The Attentive Adventures of the Superfisters
Wait a minute, starf**ks! We're just reporting the news! Don't sue us like you did to local artist Kieron Dwyer when he produced the image at right for his comic book series Lowest Comic Denominator. Though we don't know much about the terms of your settlement with him, we do know that it wasn't terribly favorable to the artist, and includes such stipulations as that he's never allowed to design a circular logo ever again. The republic certainly can sleep safe tonight thanks to you.
Though we like to pall around with victims of corporate censorship, LCD occupies a genre you might wish to enjoy from arm's length -- lest you be sucked into the world created by Dwyer & friends. Every page involves a toilet, sagging genitals, puke and drool, and a wild-eyed, frantic groping for sex, booze, and cruelty. (Some perspective: a letter to the artist thanks him for creating work that's more daring than sanitized cartoons like South Park and Beavis & Butthead.) The filth is so numbing that you might miss some of the more clever sequences, such as when an aging hippie privately abuses himself to the pictures on a box of Kashi, or when a hoodlum kicks Santa Claus in the nuts, then watches in fear as Santa laughs, his nuts growing larger and larger until they explode with presents. A true balance of witty commentary and shocking depravity is only achieved a few times, and only for very brief moments; the rest of the comix skew heavily toward gleeful excess.
After the jump: other Jesus-related comic books.
The Christ makes only a brief appearance in LCD, but the hand of God is a bit more apparant in Testament, by Douglas Rushkoff and Liam Sharp. The story of Abraham's sacrifice of his son intertwines with a story about RFID tracking and government surveillance set in the near future, where the Biblical Isaac bears a strong resemblance to a nonchalant modern teen named Jake. Jake's scientist-father has been asked to inject his son with a microchip so that he may join the millions of other Americans whose every movement is tracked. It's for everyone's safety, the government assures the people, but Jake's friends don't believe it; they carve out their chips from their forearms and plan an uprising from their squalid Hidden Rebel Bases. (Why are HRBs always so dirty?)
Though only the first issue of Testament is out so far, it looks to be a smart, well-paced examination of modern surveillance issues -- very much in the news these days -- as well as more universal themes such as trust, faith, and the strength of our convictions. Science and authority seem to have been cast from the outset as villains, so it might not take an entirely balanced view of things; but the story is sound (suspenseful lines such as "they know nothing of the war that awaits them" keep us on the edge of our seat) and the characters all have deft tricks up their sleeve. The art is also quite keen, such as an utterly brilliant page that casts the hands of the devil simultaneously into an RFID machine and Abraham's offering, while the hands of God simultaneously stay Abraham's knife and inspire a temporary escape for Jake.
If that sounds too solemn for you, then how about some vampire zombies? Sea of Red by Rick Remender, Kieron Dwyer, and Salgood Sam, starts out in regular pirate-times (whenever that is) and then leaps to the near future, with a research submarine discovering an undead creature tied to a sunken masthead. Having only survived on live fish caught in his teeth for several hundred years, pirate-zombie Marco initially attacks the sub's crew, then calms and directs them to a lost island upon which treasure and peril may await. It's all told in a very deliberate style, with much more flourish and pontification than you might expect for such an adventure. As such, some segments lend themselves to rapid scanning as you try to find The Good Parts, such as issue five's swashbuckling 1500-year flashback to a zombie marauder seeking to quaff his thirst with the blood of Jesus. Neat!
There's a wry modesty to Rob Osborne's 1000 Steps to World Domination, the title notwithstanding. A cartoonist -- who is, we can assume, entirely autobiographically inspited -- seeks to dominate the world. Or if not that, at least wield some control over his own destiny. But both goals seem bafflingly unattainable, as demonstrated by the disbelief of his family ("I don't want something like that in the house," his wife says of his world-domination to-do list) and the vocalizations of his inner demons, represented by an ornery monkey, an adversarial tortoise and hare duo, the oblivious voice of God, and an advanced alien race that would prefer to conquer Earth, but can't because they've already committed to conducting individual rectal probes for the forseeable future. We'd like to think of this book as "a stream-of-consciousness meditation on artistic disempowerment" -- because it makes us sound really smart, so hopefully nobody will notice that we're worried that Rob's book went way over our heads.
Our favorite title this week is Wimbledon Green: The Greatest Comic Book Collector in the World," a sort of goofy Citizen-Kaneish remembrance of a fictional comic book collector, written by Seth Guelph (aka Gregory Gallant). Simultaneously a memoir, a whodunnit, and a mockumentary, WG draws us into a weird, solemn world of devoted comic collectors ("philosopher kings," as one of them refers to his crowd), all of whom hold a special reverence or hatred for the greatest collector in the world. Wimbledon the man is a no-nonsense wealthy connoiseur, but Wimbledon the legend is steeped in contradictory mystery and speculation, all of which is laid out in interviews alongside retellings of the man's adventures, complete with networks of spies, strange aircraft, hired goons, and a brief case of amnesia. As soon as we reached the end, we instantly wanted to read it again; it's a spiffy adventure, but also a reflection on what it's like to have a passion for something nerdy, and a wistful escape into a universe where everyone admires your preoccupation.