Sunday 7 May 2017

Swords Of Cerebus Vol 5: Cerebus #17


PAUL SLADE:
Published between 1981 and 1984, Dave's six Swords of Cerebus volumes were his first attempt to collect the book in a more permanent form. He gave each story included in these volumes a prose introduction, explaining where the book stood when he'd been working on that particular issue and how he was thinking of its prospects at the time. This is the first of his five introductions in Swords volume 5. Also check out the full 'Swords Of Cerebus' Introductions Index.

One thing that struck me when putting this post together was the way Dave uses the water’s outline to replace the bottom borders of the panels shown below – and then accentuates that effect by having the vertical borders fade beneath the water's surface. It's a lovely little grace note, and yet so unobtrusive that it never pulls you out of the story.

"Commander Krull was the first of my characters to be living his own autobiography," says Dave.

Next week: "This was a strange one."

3 comments:

Tony Dunlop said...

Wow. That "water" effect is so "unobtrusive" that I can honestly say I've never noticed it before. Thanks!
Now you've got me wondering: What other clever design tricks have I missed, in this series I've read, from beginning to end, at least four times???

Jeff Seiler said...

Hmm, Tony, did you see my cat?

Over in the corner?

Starinģ at you? He's REALLY good at hiding.

I think that, some day, if I pay him enough, Dave will draw a drawing of my cat.

And then, say bad things about me for the rest of my day.

Ger drew a drawing of my cat and nailed it.

My cat is in issue 299.

The Sphinx.

Yeah, he's a bad-ass.

The cat.

Not Ger.


Paul Slade said...

Don't beat yourself up, Tony. I owned that Swords volume for 35 years and read the story several times without ever noticing it either. It only jumped out at me ten days ago when I was looking for an image to go with this post.