A glimmer of hope

It has been all over the assorted news outlets today - from BoingBoing to Slashdot and most mainstream as well;

Astronomers Find First Earth-like Planet in Habitable Zone

and the official release is interesting reading as well; "On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X." So dig out those space pirates, and let us start dreaming of life above and beyond again, taking our minds off the despair and torment we put our own planet and lifeforms through - and start dreaming of heading for the stars, to go to the next step before we are forced to

"The host star, Gliese 581, is among the 100 closest stars to us, located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ("the Scales")." - somehow that is a bit ironic, that right where the ancients decided to call it balanced, the Universe might have seen fit to deposit a similar enough planet (in terms of temperature, gravitational pull and water) that life might just be feasible. Not to hot, not to big, just about right

(image from the press materials from ESO)
...and the sun suddenly looks a bit different - maybe not one in a million, but at least possibly not SO unique...

Cerebus - last thoughts

It is done
The last page of the last book, turned over
Just about 300 issues covering 6000 pages (not counting the notes and essays/ rants) - collected in 16 rather massive trades

Yes, I have finished reading The Last Day - volume 16 of the Cerebus books, issues 289-300


From a rather fun and care-free Conan style character - to an old shade wasting away inside a system that he himself started but never controlled. For along the way Cerebus has held many positions and wielded power - but more often than not the dog has wagged the tail, with C falling prey to the system and those that adapt within it.

And the books changed from pure comics to illustrated manuscripts with extensive essays in the back giving the reasoning and setting for the subjects (be they Big Papa or the Creation) - with Sim partially gushing forth his ideas and partially poking "fun" at himself .

Had I know when I started how the later part of the story arch and books turned out, I'm not so sure I would have given it a shot. For, just like Bone (in my opinion at least) turned a bit from the original path - and in part became better for it and in part became something else, so Cerebus is a journey, a path and a life. I'm just not sure if it is a trip worth taking.

Sim started in 1977 and finished just before xmas of 2003 - so 26 years in total. So perhaps it should have been read over that same period, rather than starting in 2002-3 and reading it in huge chunks until today - with the feelings and events of the age adding more sense and context than the view from Europe in post-Iraq times.

Religion and Sims conversion / awakening / revelation plays a big part in the later books - with the duality of male-female, God and Spirit casting a different light on the old stories and even cosmology. His mixture of the assorted prophets puts me in mind of the Bahai - making a step forward into a modern age but keeping the spirituality. Perhaps the story had turned out a bit more readable and less rambling if he had found a pre-packaged religion like that, rather than try to make all the pieces himself.

Was it worth it? A marginal yes - somewhere down the road the ideas might inspire additional insight, and the various author-profiles were interesting in their own strange way. For now it is back to Megatokyo in terms of comics


On a short side note - for the BSG fans and Lucas'es in spee - SciFi is holding a contest to make your own fan video and they are providing a good set of sounds and clips to play with. Get downloading and then head over to Strager Things to be inspired to even greater efforts!

...and on April 24th 2007 the sparrow finished his work of reading Cerebus ...