Melmoth (Cerebus, Volume 6) (1991)

signed

Dave Sim retells the story of Oscar Wilde in his own way, while a depressed Cerebus does not much at all except mourn Jaka, who he thinks is dead.

http://graphicsf.blogspot.com/2006/12/cerebus-6-melmoth.html ( )

Melmoth is the 6th episode in the saga of Cerebus the Aardvark. It has two separate plotlines that go side by side (quite literally, they mostly happen in neighbouring buildings). One presents Cerebus, stricken and forelorn. The other tells the stroy of the last days of Oscar Wilde (transferred to the world of Cerebus)

Once again, the art is stunning. Sim's and Gerhard's use of the panels is not quite as liberal as in some of the previous volumes, but that just brings forward the close atmosphere of the two storylines. In Melmoth, perhaps even more than in previous Cerebus books, there are pages in which nothing much happens between panels, but the slow progression delivers the feelings of the protagonists oh so well.

The major plotline does not evolve much in Melmoth, as it is mostly an atmospheric book. I do not know much about Oscar Wilde, which probably took a lot away from my appreciation of the other main storyline in the book.

This is definitely a sidestep in the Cerebus saga, but a well-thought-out one, which deepens the characters. ( )