Melmoth (Cerebus, Volume 6)

Melmoth is unlike anything else in Cerebus. It is an intimate look at Oscar Wilde. It has haunting and beautiful moments. It is still funny at times like the rest of Cerebus. Sim really has a grasp for voices in characters- and his voice for Wilde in particular, especially when he banters, is terrifically written. This isn't my favorite Cerebus by a long shot...it is missing something...but I am having a hard time putting my finger on what that something is. It might just be that I wanted more Cerebus.

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 show more 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. show less

signed