can indulge this fancy. She even has a childish meltdown when Cerebus tries to get her to move away from this, as the idea of having to wear an outfit more than once or twice is horrific.
- Unreliable Narrator: Several examples:
- Oscar, who massively inflates the tales of Jaka's childhood with his Purple Prose. Being a parody of Oscar Wilde, this is very much in character. In particular, he portrays Nurse as a cruel and spiteful religious fanatic who did nothing but try to crush Jaka's spirit. When we briefly meet Nurse for real, she seems a lot more human and appears to genuinely care about Jaka.
- Rick, who turns his memoirs into a holy text revolving around Cerebus after seeing Cerebus confront and dominate Mrs. Thatcher, who had engineered Rick and Jaka's divorce and then ordered Rick's maiming for hitting Jaka. Being quite deranged, he turns everything Cerebus says into scripture, regardless of Cerebus' intentions. He even writes a lengthy description of Cerebus' bar in the Old Testament style of description.
- Cirin and Astoria, whose in-story Author Tracts are documented in part in Women. Being parodies of second-wave and third-wave feminists, respectively, they are seen as mutually opposing ends of the same extremist viewpoint.
- Mary Ernestway and her diary about Ham's last safari. Being a textbook Ladette (or, at least, Sim's take on one), she over-inflates her contributions to the safari, as well as misinterpreting the ethical and social implications of some events. She is also seriously overbearing and condescending toward Ham, and drops hints in her diary that Ham liked to cross-dress, engaged in Gender Flip sexual roleplay with her, and enjoyed buggering her. Even Jaka and Cerebus appear to be embarrassed and confused by some of what she talks about, frequently exchanging puzzled glances during these sequences. Given that Sim used Mary Hemingway's published diaries as the source for Mary Ernestway's diaries, this leads to questions about Ernest himself.
- The Judge is retconned into being one during the Mothers & Daughters arc, occupying a kind of trickster role in Cirinist theology.
- Sim himself in multiple ways.
- He describes Victor Davis as himself during a period when he was drinking heavily and trying to get laid at the same time. Unfortunately, he was a mean drunk, which made getting laid that much more difficult, which led to him drinking more, and so on.
- It's not clear if Dave used Mary Hemingway's diaries in their entirety or picked the parts which suited his views the best to make Mary Ernestway the way she is.
- Later on, as Sim's anti-feminist and religious material increasingly influenced the comic...well...
- Unreliable Voiceover: Used to introduce Astoria and her relationship to Moon Roach. Oddly subverted when, much later, another character tells a version of the story which doesn't match the art or narration of the first one.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Cerebus again...until the comic stops being a comedy.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A talking aardvark? Hardly worth commenting on, really. It's later revealed that aardvarks have been around in Estarcion for a long time.
- Unwitting Pawn: Cerebus, as well as many minor characters.
- Urban Segregation: Iest's Upper City is on a very high and sheer mesa, though this is not made explicit for some years.
- Villainous BSoD: Pud Withers has one near the end of Jaka's Story, breaking down in hysterical sobbing and begging for forgiveness from both Tarim and his mother after he started to go through with his plan to rape Jaka, only to be foiled by the first night of actual business at the tavern in a long, long time and an unexpected act of generosity from Jaka.
- Villain Protagonist: In some storylines, Cerebus slides from Anti-Hero right into this trope. He definitely does in Church and State after being made Pope. Realizing that he has the power to do anything he wants and none of the people who pulled his strings before can stop him anymore, he loses almost all of his sympathetic qualities and does more and more despicable things. His long-term plans involve demanding all the gold from everyone so he can raise an army and conquer the known world, and he even draws up plans for recruiting children as young as eight into the army, but even beyond that he commits a lot of minor atrocities for no other reason than that he just felt like Kicking the Dog. Among his worst deeds are killing a baby by throwing it off a staircase, thanking an old man who gave all his gold by kicking him off a tall rooftop and letting him fall to his death, and raping Astoria while she's in chains.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Cirin is an absolutely terrible person, but she has the loyalty and admiration of her followers, and is seen as a benevolent mother figure. Of course, she's not actually the real Cirin.
- Walking the Earth:
- The first 25 issues or so are mainly Cerebus wandering from place to place having various adventures while trying to make money and get drunk.
- In the early issues of Latter Days, he wanders all over northern Estarcion trying to bide time until he dies.
- Wall of Text: Happens several times throughout the series, but the absolutely worst case is the "Chasing YHWH" portion of Latter Days. These issues are almost completely text with only minimal art, usually Cerebus examining the Torah scrolls with a magnifying glass.
- Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma: The second issue uses "it's" twice where it meant to use "its". One such instance is actually followed only one page later by a proper "its".
- Weirdness Magnet: A side effect of Cerebus' "magnifier" ability is that he seemingly can't get away from weird people and circumstance. Eventually, it's revealed that the chaos in his destiny caused by not having all the aardvark artifacts has a lot to do with this as well.
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": Cerebus becomes a shepherd in Latter Days and names one of the sheep "Elrod". It is unclear whether he's doing it because the sheep annoys him like Elrod used to, or if (after all these years) he misses Elrod (as well as his other old acquaintances). Outliving everyone you knew can have that effect on you.
- What Could Have Been: In-universe examples:
- Cerebus is presented with alternate futures throughout the "Mother and Daughters" arc, most notably in Minds.
- In Guys, Cerebus briefly dreams of an alternate future where he apparently became romantically involved with Astoria.
- "What's Inside?" Plot: This forms part of the confrontation between Cerebus and Sheshep Ankh at the end of The Last Day. Sheshep is carrying a box with holes in it that strange noises are coming out of. After their conversation, Sheshep reveals what's in the box: a baby sphinx with his head, cloned from his brain tissue using information about genetics and breeding that he and "New Joanne" have pried out of Cirin. He then reveals that once he and "New Joanne" perfect the clones, a giant one will be taken to Egypt to be the focal point of a new religion revolving around them. Cerebus is disgusted and enraged, and Sheshep huffily drops the sphinx cub back in the box and leaves.
- World of Jerkass: From the beginning of the comic to its very end, there are very few characters who aren't buffoonish, self-interested, or unfriendly, most pointedly Cerebus himself. While there are a handful of characters who are mostly well-meaning and many instances of kindness and depth from those who aren't, by and large the comic's world seems to be completely enmeshed in violent grabs for power, and those who aren't striving for self-gain end up at the mercy of those who are. By the end of the comic, not only is this strongly implied to get worse, but the vast majority of the supporting cast appears in an apparent trap to lure Cerebus' soul to hell.
- Would Hit a Girl: Played straight in multiple ways throughout the comic. However, during the "married to Jaka" scenarios in Minds, when Cerebus is shown that he'd be physically abusive to Jaka, he's horrified and immediately has "Dave" alter things so it's not in the cards...not that that helps in the long run.
- Would Hurt a Child: The comic doesn't pull punches on this topic.
- As a kid, Cerebus is stabbed in the belly by a bully.
- In Church and State I, as one of his "lessons" (namely, that you can get what you want and still not be very happy), Pope Cerebus blesses a baby whose mother had repeatedly asked him to, and then hurls the baby away like a football.
- Cerebus's talk about killing the child mercenary during the "Mothers and Daughters" arc.
- After Cerebus' failed revolution in Flight, the Cirinists purge everyone who saw it happen; one of these unfortunates is a young girl. We don't actually see her death, but the last the reader is shown is the Cirinist drawing back to strike the blow.
- Hinted at in Latter Days, when Cerebus uses the long arm of a Spawn-like costume (it makes sense in-story) as an atlatl to fling away the baby of a dad being really annoying with cutesy-talk. The dad runs after the child, but it's not revealed if he makes it in time.
- Writing for the Trade: Pretty much the entire point of the comic, to the point that it's impossible to tell where one issue ended and another began after the fourth phonebook, when the stories stop having individual titles. The trades are printed together as a single story, because that's how they were written, which means monthly readers were basically getting 20-page chunks of a larger book every month, which simply cut off at whatever happened to be the 20th page that month. It got to the point where almost every issue ended with the left-hand page of a double-page spread and the next began with the right. Also, since recaps or even character pages weren't done, you had to get a half-dozen issues to start just to try to stay afloat. Another indie comic famously used the line "I haven't been this confused since I started reading Cerebus at issue 50!".
- Wrong Genre Savvy: The Cockroach, who thinks he's the protagonist of a superhero story.
- Yoko Oh No: Non-musical example in Ziggy, Bear's on-again-off-again girlfriend, who everyone else calls "Zig-pig" because she's incredibly obnoxious, has a nails-on-chalkboard laugh, and because Bear utterly folds in her presence, the thought of getting laid overruling all other concerns about her crap. By Cerebus and the Starkey brothers' reaction to the one time in the comic where she shows up, it's apparent that this is something that's been happening for years. It's bad enough that almost everyone else in the bar makes plans to leave for good the next day because Bear leaving with her shatters the already-tenuous atmosphere in the bar.