The Challenging Adventures of the Superfisters
At some point in the early 80s, cartoonist Chester Brown got it into his head that Japanese manga had a very casual attitude about feces. Not to be outdone by this probably-not-at-all-true tidbit, he produced "Ed the Happy Clown," an utterly disgusting story about a man with such powers of productivity that he was able to escape a prison cell by filling it until it burst. Collected and published by the affected Drawn and Quarterly, Ed's life seems to turn into a gross-out contest. Just when you think it can't get any worse (for example, waking up to discover the head of his penis replaced by the head of Ronald Reagan) it becomes far, far more horrifying (the Reagan-penis is smothered in the folds of a female rapist).
Attempting to read an issue is sort of like climbing Mount Everest -- several times, we nearly had to give up in exhaustion. If your stomach is strong and your attention span is short, you may feel an urge to struggle your way through the books simply as a test of your own constitution.
After the jump: Tron: the comic book; and all the riveting drama of chess.
We totally snoozed our way through "Checkmate," by someone named Rucka Saiz (or, who knows, maybe two different people with the last names "Rucka" and "Saiz" -- we hate it when comics are all vague and stylish about credits). The series posits a world order in which heros and villains have an elaborate hirarchy of counterpoints; yins and yangs, lights and darks, goods and bads, blah blah blah, pretty much the same thing that's formed the basis of narrative prose since cavepaintings were de rigueur. In issue 1, a group of somebodies try to take over a military base that belongs to someone else, which is located someplace. Meanwhile, at the UN, we're privy to high-stakes parliamentary procedures. Rrrrrrrrrrrrriveting.
We so wanted "Tron" to rock, but we're not won over yet. The book, published by the otherwise indie-gothish Slave Labor Graphics, seems to have abandoned the dorky, wide-eyed, earnest pulp of the movie; this new story is dark and eerie and, oh dear, seems to be having some trouble getting its engine started. It's strange, but somehow "Tron" manages to spend most of its time doing character-exposition without actually making it clear what anyone is doing.
As far as we can tell, Alan (the heir of the technology from the movie) has a strained relationship with his son, who hates technology; there's a corporate enemy out to destroy the company, and then Alan disappears and his son gets zapped into the computer. This would be an excellent time for the plot to actually start being interesting. We'll have to wait and see if episode 2 picks up the pace. In the mean time, check out the trailer for the book below.