"See God's Truth In Loving Action!" COMICS! Sometimes Salmonella Should Be On A Certain Someone's Mind!

I don’t know what happened! I wrote about three whole comics in less than fifty billion words! It won’t happen again. My apologies. I don't know what I was thinking. I certainly wasn't thinking about this intro, which is why it's so weak. Rush politely past it and read on...  photo BLUBClubB_zpshx8bjzkj.jpg BLUBBER by Gilbert Hernandez

Anyway, this…

SLASHER #1 By Charles Sanford Forsman Floating World Comics, Digital: £1.49 (2017)

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Like many men in their middle years (“middle”, yeah, like I’m going to see 94. Pretty loose definition of “middle” there, society) I court danger like its dad owns a yacht. To relight that sputtering youthful fire some middle-aged men take up shark wrestling or sex pesting young women, but me? I like to take it to the edge. I try and go into comics with as little knowledge as possible. (Of the comic; as little knowledge of the comic, you wiseacre.) I saw SLASHER on the ‘Ology and thought “okay”; largely because it looked like it might be a slasher comic. How, I wondered, would a slasher comic work in the comics medium? On a static page how would an artist pull off the necessary control of pacing and deliver the required kills with the requisite impact? I’m still wondering. Because as it turns out SLASHER is as much about a slasher as JAWS is about a shark. Even less so, in fact, because JAWS has a lot of shark in it now I think about it. There is a bit of slashing in SLASHER but it is self-inflicted, as befits a warts to the fore portrayal of our oddly damaged modern psyches. At least I think that’s what’s going on here.

 photo SLASHmeatB_zps4rz8yinm.jpg SLASHER by Charles Sanford Forsman

Despite sounding like a one man firm of lawyers, Charles Sanford Forsman earns every one of his three names with SLASHER. Mostly, for me anyway, by giving a lightly disquieting imprecision to his art. One which echoes his ably unsettling script’s unerring ability to pick at the scab of any normal everyday occurrence (shopping, workplace assessment, txting a friend, etc, etc…) until the wound oozes the tacit creepiness of us all. (Well, mostly you. Me, I’m perfectly healthy. But I see you, Sancho. I. See. You.) Mind you, I dig stylish imperfections in  art since they imply the actual passing of a human hand across the page, which is as close to seeing the face of God moving over the face of  the waters as an non-spiritual and inartistic putz like me will ever get. For a comic in which the milk of human kindness is so thoroughly curdled SLASHER is a surprising amount of fun. Most of that fun came from not expecting what I got, so I sure wouldn’t want to spoil it all for you. Take it from me that if you’re the kind of bitter freak who pines for movies like HAPPINESS (1998) and IN THE COMPANY OF MEN (1997) then get stuck into SLASHER. (ßPull Quote Alert!) Also, let’s go do movies and a brew sometime, you’re my kind of people! VERY GOOD!

GRASS KINGS #3 Art by Tyler Jenkins Written by Matt Kindt Lettered by Jim Campbell BOOM! Studios, $3.99 (2017)

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I like this comic, but it doesn’t do itself any favours. Fatally so, I fear; in an overcrowded market it just sort of slouches there, instead of selling itself. For starters look at the cover, it hardly leaps out from across the room demanding your attention does it? The logo is all high-end understated artiness, the kind more suited to a designer range of name brand geegaws and tchotkes aimed at people who retro-fit wood burning stoves into their 21st century sci-fi kitchens. Can you even read that title across the comic store? Does it stand out in the slightest from the visual roar of Marvel’s latest waste of Al Ewing’s time and DC’s unrelenting variations on a Bat-theme? Did you even know this comic existed? I genuinely ask because I don’t go to a physical LCS, so I actually don’t know the answers. Except for that last one; I certainly didn’t know it existed, my LCS just sent it me because…they think I’m the kind of guy who retro-fits a wood burning stove into his 21st Century sci-fi kitchen? Tsk!

 photo GRASScarB_zpszds4cr46.jpg GRASS KINGS by Kindt, Jenkins and Campbell

Beyond the cover GRASS KINGS remains a defiantly low energy affair. Jenkins’ art is a really watery water-colour affair that kind of seeps into your eyes, and Kindt’s script is a low summer drawl of a thing. It all kind of pootles past at its own sweet pace like an elderly gent on his weekly walk into town, pausing periodically to get his breath back, or simply staring into the air where the old dance hall and the night he met his deceased wife swims into being before his cloudy eyes. GRASS KINGS is about some kind of off the grid enclave where the gubbermint has no traction (i.e. the libertarian’s nocturnal emission of the American Dream), everyone’s a bit flaky and there’s murders and missing persons, and not a few flashbacks which are typically unhurried  in declaring their relevance. Unlike most comics GRASS KINGS doesn’t scream for your attention, it doesn’t even whisper, it just sings to itself under its breath. (ßPull Quote Alert!) If you lean in to listen, I think you’ll be glad you did. VERY GOOD!

 

BLUBBER #3 By Gilbert Hernandez Fantagraphics, $3.99 (2016)

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What’s black and white and covered in an old man’s dead jizz? My copy of BLUBBER! Only joking…it’s not all in black and white. (But it is covered in my dead jizz! (“Old man John! Spoiling everything!” ß Joke For The Kidz!)) Yup, BLUBBER’s covers are colour, and what lovely covers they are. The back of each issue has also been graced by a Gilbert “Bert” Hernandez pin-up of some kind of phantasmagorical fauna fresh from his bubbling brain pan. So invitingly comical and eye-catchingly vivid are these covers that “Gil” sometimes picks them up and asks if he can read them. HOO! Not wishing to spend the next several months and many, many, thousands of pounds fighting for visitation rights I have as yet denied him. He can stick with SPONGEBOB COMICS (also great, but in a really quite different way) for now. From the outside BLUBBER looks all fantastically harmless, but inside it remains a maelstrom of scatological insanity. Calm down though, my little pearl clutchers, as it is so offensive that it transcends offence and just becomes comical in its absurd mania for the grossly vulgar. Less Spongebob Squarepants and more Spongebob Shitpants. But don’t mistake my loutish rattlepanning and manic emphasis on the outré as licence to belittle the artistry on display. Hernandez’ big old floppy chops are evident on every page.

 photo BLUBFightB_zps6lt9z9rs.jpg BLUBBER by Gilbert Hernandez

BLUBBER may well be an explosion of transgressions but it’s a highly controlled one. As the late Dennis Hopper, star of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986), could attest were he not, well, dead, you can lie in a ring of dynamite sticks and set them off without harm; the trick is in having them face the right way. (Otherwise you’re fucked, bubeleh.)  In every panel of BLUBBER Hernandez plays with dynamite but his spectacular artistic panache ensures he doesn’t take his talented face off in the blast. Not even Tony Salvador Daniel could lead up to XXX Papusi climaxing in a final panel as heart crushingly poignant as a JoJo Moyles book in the rain. (Be warned though if you are rubbing one out while reading and wipe a tear from your eye, you do run the risk of pink eye.) And could anyone but Gilbert “He Was Always A Quiet Man” Hernandez answer the oft asked question of “What if Arthur Machen’s ‘Great God Pan’ was crossed with Elvis Presley?” No, because the answer involves lots of furry-haunched cock frothing and cryptic wisdom.  Cock-a-hula, baby, indeed! Gilbert ”Looking Back We Should Have Known” Hernandez is also versatile enough to reimagine the hauntingly poignant Mickey Rourke mumbling-sadly-in-sweaty-trunks movie THE WRESTLER (1990), but he gives it his own uniquely tender spin by smearing it with sudden bowel movements, satanic orgies and forlorn longings on the part of a phenomenally endowed man for our barely sentient albino lunk. Yo, mama, Hernandez really brings the stains to life in this tour de force of turds and turgidity. There’s just something truly affecting about the sight of our barely sentient protagonist’s trunks distended by a crop of fresh poops. (PRO TIP: If you scratch your bum and sniff your finger new levels of immersion can be achieved.) And that’s just some of the fun inside BLUBBER! In a world of flamboyantly vacuous TV pitches masquerading as comics BLUBBER is a refreshing toot from the artistic arse flute of Gilbert Hernandez. A real room clearer of a comic. (ßPull Quote Alert!) The only TV BLUBBER is likely to appear on is the one that explodes in a shower of guts in VIDEODROME (1983). And that’s because BLUBBER is EXCELLENT!

 

NEXT TIME: The world’s least informative reviews continue as I look at more – COMICS!!!

“We Must Allow None of These DIBBUKS To Escape!” COMICS! Sometimes God Loves a Trier.

A funny thing happened on the way to The Reichstag….  photo SPplanB_zpspuoahpzo.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

Anyway, this...

7 PSYCHOPATHS #1-3 Art by Sean Phillips Written by Fabien Vehlmann Translated by Dan Heching Coloured by Hubert Lettered by Troy Peteri BOOM! Studios, $3.99 each (2010)

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Despite sharing a name this 3 issue comic book series published by BOOM! Studios in 2010 is nothing to do with Martin McDonagh’s 2012 ridiculously overstuffed (but still wildly enjoyable) movie. Also, despite it involving an attempt on Adolf Hitler’s life by a bunch of ne’er do wells any similarities with Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Bastards” (2009) will have to come from you, because I don’t watch Quentin Tarantino movies anymore. I’d rather watch the movies he rips off, uh, repurposes. Hey, you watch what you want and I’ll watch what I want, nobody’s judging anyone here. Going on the brief text piece provide by Sean Phillips in the back of #3 this was initially published as a 1 volume hardback in that there Europe in 2007. Which explains why each issue feels weirdly paced, particularly the first one where they don’t even finish introducing the cast before you hit the back cover. Still, no one’s going to be reading it in monthly instalments in 2017 so it’s not really a concern. I’m sorry I brought it up. Alright, alright, don’t go on about it. ♫♬♩ Let it go, let it go, let it gooooooooooooooo! ♫♬♩.

 photo SPShotB_zpsyriwrffq.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

So the high concept is set a nutter to kill a nutter. Or 7 nutters, for as Joshua Goldschmidt, the plan’s instigator and principal nutter, points out, 7 in the Kabbalah (קַבָּלָה) symbolises completeness. I remember this from R.E. lessons myself; you know, all that business about 7 days to create the world, Exodus telling you how to make a 7 candle menorah, er, 7 brides for 7 brothers all that. 40 was a pretty popular number in the Bible or Torah (תּוֹרָה) (from which the Kabbalah is derived) as well, maybe Joshua Goldschmidt would have been better with 40 psychopaths. He would certainly have been better with 40 days, because he also specifies the mission has to take 7 days. It’s a bit of a tight deadline that but, hey, he’s not the full shilling is he? He’s all about the number 7 this guy. But why people with, uh, issues. Look, okay, I apologise for using the term “nutters” back there, I did so on the understanding that we’re all here to have  a bit of light hearted fun, and that when I use the term I’m kind of just indicating how exaggerated and cartoonish the mental health issues on show are. Life is hard and we’re all built differently, and it takes its toll on us all in different ways. You know, my compos isn’t exactly totally mentis either but, yeah, I hear you, words matter. Duly noted. Even Goldschmidt pitches a fit when he catches his Special Executive Operations (SEO) liaison calling the project “7 Psychopaths”, even though there are 7 of them and they are all…

 photo SPCoarseB_zpspjzfzbf6.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

…talented in their own ways. Willy Wright just wants to be loved and to this end can transform himself into anyone you like with a bit of bootblack and a comb, like that “Ooo will buy mah steecks!” guy off the Fast Show or (my Bronze Age DC fave) The Unknown Soldier, but without the hideous facial scarring. I guess that’s because there was no scarring left to go round because "The Warlord" is a hulking crust of scar tissues with tendencies of a decidedly pyromaniacal stripe. He’s a mute, unlike the voice in Erik Starken’s head which is that of the Berlin paperhanger himself and which stridently orates about intense visions of possible futures, with a worrying rate of accuracy. Our female member, Susan, would be worried about that but she’s too busy worrying about everything else, she’s the best shot in the forces but her tendency towards catastrophic thinking keeps shooting her concentration to shit. In the shit is where Captain Stewart finds himself after a bit of murdering but who better to turn his murder on than the architect of mass murder himself, the failed painter, Hitler. James Smith is so sane he’s insane and Joshua Goldschmidt we’ve already met. That’s 7, yeah? Phew! Goldschmidt reckons his plan will succeed because his crew’s unpredictability will make it impossible for the enemy to anticipate them. He’s not wrong. If anything he’s too right, because the unpredictability takes a terrible toll on the plan early in the game. Pretty much precisely at the series’ half way mark in fact.

 photo SPCalmB_zpsj2m6tgdp.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

Which, unless you’ve just read a review which spoils it for you, comes pretty much out of left field. But don’t worry because that inept (and most likely aged and balding) reviewer has left plenty of other “!” moments unrevealed. See, the big thing about 7 Psychopaths is how refreshing the storytelling is. It doesn’t go where you think, and it doesn’t get to where it’s going the way you expect. It’s kind of bracing not to have the same old trex from the same old guys who’ve all read the same old books on “How To Sell Tepid Undemanding Shit To Hollywood” without realising (or caring, let’s be honest) how stultifying and homogenous most genre entertainment has become as a consequence. Three Act Structure! Meet the mentor! The Hero’s Journey! No room at his inn, pal! Yup, the best thing about 7 Psychopaths is that Joseph Campbell’s dead and withered balls haven’t been rubbed all over it so hard all the individuality’s been erased. I don’t know whether that’s because European comics have a whole different set of genre conventions, or Fabien Vehlmann is some kind of Gallic genius, but what I know is 7 Psychopaths wrong footed me throughout. It’s also pretty funny in a dark way. Just saying.

 photo SPShoutB_zpsjfclratr.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

Of course this BOOM! Edition was aimed at an Engish or American audience so being healthily xenophobic we don’t care about Fabien Vehlmann with his, ugh, Frenchness, no matter how well he’s written this; no, we’re probably drawn to this because it was, uh, drawn by Sean Phillips. Mostly Sean Phillips spends his time making Ed Brubaker comics far more interesting than they have any right to be, so it’s nice to see him do something else. He does a pretty good job here; he’s Sean Phillips after all, so even on a bad day he’s still got some sweet chops. The panels are quite small, Euro-style, and he never gets a full splash, yank style, so he seizes by the scruff the few three quarter splashes he does get. Yeah, he has some fun with those showing the prophetic pantomime show going on in Starken's head. The stained glass Hitler warning us of the Cuban Missile Crisis was my favourite. Although the bit where they open the door to meet Hitler hits its hilarious mark spot on as well. Spoilt for choice, really. It’s a war book so by necessity it’s a reference heavy book and Sean Phillips does okay. I didn’t check any of it, but the German uniforms look like German uniforms and the Jerry tank is a Tiger instead of a Russki T-34, the British look British etc. The physical locations all look present and correct, largely because he seems to have drawn over photos so well they should be. There’s a bit too much “Sean’s Smile” going on (look at his work long enough and you soon recognise “Sean’s Smile”) and some problems getting the distinctive German helmet right, but all my carps are small carps. It’s Sean Phillips stretching himself so, you know, it’s solid with the odd burst of spectacular. On reflection I’m probably just being overly picky because he doesn’t find room for his signature “white shirts with creases”, which I enjoy seeing so much.

 photo SPBerlinB_zpsg8ody2uo.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

7 Psychopaths is inventively written and nicely drawn stuff so I’m going to give it a GOOD!

OI! Where do you think you're swanning off to? No one said you could go. Sit back down. Right...Now look, it’s a sad reflection on the depths our collective psyche has plumbed that I feel the need to point out that in this series Hitler is the bad guy. Further, and it kind of pains me to have to spell this out, in real life Hitler was the bad guy. He was a “bad dude”, in the parlance of today’s POTUS. Previously that could go unspoken, but apparently some of you out there these days don’t really get the whole Nazi thing. Even I in my blithely middle-aged caveman no Facebook, no Twitter life picked up on the recent furore over whether it was right to punch Nazis. I really don’t know what’s so hard about that question. Was everyone just stuck for moral dilemmas that week? Had everyone forgotten their history? Have you all lost your furshluginner minds! The Nazis were a blight on humanity. They still are. They always will be. The evil is built in. Nazism is a giant filthy ideological cancer that will metastasize like mad given half a chance. So you don’t give it that chance. Oy! What’s hard about this, I ask you?!? Say you go to your doctor and he or she pulls a funny face and orders some X-rays, and later finds some shadows on your lungs, okay? He or she doesn’t go “Gee, we should maybe encourage that. Maybe you should take up smoking, eat a lot of burnt toast? Smoke more if you already smoke, get some Genetically modified food into your diet, put your head in the microwave if you can. Y’know, a lot of people talk cancer down, but, you know, maybe if we encourage it, give it chance to grow it’ll make you shit gold bars and bring a Heaven on earth.”  No, he or she gets zapping that crap as fast as he or she can.

 photo SPTrueB_zpsc6fhf8mp.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

Fucking Nazis. What’s up with you all out there? Try turning off MR fucking ROBOT and picking up a book. If you ever find yourself going, “Hmm. You know, maybe those Nazis have a point.” Something’s gone wrong in your head. There’s no “shades of grey” here. It is simply black and white. Or black with silver piping and a natty little skull to boot. Nazis! Their “philosophy” was/is childish horseshit. A load of half understood crap science and mindrot mythology, about being descended from a race of people who live in the earth’s core. That’s a 1970s Edgar Rice Burroughs movie starring Doug McClure and Caroline Munro not a workable philosophy! Some of those evil goofballs were actually, really, truly, looking for Biblical nonsense like The Ark of The Covenant and The Spear of Destiny. That was in the 1940s, Kirk Brandon didn’t even form Spear of Destiny until 1983! That’s how fucking smart Nazis are. But John, they are smart, they’ve read Nietzsche! Don’t give me that Nietzsche stuff, unlike most Nazis I’ve read Nietzsche, and as problematic as a big woolly humanist like me finds him, Nietzsche would have spat in their faces. Of course they’d have bested his more subtle ratiocinations by catching him in an alley and kicking him to death en masse, or maybe throwing a Molotov through his window while he slept, you know, in that brave way Nazis have. And they’re always the injured party! O! So badly done to! Nazis! Always the fucking underdogs, even when they’re shoving bayonets through barbed wire at your emaciated frame. It’s still your fault! Why are you making them do this! Can’t you see the tears in their eyes as they bundle you into that van with the hose leading from the exhaust into the air vent! You heartless untermensch! The poor wickle Nazi lambs.

 photo SPTrueC_zps0y5bv0rv.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

They have to do all this rank shit because, well, er, the Treaty of Versailles went too far. That’s it. That’s their rationale. Look, the Treaty of Versailles was in 1919 and had to do with Germany’s reparations for WW1. ♫♬♩ Let it go, let it go, let it gooooooooooooooo! ♫♬♩. I don’t know what earthly reason an American Nazi has to feel badly done to. Particularly as the average American Nazi would probably look at you gone out if you even mentioned the Treaty of Versailles. I imagine they aren’t too tight on the whole WW1 deal either. I guess it must just be terrible living in the richest country in the world. Is it that there’s too many black people? Too many Jews? Too Many Hispanics? Too  many cooks? Have you seen how big America is! No, if there’s too many of anything there’s too many Nazis. If there’s one Nazi there’s too many Nazis. Even if (and it’s a pretty big if) American Nazis were still sore about the Treaty of Versailles, or whatever’s hurt their sensitive Nazi feelings in America (Black people being able to drink from water fountains? ALF getting cancelled?), what are they working towards? The most successful Nazi ever was Hitler and Hitler’s Germany ended up (and these are just the highlights you understand) shooting the mentally ill and shoving people in ovens. That wasn’t a mistake; things didn’t just get a little bit out of hand; that was the plan. That. Was. The. Plan. I don’t know, call me a snowflake, but that’s not an ideal outcome to my mind. But to Nazis it is. That’s what they are working towards. That’s still the plan. Building giant autobahns with concrete mixed with your ashes. Something to aim for there. Really worthwhile stuff. Making the world a better place, yeah? Seriously, Nazis have nothing to offer humanity. Sit round the negotiating table with a Nazi and you’ll soon find they have nothing to offer. It’s never long before they start on the old “ethnic cleansing” tip. Dead giveaway really, that. I find the whole “ethnic cleansing” thing a bit of a deal breaker, speaking personally. I’m just funny like that.

 photo SPTrueD_zpsqunhchxe.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

Remember that bit in The Dead Zone where Johnny Smith asks Dr Sam Weizak if it would be right to go back in time and kill Hitler? He doesn’t ask if it is okay to go back and punch Hitler, does he? No, he cuts straight to the chase. And the Doc does too: “I'm a man of medicine. I'm expected to save lives and ease suffering. I love people. Therefore, I would have no choice but to kill the son of a bitch.” Christ, I got my moral instruction from Original Star Trek, 2000AD, a second hand illustrated Bible and my ol' Mum’s Stephen King novels, and even I know whether or not to punch a Nazi is the wrong question. The right question is why are there still Nazis? Sort yourselves out, you’re a disgrace. It’s 2017 not 1939; sort it.

 photo SPTrueE_zps3pttts0o.jpg 7 PSYCHOPATHS by Phillips, Vehlmann, Heching, Hubert & Peteri

NEXT TIME: Maybe something else from that there Europe because whatever the original language they are all – COMICS!!!