Issue 158

From CerebusWiki

May 1992: Mothers & Daughters 8
Issue 158
President	Dave Sim
Vice-President	Gerhard
Typesetting	Linda Berzins
Mothers & Daughters: Flight
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Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Characters 3 Locations 4 Artist Notes 5 Back up material 6 Annotations

Synopsis

Suenteus Po appears above the chess board and tells Cerebus there are three aardvarks: Cerebus, Cirin and Suenteus Po. Po starts to tell the story of his past. The Pigts storm their armory trying to get weapons to march out over the marshes. Punisheroach has taken over some land and called it "roachland." Mrs Thatcher goes to Cirin about Mrs. Copps' changes to the sphere. Cirin wants Copps tortured for her disobedience. The People start talking about Cerebus just being an illusion.

Po has made his move (King's pawn to e4). Cerebus pushes his chess piece (King's pawn to e5 -- creating a King's pawn game) and ends up in Imesh.

Characters

• Cerebus (last seen in issue 156; next appearance in issue 159)
• Cirin (last seen in issue 156; next appearance in issue 159)
• Cockroach (last seen in issue 155; next appearance in issue 159)
• Elf (last seen in issue 156; next appearance in issue 161)
• Elrod (last seen in issue 155; next appearance in issue 159)
• Harmon Blakely (last seen in issue 156; next appearance in issue 165)
• K'Cor (last seen in issue 156; next appearance in issue 159)
• Mrs. Copps(last seen in issue 157; final appearance)
• Mrs Thatcher (last seen in issue 157; next appearance in issue 161)
• Suenteus Po (last seen in issue 157; next appearance in issue 159) As astral body form

Locations

• Eighth Sphere
• Iest
• Imesh
• Red Marches

Artist Notes

If Dave has something to say on the issue, add it here

Back up material

Cerebus/Spirit (Sim/Eisner) from Cerebus Jam (3)

Annotations

• Cover: The cover depicts a (mostly) transparent aardvark hand setting the King's pawn down at King Four. (Alexx)
• 1: The Roach is displaying stronger mental powers than ever before. Of course, his "telepathy" could equally well be an hallucination... (Alexx)
• 4: "capricious aspects of my consciousness" This goes some way to explaining the various personality shifts that Po has exhibited in his various appearances. (Alexx)
• 5: "Each entity maneuvers its pieces on many boards simultaneously and each entity is itself a chess piece." That this philosophy is shared by Dave Sim can be seen by his numerous references in the letters pages over the ensuing months to "the upper chessboards". (Alexx)
• "My first life" Suenteus Po is here claiming to be the reincarnation of the "first" Suenteus Po. If he has indeed lived several different lives, that might explain his giving Cerebus two different dates for his birth (20, p.7; 156, p.20); he might well have been born on each of them! (Alexx)
• 12: Note that Cirin and the Roach are to some extent echoing each other's actions, by purging their followers. (Alexx)
• 13: The number and identity of the speakers in this scene (and similar subsequent scenes) is probably irrelevant. They are simply representative examples of "the people", discussing matters of obvious concern, and functioning as a sort of Greek Chorus to the events of the storyline. (Alexx)
• 16: Cirin's diary is a clear parallel to Cerebus' "On Governing", and shows about as much grasp of reality. (Alexx)
• 18: It is not clear yet what the significance is of the Black Queen looming so large in this image. (Alexx)
• 19: KP-K4. (Alexx)