Issue 91
From CerebusWiki
| October 1986: Talking to Tarim | |
| |
| Issue 91 | |
| President | Dave Sim |
| Administrator | Karen McKiel |
| Backgrounds, cover-colour, and tones | Gerhard |
| Circulation | 33,000 |
| Church & State II | |
| Previous | Next |
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Contents |
Issue Summary
We get to see what was happening to Cerebus while he was immobile in issue 90. Cerebus has a discussion with a Big Round Glowing White Strange Thing about the Tower and the Ascension. Cerebus decides to make the ascension. The strange light "returns" Cerebus back in time to meet Lord Julius, Boobah, and Powers.
Characters
- Big Round Glowing White Strange Thing (last seen in issue 90; next appearance in issue 111)
- Bishop Powers (last seen in issue 90; next appearance in issue 92)
- Boobah (last seen in issue 90; next appearance in issue 92)
- Cerebus (last seen in issue 90; next appearance in issue 92)
- Lord Julius (last seen in issue 90; next appearance in issue 92)
Locations
- "floor in space" dimension
- Iest
Artist Notes
From the Q&A from Sept 2004 on Church & State II:
07/05: (WILDCARD): So is that Tarim that Cerebus is Talking to? Why does he look like a big round glowing sphere? Is he linked to Po? (i91)
DAVE: Well, they’re all linked in the sense that they’ve gotten immersed in this ascension business “by whatever means necessary” so there’s a lot of residual “means” just lying around in residual physical and spiritual forms. The different elements, the gold sphere and the tower and what-not have just become elements of the equation. Note that the “Tarim” Cerebus is talking to has no idea what is actually “up there” apart from heaven or what it is that you’re going to do when you get there but he (actually he/she/it) has an encyclopedic knowledge of how to get there, what to avoid, what works what doesn’t work. It’s just obsessive-compulsive behaviour, like a video game. Putting in hundreds of hours figuring out how to get past all of the obstacles at each different level of the game and…then what? The question has no resonance for the obsessive-compulsive. Then what what? With their entire attention glued to the television screen. Spriz, spriz, spriz, fraz, fraz, fraz, glomp, glomp. You know, the investment of hundreds of hours of your life that you’ll never get back? What about it? Spriz, spriz, spriz, fraz, fraz, fraz, glomp, glomp.
I assume that there’s a lot of that in the realm of spirit. That the “Tarim” Cerebus was talking to was a magician of some kind who had found a way to encode himself into the gold coins so that they would function as a kind of tape recorder so he would be able to remind himself of how to work his way through the various levels of the video game when he incarnated in the future (rather than just passing on to the next level of existence which is what all video games are degraded versions of, from what I can see). From the standpoint of the free-floating awareness, Cerebus was him, he had just forgotten that he was him which is why he encoded himself into the gold coins and he knew enough not to tell him that he was him because he knew that when you incarnate you like to think of yourself as an individual and not just the latest version of someone else and that it’s better not to get into the discussion in the first place because all you want to do is post the necessary video game reminders—i.e. get to the top of the tower while you have time.
He looks like a big round glowing white strange thing because that was the easiest way to communicate with Cerebus. Cerebus wanted an answer to what the big round glowing white strange thing was so that was an ideal form to adopt in the realm of spirit, the ideal mental image, if you wanted Cerebus to listen to what you were saying and retain the message you had to impart to him. Get to the top of the tower. Cerebus managed to retain it through all of the strange events of issues 92 through 101. He saw the gold sphere and made the break for it. Get to the top of the tower.
Annotations
- The "floor in space" dimension last appeared in issue 82.
- The same note that appeared in issue 90 appears on the last page again: a reproduction of a note from Dave Sim on Aardvark-Vanaheim, Inc. letter head. This note states that 3,100 of the 6,000 copies have been sold thus far of the High Society phonebook.
- It is possible that this BRGWST is the original Coin Maker.
- p. 2: The BRGWST refers to the ascension as the final ascension.
- p. 2: The BRGWST states that Weisshaupt and Cirin each found the same ancient text, the same day, thousands of miles apart. Perhaps this is how Weisshaupt knew he had to leave a gold sphere in the church (seen in issue 101).
- p. 3: Cerebus repeats the Church doctrine about the tower always falling: "Because the children of Tarim weren't pure of heart and Tarim destroyed the tower that represented their sins?"
Back up material
- Cerebus Jam, "The Applicant" (Sim/Doran)
- In Aardvark Comment there is a picture of the Cerebus muppet made by Tony Bisilicatto. The muppet is laying on a bed appearing to be talking on a phone.
- Back Cover, photo of benefit painting (Sim/Ger) of Cerebus as a Samurai. Cerebus is wearing the same outfit as he did in an Ages of Cerebus plate.
