Melmoth (comics)

Melmoth
Cover to the Melmoth collection (Aardvark-Vanaheim, 1991)
Publisher	Aardvark-Vanaheim
Number of issues	11
Series	Cerebus
Creative team
Creator(s)	Dave Sim Gerhard
Original publication
Published in	Cerebus
Issue(s)	Cerebus #139 – 150
Language	English
ISBN	0-919359-10-8
Chronology
Preceded by	Jaka's Story
Followed by	Mothers & Daughters

Cerebus novels
Phonebooks · Characters
Cerebus
High Society
Church & State
Jaka's Story
Melmoth
Mothers & Daughters
Guys
Rick's Story
Going Home
Latter Days
v · d · e

Melmoth is the fifth novel in Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim's Cerebus comic book series. It follows Oscar (a caricature of Oscar Wilde) in his last days leading up until his death, while Cerebus sits catatonic, clutching the doll of Jaka, the woman he loves but believes has been killed.

The novel was collected as the sixth paperback "phonebook" collection in the series in October 1991.

Synopsis

After Jaka, Rick and Oscar's arrest (and Pud's death), Cerebus returns to the Lowe City, where he uses a gold coin to buy room and board at Dino's for the rest of his life. There he sits near-comatose for most of the rest of the story, gripping Jaka's doll Missy.

Oscar has become ill...

Characters

Oscar

After being released from prison, Oscar assumes the name Sebastien Melmoth; however, he has become deathly ill and spends his remaining days in a hotel, receiving visits from his doctor and close friends.

Cerebus

After seeing the destruction of Jaka's home, he has become near-Catatonic. He uses the gold coin he found to pay for room and board at Dino's for the rest of his life, where he sits quietly and vacantly with Jaka's doll, Molly.

Dino

The owner of the café where Cerebus has chosen to spend the rest of his life.

Doris

Janice

Reggie

Close friend of Oscar's.

Robbie Ross

Close friend of Oscar's.

Dr. Tucker

Oscar's doctor.

There were also brief appearances by numerous characters from the series, including the Roach, Mick & Keef, Posey and others.

Artwork

At this point, according to Gerhard, Sim and Gerhard had "an unspoken understanding" when it came the backgrounds — Sim would occasionally make suggestions (such as the white fog that surrounded Cerebus at times to reflect his emotional state), but for the most part Gerhard was left to decide on how to handle the backgrounds himself. The building designs were based on what Gerhard could find in library architecture books. He couldn't find anything specific about the doctor's office or Oscar's final resting place, aside from Oscar's "famous last line" indicating that the "wallpaper had to be really ugly." He drew inspiration from Barry Windsor Smith for the series covers.^[1]

Publication

The story was originally serialized in Cerebus #139-150. The issues were further numbered Melmoth Zero (Cerebus #139, October 1990) through Melmoth Eleven (Cerebus #150, September 1991), although this numbering is not acknowledged in the collection.

The collection appeared in October 1991. It included an 11-page text section with reproductions of letters from The Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde that Sim used as the basis for the Wilde portions of the story, showing the changes he made to make them fit into the fictional world of Estarcion, plus annotations.

Sim's sources

• Hart-Davis, Rupert. Collected Letters of Oscar Wilde. (1962)^[2]

Notes

1. ^ Robinson, page 2-1
2. ^ Sim, Melmoth, page 249

References

• Sim, Dave; Gerhard. Melmoth. Aardvark-Vanaheim, October 1991. 258 pages. ISBN 0-919359-09-4
• Robinson, Sean Michael. "The Craft Behind Cerebus: An Interview with Gerhard", part 1-1 1-2 1-3 2-1 2-2 2-3 3-1 3-2 3-3. The Comics Journal, 2011-02-14. Retrieved 2011-04-21 — A lengthy interview on the technical aspects of Gerhard's work on Cerebus
• Cerebus Fangirl
• Cerebus Wiki, set up by Cerebus Fangirl

Further reading

• Melmoth page at Cerebus Wiki
• “Six… I have no wordplay for six…” Cerebus: Volume Six – Melmoth, a review of Melmoth.