trochee

I can't believe I didn't think of this last night.

beegirl, originally, asked me if I had Cerebus, and I said I didn't, and that Dave Sim scares me because he is a misogynist schizophrenic, who thinks that women are "five-to-six-foot tall leeches".

beegirl got a bit turned off by that (no surprise) and asked me for other recommendations; hence that post.

But I don't know why I didn't think of the best response to Cerebus: Bone. Fantasy-based, with an anthropomorphic (but non-human) main character. Strong male and female characters, with the flexibility and whimsy of the old Scrooge Duck comics, and a sense of full-on fantasy world-building (starting with small adventures, and leading up into world-shaking heroism (dragons! fleets of locusts! raging hordes of monsters!) that evokes the Lord of the Rings.

If you were looking for Cerebus, based on its reputation as a smart fantasy-based comic, but got turned off by Dave Sim losing his mind, then Jeff Smith's Bone ought to be just what you're looking for.

(and, as an update to the previous post on Johanna Carlson's writing: she has an excellent post pointing out issues with masculinity and male privilege in fandom, and points to

cereta's thought-provoking post on the subject.)