1. Cerebus vs. Howard the Duck
Cerebus is an aardvark that started life as a parody of
Conan the Barbarian before morphing into a soapbox for the (sometimes controversial) views of his creator, Dave Sim. Cerebus is a hermaphrodite (but identifies as a male), and is a self-loathing, borderline alcoholic renegade warrior. He also refers to himself consistently in the third person - if you loved Gollum, you're gonna love Cerebus! Howard the Duck, meanwhile, is a neurotic, chain-smoking, anthopormorphised duck that came to earth from his home planet of Duckworld - or, if you go with the theory espoused by Howard's author Steve Gerber Howard simply comes from a planet where there are 'more ducks and apes don't talk' - and has since been reluctantly dragged into odd adventures with his companions Beverly, Winda and Paul. Like Cerebus, he is a cynical grouch, and a fighter, well-versed in the ways of 'Quack Fu'. In the earlier comics he was, uh, 'bereft of trousers', however once Disney's lawyers sent a couple of strongly worded memos, he promptly pulled on pants.
Who Wins: ... I'm going to give this round to Howard the Duck. And this is why. Both Howard and Cerebus have much in common. They're antiheroes that star in pioneering alternative works that not only get meta with the form of comics, but also tackle larger political and social issues. They proved that the 'funny animals' genre could not only be conventionally humorous but also blistering satire, and sometimes uncomfortably weird. They often converse with, or reference, historical figures and pop culture characters. But both of them come with baggage, which is evident in the way that their characters evolve. Howard the Duck always tries to return to his original template, because of the efforts of his creator, Steve Gerber, to have the sole creative rights over his character. But if Howard the Duck is a cautionary tale on how a creator can have his vision warped, (ugh,
that movie), then Cerebus is an even more cautionary tale in how a creator can become obsessed with his own creation. David Sim has published next to nothing other than
Cerebus. Even though he is a champion for creative control and copyright over comics characters, he has pushed has other views too far in some instances, alienating his friends, family, and often his female fans. After the narrative ark of
Jaka's Story in
Cerebus, which was sensitive to gender roles, Sim later wrote a misogynistic - oh, sorry, 'anti-feminist' - treatise in
Tangent, which stemmed from his controversial views in
Void. The character of 'New Joanne', who advocates such things such as bestiality and pederasty on behalf of the 'feminist-homosexual' agenda in
The Last Day, is probably the most damning display of his negative view of women and LGBT people. Sim also invented his own religion, a mish-mash of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and refused to collaborate with anyone but fellow illustrator Gerhard on
Cerebus. The guy clearly has issues, and Cerebus, both the character and the comic, suffers as a result of it. On the other side of the spectrum, Steve Gerber battled with Marvel for years over who had the rights to Howard. Was it the writer, Gerber? The illustrator, Val Mayerik? Or was it the company, Marvel? Anyway, in 1978 Gerber was dropped from the series, which caused a lot of backlash from those in the industry, in particular Jack Kirby, who'd received similar treatment. Gerber eventually returned in 2006 for a six-issue miniseries on Howard the Duck, but in the years inbetween, Howard's teeth (bill?) had been dulled. Duckworld was a saccharine version of what Gerber had imagined, and Gerber eventually 'rescued' Howard and renamed him 'Leonard', having him appear in Image and Vertigo comics. But, in his absence,
that movie had happened, and Howard the Duck was tarnished. This was a waterfowl that had once ran for President of the United States as part of the 'Get Down, America!' party, people. Harvey Pekar was asked to write for the series. And hey, as a fellow cigar afficiando, I say we give this duck his day.