Cerebus the Aardvark No. 12 is an issue of Cerebus published by Aardvark-Vanaheim.
Stories[]
"Beduin by Night"[]
Two weeks after leaving behind Beduin and the Cockroach's secret horde of gold, Cerebus remains in Lower Felda, drinking ale and dreaming of the gold. He overhears some tavern patrons talking about the capture of the Cockroach and some gold found in a well. They don't mention the horde, so Cerebus heads back to Beduin to collect it.
Cerebus acquires a boat and returns to the home of the merchant (the Cockroach's other identity). When he gets there, he finds the gold missing, but he does find a tunnel. Following it, he finds both the gold and the Cockroach in his prison cell. To lull the Cockroach's suspicions (and avoid alerting the guards), he concocts a story about his parents being murdered (mirroring the Cockroach's own history) and how there is a plot by Elrod to steal the gold. The Cockroach, with a little prompting from Cerebus, decides to move the gold.
Once on the river, with some of the gold in the boat, they inevitably encounter Elrod. The Cockroach attacks him. The fight inevitably draws the attention of the prison guards. Cerebus, impatient to have the gold he has worked so hard to get, defeats the guards, knocks out the Cockroach, threatens Elrod, and pushes off.
He heads downstream, and as the sun rises, the boat collapses under the weight of the gold. Cerebus has to swim down the river on a piece of wood from the boat.
Characters[]
- Cerebus (last seen in Cerebus No. 11; next appearance in Magiking)
- Roach (First appearance, next appearance in Cerebus No. 12)
- Elrod (last seen in Cerebus No. 4, next appearance in Cerebus No. 21)
Locations[]
- The Beduin
Story Notes[]
- (page 3) Cerebus has a boat, but there is no explanation or justification for it beyond its necessity for the story.
- (pages 6, 9) Cerebus's fake story about how his parents died is a parody of Dick Grayson (the original Robin) in the Batman comic books.
- (page 11) The "cockroach sense" is a parody of Spider-Man's spider-sense. The clueless Cockroach doesn't realize he has one until it goes off (apparently for the first time in thirty years).
- (page 19) "Je suis non hable, pardonez-mes," spoken by Elrod, is French for "I don't understand, sorry." In later stories, the aristocracy uses a language that is represented in Cerebus as French.
- Cerebus loses his original sword in this issue. It will appear again in Cerebus No. 36.
- The gold makes another appearance in Cerebus No. 151.
- The silhouette of an aardvark (probably Cerebus) shaking his fists appears in the form of shadows on the water in the last two panels.
- In the last panel Cerebus thinks to himself, "It's been one hell of a lousy twenty-seventh birthday." This confirms that Bran Mac Mufin was correct when he told Cerebus (in Cerebus No. 5) that he (Cerebus) was twenty-six.
Publication Notes[]
- Reprinted in Cerebus Bi-weekly - May 5, 1989
- "Beduin by Night" is reprinted in Swords of Cerebus Volume Three and the Cerebus phonebook.