Nomura Fashion School

Another street display case ad, this one for a fashion school. Now accepting applications to become an apparel adviser. Not sure how many clients want this kind of apparel, though...

Cortanu Poster

Cortanu is a thingie located in a building near where I work. Recently, I noticed a poster for them in the display cases along the main Tram street, apparently promoting an art class, or something.



Actually, the place is hard to describe. They're in a loft apartment building that houses an organic bakery and non-plastics clothing shop, but Cortanu itself is "A place for women", with an online shop selling shampoos and skin creams, but with a school that teaches PC and software classes. They seem a bit schizophrenic.

At Home

At Home is an apartment finder service. The two guys pictured on the outdoor banner here are generally treated as a pair of goof balls. But it turns out that they don't actually work alone.



Their car does a better job than they do.



And it looks better in the photos, too.

Cerebus the Aardvark - Melmoth

Melmoth was the poet/writer from Jaka's Story who presented to the reader Jaka's childhood, as related to him by Rick, Jaka's husband. He's loosely based on Oscar Wilde, although the events in this volume are lifted largely from correspondence between Oscar and his associates at the end of Oscar's life. Jaka's Story ended with Melmoth's arrest for writing fiction without an artistic license, and his subsequent imprisonment on a 2-year sentence. In this volume, Melmoth has been released from prison, but he looks 20 years older, and his health is fading fast, spurred on by his insistence on drinking too much. Most of the story concerning him is told by the people closest to him as they try to raise money to pay for his doctors.

At the same time, Cerebus is in shock. He arrives at the same town Melmoth is at, and he spends his days on the patio of a cafe, and his nights in a room he's paid for in the same building. He gave the owner a gold crown, which pretty much is more money than the guy has seen before in his life, so he decides to have the place remodeled. Cerebus had found Jaka's doll, and he's hugging it as if it were Jaka herself. In the end, a pair of Cirinist soldiers arrive at the cafe, and one brags about being the dungeon guard that had been in charge of Jaka while she was a prisoner there. When she laughs about ripping some of Jaka's hair off, Cerebus kills her in a rage, then is forced to flee as every other Cirinist in the city gets alerted and runs out to cut him down.

If you're familiar with the life of Oscar Wilde (who had taken the pseudonym Melmoth at one point), then you'll either love or hate this book (either because you agree with Dave Sim's interpretation of events, or want to argue them loudly). If you're a Cerebus fan, you may be disappointed that Cerebus is still not the central character again. Still, it's a great book, the story flows fast, and the artwork is fantastic. Highly recommended.

Cerebus the Aardvark - Jaka's Story

I received both this phonebook, and Melmoth, for Christmas. Actually, they arrived in separate boxes and out of sequence, so I accidentally ended up reading Melmoth first. But, I just want to record a couple impressions in volume order, so here we are.

Being in Japan, it's not really that easy to read the Cerebus collections, so I wait 6-12 months to make a request from family for one or two books at a time. This means that it's been more than a year since I read Church & State II. One thing that's interesting about comics, compared to books, movies or TV shows, is that if they're drawn well and have highly developed characters, when you pick up the next comic book after an extended period, it's like getting back together with an old friend. You know that they're waiting for you, and when you're finally ready for them, they start the conversation up right where they left off.

If you haven't read it, Jaka's Story is kind of a multi-threaded tapestry that revolves around the title character, Jaka, the dancer that Cerebus fell in love with. After surviving the destruction of the Black Tower in C&SII, Cerebus locates the tavern that Jaka and her husband, Rick, are living at. The main backdrop is the matriarchy that currently controls the country following the destruction of Cerebus' army, and they've imposed martial law and banned most forms of entertainment sans an artistic license. Men are terrified of being punished if they attract the wrath of the Cirinists, and try to avoid any form of silliness. On the one hand, we then have Cerebus moving in with Jaka and Rick under the name "Fred" to keep the Cirinists from suspecting that he is the former Tarimist pope, and he's hoping that Jaka will take him back. Therefore, Rick is jealous of the attention Fred is getting from Jaka. On the other, Jaka is disgusted with both Rick and Cerebus because she's the only one with a job, as a dancer at the inn, and she's still doing all the cooking and housework. But, while she is dancing, there are no customers coming in because of the ban by the Cirinists. The inn owner, Pud, has been giving treats and almost-free rent to Jaka, but he's been getting impure thoughts and is thinking about forcing himself on her.

Mix in with all this, Melmoth. Melmoth is a poet/writer loosely based on Oscar Wilde, and he has his eyes on Rick. Rick, meanwhile, has been telling Melmoth all about Jaka's childhood, which Melmoth is writing up and preparing for publication as a "read." Cerebus ends up heading out of the inn to go down to the city below the tower on a shopping errand, and when he gets back, Pud is dead, and Rick, Jaka and Melmoth are all missing.

The entire story is hilarious and sad in turns, and the ending is a shocker. It's a very fast read, even though it's a couple hundred pages long. There is additional history for Lord Julius and Astoria as well, but we're left hanging regarding Cerebus and Astoria's past lives as mentioned in C&S II. The "Jaka's Story" part of Jaka's Story is Melmoth's take on what Rick tells him about her growing up in Lord Julius' mansion as one of his nieces. It's a great book and highly recommended.

Airbuggy for Dog

For when your darling little pocket rat outgrows your purse.

Hungry, hungry art project

Want to hear a great yarn?