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The Treatable Adventures of the Superfisters
Once again, Isotope Comics has recommended us into an edgy, scary, fractured little mood. Last week it was the impending doom of Skyscrapers of the Midwest, and this week it's the personal calamity of Cuckoo, by Madison Clell, a soul-baring autobiography of illustrations about living with multiple personalities.
This isn't a comic book you can approach lightly; it's a graphic novel that requires you take a few deep breaths before diving in. Childhood awfulness led Madison to dissociate herself into a whole team of young people, any one of whom might pop out and assume control of her life at any moment. As she grows up, Madison find herself plagued by hallucinations, memory loss, panic attacks and flashbacks; she's lucky enough to have some wise and sypathetic figures in her life who lead her to recovery, and unlucky enough to have a few irresponsible types who inadvertantly steer her away.
All the elements of a Lifetime - Television - for - Women - Made - for - TV - Movie are there (that is, crazy broads and abusive relationships) ... but Cuckoo never turns maudlin or sappy. Madison depicts herself furiously mocking herself with comparions to Sybil and The Three Faces of Eve, and never adopts a "woe is me" tone. It's all very matter-of-fact and objective, a remarkable feat considering the struggle that life has put her through. Word on the street is that a local theater troupe is adapting the work into a stage play -- we'll keep you updated on that as we hear more.
After the jump: boy bands and space gods.
Tony Consiglio's 110 Per¢ has no sympathy whatsoever with your sheepish fandom. Oh, so you're crazy for N*sync, or Star Wars, or Disney, or Michael Jackson or Harry Potter slash or furotica? Well, get a life, loser. No, seriously, get a life, you're totally depressing and creeping everyone out.
The middle-aged ladies of 110 Per¢ all have something missing from their lives, but instead of growing up or patching up their relationships or confronting their fears, they're avoiding their problems by devoting all of their attention to a boy band. Not a very good one at that. The plot thickens when Gerty can only get two tickets to the concert and expects Cathy to lie so they can exlude Sasha. And Sasha's pissed-off huband makes the penultimate sacrifice for his wife; can she return the favor? And then Cathy discovers that the new album is going to be terrible -- have they been wasting their lives with this fandom? It's a question too terrible to even ask, since she doesn't think she has anything else in her life besides loving the band.
It can be hard to speak sternly to the crazies who obsess over the minutia of fictional worlds, whether it's hit points in D&D or the manufactured climate of a shopping mall or the constructed personae in a pop band. It just seems to make them so happy; why remind them that their lifestyle's taking the place of healthy human relationships? Well, because it's freaking CRAZY, that's why. That's the lesson in 110 Per¢: it's time for the women to grow up. Cathy's got to get over her shyness, Sasha's got to interpret her husband's surly form of affection, and Gerty ... well, maybe Gerty's ever-stretched relationship with her family is beyond hope.
The point is: your weird little fantasy world is freaking insane, and so are you, so stop being such a crazy psycho freak.
Let's combine some orgasmic keywords: neilgaiman ... jackkirby ... marveluniverse ... eternals ... oooooooooh. Pretty. Neil, along with artist John Romita Jr, are continuing a storyline about a race of space-faring superbeings who influenced the descent of man on Earth. Of course, it's totally awesome.
A reluctant everyman named Mark Curry is approached by a crazy-talking golden-eyed prophet named Ike Harris (just like in Gods & Monsters, say their names fast and they sound mythological). An evil race of monsters is vying for control of the planet, and it's up to a race of God-created superhumans to redeem the planet in the eyes of creator forces. We could gush eloquently about the archetypal myth elements at work here, and how masterfully Neil draws the hero in with irresistable mysteries (like, who are mysterious Russians, and why'd Ike survive a bomb blast, and why's he being spied on). But really, any babbling we do about the book is just wasting time that could be spent re-reading it. So we won't waste another word.