Cerebus is a self-published indie comic book series created by the controversial Canadian artist and writer Dave Sim. Starting in late 1977 Cerebus was a funny animal comic (a popular style in the 60s) parodying sword and sorcery stories specifically Conan the Barbarian, with the titular character Cerebus the Aardvark barbarian who was originally a prototype mascot for a fan zine which never came out. Cerebus as the series went on changed genre, tone and writing style through its nearly 30 year run so going through it I will describe how each part changed and the influences it had on the indie comic scene.

Early Cerebus was relatively normal, it was what was expected of a parody of Conan, short form stories last only 3 issues at most with sword fights, magic and comedy. It was more a novelty comic and unremarkable at the time but sold well enough to be sustainable which showed that Dave Sim was a decent artist and writer but these aspects were very rough, it was clear that at this initial stage the comic was just meant to be a satire and comedy. But the first major change to the structure of the series came in 1981 where the storyline shifted to a storyline spanning 25 issues and going on for 2 years, dubbed “High-Society” Arc. At this time Sim would tell the press and fans that he now wanted to make a 300 issue storyline instead of an episodic series, it was due to him wishing to discuss themes such as politics, religion and philosophy. High-Society introduced a lot of Sim’s writing tropes that remained throughout the series despite how often the story shifted, such as recurring characters, parodies of mainstream comics in temporary characters and in universe religions and political groups. High-Society's plot change removed sword and sorcery action with a more realistic plotline, Cerebus himself spent a lot of time early on trying to pay off a random and is framed for an assissination on a political figure which all have lasting effects in-universe with the arc ending in Cerebus being elected prime minister but due to him being a barbarian ends up causing chaos instead of being a good leader.

The next arc Church and State had an overhaul to the art with Dave sim getting assistants to work on the backgrounds giving the comic a much grander scale and Sim himself improving his character design with the comics art by issue 100 considered to be far above the average of the time. However at this time was when Sim started becoming a controversial figure due to how he wrote women and Cerebus, Cerebus was never written to be a good person as he was meant to be a barbarian but he became tyrannical at this stage as he was given the role of Pope and used it to brutalise citizen and sexually assault a recurring female character without repercussions. There were also other criticisms with how the arc ended as it was considered confusing and far too grandiose especially for the tone of the arc being about societal corruption and tyrants. Though most of these problems were considered to be lessened or fixed by the next arc Jakka’s story, with the story having a more focused simple storyline with characters that are written to be more likable than most recurring ones, and a more complicated female character who wasn't just an object for the story, even removing Cerebus’ character from the story to focus on these newer characters. This was considered to be the best work of Sim and the peak of Cerebus as it was experimental, fresh and interesting for the time.

The arcs past this are considered to be ranging from good to bad, Sim’s negative and controversial views seem to be considered the main problem that keeps popping up with the later troubles. Such as Cerebus as a character may progress to be more of a positive and open-minded individual but will suddenly be pushed back into being his unlikable self or Women being written nuanced and likable ending up as objects or being torn completely down. Jakka the main character of the last arc is one of the best examples of this as she goes from complicated and nuanced to being Cerebus’ object of affection.
The series itself ends with Cerebus dying alone, with a son who hates him, in a society that he hates. The Society itself is a very extreme view of a politcally left-wing society with the ideas of equality of women and other sexual orinteations oppressing the “normal” people and men. Even if the politics didn’t bother you the comic itself suffered with weird changes to art and writing style, with some of the comics having more a novel feel with the text instead of a comic feel. Many people believe that the longer the comic went on the worse it got.

An overview of the comic after going through the story broadly is hard, it was mostly a satire with some political and spiritual messages and an incredible amount of world-building. It was mostly Dave Sim’s interests at the time of writing that controlled how the story went, like following a parody of a real life person that Sim thought was interesting. Despite that the self-publishing of the series is one of the most important aspects for western indie comics as it proved that you didn’t have to go mainstream to have a long successful series with its peak having over 30,000 comics sold monthly, incredible for an indie comic at the time. He even popularized the idea of making paperback book collections of comics with his print of the entire high society arc which would later become a staple for comics everywhere. He was one of those who created the bill of rights for comic creators which was a bill signing for rights for comic creators, though this didn’t force any change it did scare big publishers to slowly become more fair with creators. Though he was a staunch anti-feminist which is obvious in his comic and later interviews where he was defensive about his views though admitting he hated the feminist movement and the left wing politcal side, as well as having a history of inappropriate behaviour with underage women. Due to this Cerebus nowadays is seen very mixed, most people agreeing that it's important to indie comic history and is a good story for some parts but really amping up the debate between if art can be separated from the artist.

Personally I think Cerebus is an interesting and entertaining read, it is hard for someone of my generation to fully grasp due to into parodying and satirizing the time it was written but as a almost 30 year long series it evolved and changed in art and storytelling and this caused it to be fascinating to read but hard to recommend to people not into comics as I am.