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Rating: 
Summary: Uneven, interesting graphic novel
Review: After exploring politics and religion in the previous three volumes of the Cerebus series, Dave Sim wrote and illustrated this personal story. It's all about Jaka, Cerebus's true love, and the men around her. Cerebus is there along with Jaka's husband Rick, Oscar Wilde, and Pud the tavern owner.Two stories play out simultaneously. The first is written in chunks of prose with single illustrations, similar to a children's book. But the text is not childish at all --- it's Oscar Wilde's fanciful description of Jaka's life. Dave Sim put a lot of effort into recreating Wilde's style, which is admirable but difficult to wade through. The illustrations are beautiful, but the text is so overwritten, you can skip to every fifth sentence and still get the meaning. (There are at least two pages devoted to holding a doorknob and preparing to open it. Reading those pages will put you to sleep fast.) The other story is presented in the standard comic book style, with cartoons and word balloons. Dave Sim's right-hand man, Gerhard, drew the backgrounds. He's a brilliant illustrator who combines the accuracy of a photograph with the simple effect of an animation cel. Some of the exteriors of buildings, mountain roads, and front porches are better than Sim's cartoon people. This part of the story moves along slowly but deliberately, letting you get to know the characters and their daily routine. Then, about halfway in, something happens that changes the pace and tone. I won't spoil it for you, but the second part refers to the first, putting it under a microscope. The tone shifts from the dull ache of ordinary life to real danger. It's an impressive bit of storytelling, flipping the mood upside down without losing the plot. It's not easy to recommend this graphic novel to non-comic-book readers, simply because Dave Sim has hobbled his good ideas by setting the story in a fake post-Medieval world with a talking aardvark as the main character. Cerebus will distract non-comic-book readers. On the one hand, you have a story about real people and their relationships. On the other hand, there's an aardvark in love with Jaka and no one acts like that's weird or out of place. If you treat it like a joke, that undermines the seriousness of the story. Sim tries to have it both ways, but it doesn't work. Comic book readers, on the other hand, will see Jaka's Story as a step up from the traditional superhero and fantasy stuff. Yes, it has a talking aardvark, but at least there are no supervillains of evil wizards. If you're going to get into Cerebus and you want to start with the early books, try Jaka's Story. Then go back and read High Society and the Church & State volumes.
Rating: 
Summary: .
Review: After the disappointing and self-important 2nd half of Church & State, Jaka's Story is like a refreshing breeze in the Cerebus storyline. The incorporation of significant chunks of plain text first makes its appearance here; but at least it is, content-wise, addressing things relevant to the Cerebus storyline (as opposed to say, Reads.) I enjoy Sim's art more than his writing, but the balance here is fairly nice, and most importantly, it is a *focused* & coherent volume of the work. It's tonality is more serious than that of earlier Cerebus volumes, and this is a bit awkward at some points, but overall Sim pulls it off reasonably well. The slow pacing helps generate the appropriate atmosphere and immerses us in this particular leg of the story -- allows us to really settle in. Not my favorite Cerebus book, but a pretty good one. Pud was a particularly interesting character.
Rating: 
Summary: read the first ones
Review: I first started reading Cerebus over 20 years ago, carefully collecting the older editions from a used comic store. Jaka's Story, like the later Cerebus stories, moves away from the spof of major comic books, but tells a story in its own right. Giving the history of the world of Cerebus along with many realistic characters, Jaka's story is well worth reading. Though you do have to read the first ones to understand Jaka, who pops up every now and then in the stories before.
Rating:
Summary: read the first ones
Review: I first started reading Cerebus over 20 years ago, carefully collecting the older editions from a used comic store. Jaka's Story, like the later Cerebus stories, moves away from the spof of major comic books, but tells a story in its own right. Giving the history of the world of Cerebus along with many realistic characters, Jaka's story is well worth reading. Though you do have to read the first ones to understand Jaka, who pops up every now and then in the stories before.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the best
Review: It's just a comic book... ...isn't it? And yet so many words can be applied to it. Let me see... Emotionally rich? Sounds like potting soil... Touching? Not quite... Genius? Too weak... For "just a comic book," this is an absolutely breathtaking piece of literature. To call it a treasure would be like calling winter in Antarctica "a little chilly." This is a book absolutely overflowing with all the things that make a book really worth reading: fascinating characters, lyrical prose, a setting as detailed as any reasonably possible (and interesting to boot: it's several miles above ground level). Best of all, it's a *comic book.* There are some things you just can't say with words. You need an entire page filled with frame after frame of a shadowed shape just barely recognizable as a prison door before you can get the full effect of a broken voice choking out a lullaby from its roach-infested depths. On a more technical note, the literary references to Oscar Wilde are enjoyable and, as far as a dedicated fan of Wilde's work can tell, accurate. Pud Withers alone is a reason to read the book: a character worthy of a place among Literature's most introspective and developed characters. His constantly rephrased fantasy conversations are a fascinating study of how innocent desires evolve into violent lust. As for Cerebus, his most important role in the book is playing a game of toss-the-ball-into-the-waste-bucket. The rest of the time he spends pretending to be asleep or gone completely "fetching paint for Oscar." This neither makes the book better nor worse. Cerebus's absence has no effect on the quality, but his presence would not have effected it either. Though he is the main character of the series, this IS Jaka's Story.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the best
Review: It's just a comic book... ...isn't it? And yet so many words can be applied to it. Let me see... Emotionally rich? Sounds like potting soil... Touching? Not quite... Genius? Too weak... For "just a comic book," this is an absolutely breathtaking piece of literature. To call it a treasure would be like calling winter in Antarctica "a little chilly." This is a book absolutely overflowing with all the things that make a book really worth reading: fascinating characters, lyrical prose, a setting as detailed as any reasonably possible (and interesting to boot: it's several miles above ground level). Best of all, it's a *comic book.* There are some things you just can't say with words. You need an entire page filled with frame after frame of a shadowed shape just barely recognizable as a prison door before you can get the full effect of a broken voice choking out a lullaby from its roach-infested depths. On a more technical note, the literary references to Oscar Wilde are enjoyable and, as far as a dedicated fan of Wilde's work can tell, accurate. Pud Withers alone is a reason to read the book: a character worthy of a place among Literature's most introspective and developed characters. His constantly rephrased fantasy conversations are a fascinating study of how innocent desires evolve into violent lust. As for Cerebus, his most important role in the book is playing a game of toss-the-ball-into-the-waste-bucket. The rest of the time he spends pretending to be asleep or gone completely "fetching paint for Oscar." This neither makes the book better nor worse. Cerebus's absence has no effect on the quality, but his presence would not have effected it either. Though he is the main character of the series, this IS Jaka's Story.
Rating:
Summary: Alex Sydorenko
Review: Jaka's Story is a favorite of mine in the Cerebus Series. Its almost as good as Volume two (High Society). The artwork is stunning. The story is superb. Jaka, the dancer...alterego of Cerebus the barbarian...What a match, huh?--Alex Sydorenko, Oct 1999, Chicago
Rating:
Summary: Combination of story and art make this one of Sim's best
Review: While many people I'm sure enjoyed the huge storylines that both preceded and came after Jaka's Story, I think that this is probably the best that Dave Sim has ever written. Mind you, I loved Church and State, especially toward the middle and end when Gerhard's imput became more apparent, but the length of the storyline and the widely varying artwork due to sixty issues worth of practice made it a tad uneven at times.
Sim made the right choice in choosing to shuffle Cerebus off to the side for Jaka's Story and deciding to tell a story of real people facing everyday problems with only themselves and each other to rely on. Every piece of this story is a joy to behold, from the brilliant mixing of Sim's character drawing (he does great facial expressions and awesome dialects to boot), with Gerhard's backgrounds (how does he draw all those lines), to the text pieces that finally show Sim's ability to turn a phrase and not a little of his influence from Oscar Wilde.
The text pieces contrasting Jaka's rich life in Palnu to her current struggling dancing career are probably some of the best parts, for here we see Dave Sim's writing by itself, something we had only previously experienced in the introductions to the paperbacks.
Sim guides us through the story with a master's precision, making us care more and more about the characters, so when he finally drops the bombshell, it is quite a shock to the reader. The scenes in prison were unnerving and a little unsettling (makes one wonder when Sim ever spent time in jail). The end confrontation with Mrs. Thatcher, who is possibly the most unassumingly evil person I've ever seen, hits you like a punch in the gut for sheer emotional impact. After reading Jaka's Story, I didn't feel the least bit sorry for Mrs. Thatcher after watching what Cerebus did to her later in "Guys".
Sim has created a true classic that can be read by Cerebus fans and non-Cerebus fans, and even those who do not frequent the world of comics. It is a work on a literary scale that will be around for years to come
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