History ComicBook / CerebusTheAardvark

** Elrod is a parody of both [[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric]] and WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn. It's unclear whether Sim actually likes Elric, but he considers the Foghorn cartoons to be some of the very best ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' shorts.

** Cirinist society actually enables this trope; unmarried men tend to be sequestered in bars because the state provides free room and board for them and all the alcohol they can handle. The thought process is that they will either get tired of that lifestyle, shape up, and leave to find a wife, or eventually drink themselves to death. ''Guys'' is set in a bar and deals with this concept in multiple fashions.

* ArtEvolution: Sim's artwork and character designs showed drastic improvement over the course of the first hundred issues or so, especially after Gerhard took over backgrounds, freeing Sim to focus on the characters. The art also took another leap when Sim began experimenting with photorealism in the later issues of the "Chasing YHWH" arc. He carried this technique into his later works ''glamourpuss''[[note]]a combined parody of women's magazines and history of photorealism in comics[[/note]] and ''Judenhass''[[note]]a story about historical anti-Semitism which featured disturbingly realistic renditions of WWII-era photographs[[/note]].

** Becomes most troubling with "Chasing YHWH", which is basically Sim filtering his religious beliefs through Cerebus's exegisis on the Torah. This culminates in the opening pages of ''The Last Day'', which is a combination of the Big Bang theory and Sim's unconventional views on the God/YHWH problem.

** As part of his fanboying over being around Ham Ernestway, Cerbus has Jaka cut his hair into a flattop mimicing Ham's hairstyle, but Ham doesn't even notice.

* {{Fingore}}: [[spoiler:Rick's]] left thumb is broken (off-panel, albeit very loudly) at the end of ''Jaka's Story'' as punishment for [[spoiler:striking Jaka]].

* ForWantOfANail: "Dave" reveals to Cerebus in ''Minds'' that [[spoiler:the entire series, except for the first issue or so, has been a chaotic, fractured version of what should have been Cerebus' real destiny--bring the Pigt altar to life with the aardvark artifacts (his helmet, medallions, and sword) and lead the Pigts to conquer the world--because he didn't have all three of them at the time]].

* MassOhCrap: In ''Church & State'', at one point, a bunch of his followers are cheering him as he walks into his HQ. Cerebus interrupts them with, "ANYONE WHO ''MOVES'' BEFORE MOST HOLY COMES BACK OUT WILL SPEND ''ETERNITY'' SIPPING LAVA THROUGH AN IRON STRAW!" The next panel is a hundred frozen followers, and a hundred separate "Oh crap" thought bubbles.

* MoodWhiplash: The first two or so years were a spoof of Conan, and then things get serious and by the end has become an AuthorTract. Considering the fact the entire run (save for a couple of standalone issues) are widely available in collected graphic novels, to experience this trope read the first volume and then immediately skip to either ''Church & State'' or any of the post-''Women'' collections.

* MythArc

** ''Cerebus'' started off as a parody comic and never really left its roots in this regard. ''Many'' celebrities were parodied, including [[Creator/MarxBrothers Groucho and Chico Marx]]; Creator/OscarWilde (twice!); Creator/WoodyAllen; [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand Mick Jagger & Keith Richards]]; UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher; Creator/FScottFitzgerald; Creator/ErnestHemingway; and Film/TheThreeStooges. Even famous fictional characters were parodied; for instance, Elrod is a combination of [[Literature/TheElricSaga Elric of Melnibone]] and WesternAnimation/FoghornLeghorn while the [=McGrew=] brothers are parodies of WesternAnimation/YosemiteSam and the Roach parodies ''several'' very popular comic book superheroes over the course of his appearances.

* UsefulNotes/BeerCommercials: Parodied throughout ''Guys''. In several issues, the opening page is nothing but a shot of a bottle of booze produced in Palnu, with increasingly silly labels as the arc progresses. Sim mentioned at one point that he was amused by the thought that, with their political power nullified by the Cirinists, Julius and Baskin would have converted Palnu into one giant distillery to feed the Cirinists' bars-for-single-men movement.

* ChessMotifs: Scattered throughout the first half of ''Mothers and Daughters''. The most explicit is the final mental meeting between Suenteus Po and Cerebus, where they play chess in a kind of trippy astral experience and each piece and its move are compared to a character in the story and how being around Cerebus affected them. The symbolism of this extends past the actual "game", as Suenteus Po realizes that he made a mistake in the game, revealed by Sim to be Cerebus' "magnifier" at work.

* SmallNameBigEgo: Elrod

* SmokingIsCool

* SocialDarwinist: Red Sophia
* SomethingThatBeginsWithBoring: Julius tries this, but Cerebus has no patience for it.

* TheStoic: Po and Michelle

* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Cerebus' love of raw potatoes comes up several times; he even yells at someone to "[...] leave the skin on! That's the best part! *CRUNCH*"

* WeirdnessMagnet: A side effect of Cerebus' "magnifier" ability is that he seemingly can't get away from weird people and circumstance. Eventually, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the chaos in his destiny caused by not having all the aardvark artifacts has a lot to do with this as well]].

* HappyEnding: Near the end of ''Rick's Story'', Jaka shows up at the bar out of the blue. She and Cerebus joyfully reunite, and eventually leave the bar. By the end of ''Form and Void'', this is completely subverted.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Played with:
** Weisshaupt cons Cerebus into getting married to Red Sophia for a large part of ''Church and State''. Cerebus isn't happy about it, partly because of the circumstances and partly because his sense of honor and desire to do the right thing by Sophia is grating against his anger over the manipulation, although it does teach him to enjoy sex.
** In the last "living with Jaka" scenario in ''Minds'', Cerebus cheats on Jaka with the red-headed Joanne, which leads to [[spoiler:Jaka committing suicide]].
** In ''Guys'', after Joanne shows up for real, she and Cerebus have a brief relationship that ends badly. She then starts putting the moves on [[spoiler:Rick]], partly to screw with Cerebus.

--->'''Elrod (as Snuff):''' Yo' diddlin' yo'self under there agin, aren't you, son?\\

* BoobsOfSteel: The Cirinist fighters are very big and very strong. The proportions match up. Interestingly, they're not drawn as {{Amazonian Beaut|y}}ies; they're too straight-up scary for that.

* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: How Cerebus makes the Artist understand that Sumpthing and Woman-Thing are not fighting each other, but are actually...well, you know.

* ShipTease: Cerebus and Michelle, followed by a very abrupt [[spoiler:ShipSinking]].

** ''The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark'', a CGI feature-length CGI movie, was released in 2021. It was done over a period of 14 years on pretty much no budget, and... [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onIqBfEaajs not to but it too bluntly, it shows]].

** Rick was deliberately written to be one in ''Jaka's Story.'' He's a bit of a deadbeat who can be InnocentlyInsensitive and [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]] (and when he appears again in ''Guys'' he's notably TookALevelInJerkass, though it's debatable how much that was intentional on Sim's part) -- but in the world of ''Cerebus'', where ''everyone'' is either a corrupt and self-centered {{Jerkass}} or a delusional idiot, he does stand out as a remarkably nice person. Enforced by Sim's idea that it would make the LoveTriangle more interesting if the guy who stood between Jaka and Cerebus was really likable himself. As he stated in the intro in the ''Jaka's Story'' phonebook, Rick is "the nearest I will ever come to the portrayal of a good and thoroughly decent human being; completely without guile or malice."

** Rick. He's a bit of a deadbeat who can be InnocentlyInsensitive and [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centered]], but in the world of ''Cerebus'' he does stand out as a remarkably nice person. Enforced by Sim's idea that it would make the LoveTriangle more interesting if the guy who stood between Jaka and Cerebus was really likable himself. As he stated in the intro in the ''Jaka's Story'' phonebook, Rick is "the nearest I will ever come to the portrayal of a good and thoroughly decent human being; completely without guile or malice."

* VillainProtagonist: In some storylines,Cerebus slides from AntiHero right into this trope. He ''definitely'' does in ''Church and State'' after being made Pope. Realizing that he has the power to do anything he wants and none of the people who pulled his strings before can stop him anymore, he loses almost all of his sympathetic qualities and does more and more despicable things. His long-term plans involve demanding ''all'' the gold from ''everyone'' so he can raise an army and conquer the known world, and he even drawis up plans for recruiting children as young as eight into the army, but even beyond that he commits a ''lot'' of minor atrocities for no other reason than that he just felt like [[KickTheDog Kicking the Dog]]. Among his worst deeds are [[spoiler:killing a baby by throwing it off a staircase, thanking an old man who gave all his gold by kicking him off a tall rooftop and letting him fall to his death, and raping Astoria while she's in chains]].

* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Cirin

Currently, [[AnimatedAdaptation an animated feature film]] is in the works. It will be an adaptation of the earlier issues, apparently with Sim's full blessing. If this has gotten your interest, the production company uploads the daily footage (also known as "dailies") to their Website/YouTube channel [[https://www.youtube.com/user/WhatComics here]].

** A [[http://www.cerebus3d.com feature-length movie]], still in development.

Behind the scenes, Sim experimented with LSD and drove himself beyond exhaustion creating and publishing his comic book. Overwork caused Sim to have a CreatorBreakdown, and he even spent a day in a mental institution.

** Death from ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' appears in a [[LawyerFriendlyCameo single panel]] in the opening pages of ''Flight''.

* MasturbationMeansSexualFrustration: The ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]]'' parody in ''Women'' is kicked off by the Roach having his heart broken, which causes him to turn into Swoon. As Swoon, he spouts meta commentary, stands around looking moody and feeling sorry for himself, and masturbates under his robe. Cirin takes him to task about it when she finally runs into him and notices how crusty the end of his mask's snout is.

** ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' gets two prominent nods:

* CaptainErsatz: The Cockroach parodies many comic book characters, including ComicBook/CaptainAmerica, Franchise/{{Batman}} (both [[Franchise/{{Batman}} his original iteration]] and Creator/FrankMiller's take in ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns''), ComicBook/MoonKnight, ComicBook/{{Wolverine}}, Comicbook/{{Venom}}, and ComicBook/TheSandman.

* ADateWithRosiePalms:
** The ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman Sandman]]'' parody in ''Women'' is kicked off by the Roach having his heart broken, which causes him to turn into Swoon. As Swoon, he spouts meta commentary, stands around looking moody and feeling sorry for himself, and masturbates under his robe. Cirin takes him to task about it when she finally runs into him and notices how crusty the end of his mask's snout is.
--->'''Elrod (as Snuff):''' Yo' diddlin' yo'self under there agin, aren't you, son?\\
'''Swoon:''' It...comforts me.
** In one of the early ''Latter Days'' stories, while Cerebus worked for Gurzky as a shepherd, he spent a lot of time in the bushes watching Gurzky's wife while she bathed.
** Used by "Dave" in one of the "living with Jaka" scenarios in ''Minds'' to make a graphic point to Cerebus about his controlling nature. In this scenario, Cerebus expects a roll in the hay with Jaka every night when he's ready for bed, and gets angry if she's too dry, so she...prepares herself. It's at the point where it's not even for pleasure, but a rote task.

* DestructiveRomance: The "living with Jaka" scenario in ''Minds'' mentioned under ADateWithRosiePalms above. As "Dave" explains, Cerebus and Jaka are married, but Cerebus is completely controlling of and callous toward Jaka, and nothing she does is right with him. Cerebus, inside the scenario but talking with "Dave" in his head, is shocked at how miserable Jaka looks, and "Dave" notes that she is planning on leaving him the instant an opportunity shows up.

* MushroomSamba: Mick gives Cerebus a codeine-laced drink.

* MushroomSamba: Mick gives Cerebus a codeine-laced drink. HilarityEnsues.

* RebusBubble: In one of the specials, Cerebus introduced an apprentice to the world of alcoholism. After he gets the boy drunk, the boy starts bashing his master (using speech bubbles with a picture of the master in a clown costume), and, after the master finds out, [[HilarityEnsues murder ensues]].

** Parmoorians have a well-deserved reputation for long-windedness. "Cerebus usually passes the time counting adverbs."

** In one of the early ''Latter Days'' stories, while Cerebus worked for Gorsky as a shepherd, he spent a lot of time in the bushes watching Gorsky's wife while she bathed.

*** In one issue during ''Latter Days'', Cerebus says that Mr. Gurtzky had a lot of "reads" and let Cerebus borrow them whenever he wanted, including a 75-issue read called ''Morpheus'', which is both the name used by the comic's incarnation of Dream and how long ''The Sandman'' ran.

** The ending of issue #200, featuring [[spoiler: "Dave" looking at a drawing-board containing the previous page of the comic and saying "Whatta maroon!", with an inserted picture of Cerebus with buck teeth and a carrot in the background]], is a clear reference to the classic ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short ''WesternAnimation/DuckAmuck''.

* SickeningCrunch: The reader is treated to the text equivalents when [[spoiler:Rick's thumb is broken]] at the end of ''Jaka's Story'' and when [[spoiler:Cerebus' neck breaks]] in issue #300.

* {{Stripperific}}: All but one of Jaka's dancing costumes (at least, the ones that are depicted).