I have owned it for, probably, fifteen years now, and I realized last night that I have never actually read it. I have looked at the pictures, which are very attractive. I have read the bits and pieces that comprise the Sandman parody, and found them fairly irritating and unfunny. I have read a couple of somewhat intriguing scenes, which I assumed would be interesting and make sense if I actually sat down and read the whole thing.

So I gave it a try last night. I mean, actually TRIED to read it start to finish, and make sense of it, and I have come to the unscientific conclusion that Cerebus is completely overrated and probably always has been. Not the art. The art is great. The art makes it look like something interesting is going on. But the art is a lie. Nothing is going on. From page one to page two-hundred and forty-six nothing bloody happens.

Yeah, okay, I realize it's the middle part of a big hurkin' saga, but it still seems to me that in 246 pages SOMETHING should happen. There should be a STORY there.

This volume has a lot of...ancillary material. You know, long dialogues, and the characters expressing their philosophies. But it's boring, repetitive, almost entirely pointless, and, again, doesn't constitute anything HAPPENING.

So all this time I figured Dave Sim was a misogynist and probably paranoid schizophrenic weirdo genius. The fact that he's not actually much of a genius hadn't occurred to me.