Jaka's Story is the fourth major storyline in Canadian cartoonist Dave Sim's Cerebus comics series.

Originally published in Cerebus #114-136, the storyline continues in the wake of the events of "Church and State" and the conquest of the city of Iest by the fascist matriarchal Cirinists.

The book flashes back and forth between Jaka's lonely, aristocratic childhood up to her twelfth birthday, and the "present" time of the main Cerebus storyline.

The "present" sections are told in comics form while the "past" portions are told in flowery prose sections, which the reader finds out later are written by Oscar (and are in Sim's imitation of Wilde's writing style), unknown to Jaka and based on what Oscar has heard from Rick.

The story alternates between "the present" in regular comics pages (mostly done in a six-panel grid) and "the past" in illustrated text passages.

[1] It tells the tale of Jaka's childhood and aristocratic origins[2] as she is brought up in her uncle Lord Julius' household with an overbearing Nurse, as interpreted by Oscar from stories he has heard from Rick.

[3] The story is told with a limited number of people and locations, creating a confined, claustrophobic feeling.

(Cerebus #114) Jaka goes about her morning, waking her husband Rick and preparing the bath and his breakfast, and irritatedly prodding him to go find work in the Lower City.

She also seem unaware of Pud's lusting for her—he plays out fantasy conversations with her in his mind[8]—or the fact that he's ruining himself financially over her.

[10] During the text sections, we follow Jaka's lonely childhood, as she hits her head on Magic and is left bedridden; and as she finds a hidden room in the house.

Rick accidentally lets Oscar know of their houseguest, before quickly remembering that Cerebus had been the Pope and was in hiding.

Pud makes no effort to disguise his dislike; however, as landlord, must allow him to stay, as his dead mother had given Oscar a 90-year lease on his house.

In the prison, she finds out that her neighbour in the next cell is Nurse, who is to be executed for lacking the proper immigration papers.

As this was the first Cerebus "novel" that Gerhard participated in from the beginning, he had the luxury of being able to plan out the rooms of the houses ahead of time.

[20] Of particular interest is Sim's award-winning, expressive use of lettering and speech balloons, especially the exaggerated rhythms and intonation used for Mrs. Thatcher's dialogue.

Sim had briefly toyed with the idea of publishing expensive, high-quality, oversized editions of Jaka's Story,[21] but soon decided against it for being too greedy.

[22] The first printing, October 1990, was limited to 435 signed (by both Dave Sim and Gerhard) and numbered copies (hand written on inside title page), ISBN 0-919359-12-4.