Saga #1

One of the books I read this week is Saga #1, from Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples. This is exactly how a comic book should open up, POW! Life in extremis right in your face as we get a close up of a character giving birth in a garage. The narrator’s words “This is how an idea becomes real” running down the heroine’s profile to her word bubble “Am I shitting? It feels like I’m shitting!” Yes… yes most likely you are shitting, I thought to myself.

Being of the age when friends start feeling that ancestral tugging at their loins to reproduce, and in conjunction with being born and raised in The Woods, I am familiar with the birthing process. I have been informed that it feels like you’re taking a large poo, and that often in the process of pushing, a good sized pile of feces can come out on the table before the baby. Using the Big Poop as a metaphor for idea creation has got to hit home for anyone who has ever tried to be creative, ever. Vaughan and Staples really nail it on the very first page. Vaughan has two ankle biters of his own, so I’m guessing he was present for at least one of those births and he saw the parallels between bringing an idea to the page and a person into the world. Sometimes writing does feel like a big bowel movement, sometimes all that comes out is loose and runny and it stinks, and maybe it burns a bit. Sometimes it’s solid and you think it might tear you up, but when it’s over the sense of relief is overwhelming. We are all born in the midst of blood and shit, and if you’re lucky maybe in the end only one of those things will be present.

The narration isn’t boxed or bubbled, but incorporated into each panel’s art. It runs through and around each panel, interwoven along the dialog of our cover-heroes. It disappears right when it should and when it comes back it is seamless. I don’t think anyone has doubts that Vaughan can write. I was at the Image Expo back in February and in a panel there was a question posed “when did you know you had it, that you were writing well?” (or at something to that effect) and Vaughan said something like around the back half of Y the Last Man-again not a direct quote. His time since then with comics and in the television writer’s room has done nothing but sharpen his skills. He has said the title was chosen on purpose to be grand. Saga is supposed to be a real saga. I am eager to see his world building again.

I know of Fiona Staples through North 40, DV8, and Jonah Hex. She signed my Jonah Hex #66 at the Image Expo. She smiled and was pretty and I thanked her and could think of nothing to say. I’m a loser. She was there with Vaughan promoting Saga. Her lines are beautiful and fluid. Her palette is perfect. The shadowing scales add depth and highlights. Saga is visually exquisite. The Lying Cat is just great.

I got two problems: 1) The friggin gunpowder bag and 2) The Vagina-face guard dog. The Vagina-faced dog almost makes up for the gunpowder, but c’mon! It’s labeled gunpowder. One could argue the dog had a problem with the bag too, and that’s what makes Boba-Solo’s intro so cool. That’s not fair, he is called The Will, and the cat is my giant cat fantasy put on paper. I want to know which one of them (Vaughan or Staples) came up with the idea. Who exactly said to the other hey, I got this idea, this dog looks like a giant bull dog and has a mouth like a vagina.

There is no doubt I’m going to get the next issue or the series, if not for any other reason than the potential for graphic robot sex alone. If what we see is just a taste of gray-skinned ugly bumpin' to come I'm down to party.

Ragemoor #1

When I first saw the cover to Ragemoor #1 I thought to myself “hey man, why is that castle about to eat that guy? Did he say something to the castle? Where did he get that awesome onesie? Hey wait a minute, is that a chick?” so I immediately bought it.

I have seen other works of Richard Corben, being a big fan of space barbarians and BOOBIES. Heavy Metal is epic-dary. How do the friggin fran-sh say avant-avant-guard?

Jim Strnad I only knew of through the Star Wars expanded universe bullshit. I wanted nothing to do with that albatross, f-that. I saw Lucas at the In-and-Out on the way to OAX in 2008. He was with this fine sistah, I mean sistah, I can spell just fine, she was black. Dark chocolate hot as a south Chicago night in August. I recognized her too from some network morning show. So Lucas is in line and this little kid right behind him has a cartoony-Yoda t-shirt on (I hate you anime, and for what you did to my Yoda) and I’m star-struck. This is a perfect moment. I’m all the way across the room and there he is, my Homer (Greek not Groening) with his cowboy boots and pompadour, and that turkey flap neck—and I know it happens with age, but you got all that toy-fucking-money GET IT FIXED George—he’s there with one of his kids, no way I’m going to get this opportunity ever again. He orders, gets his food, walks out looking kind of irritated and in my pipsqueak-greasy-barely-audible voice I say “Thank you, for everything.” And his woman comes right behind him, this glorious teak goddess, and she says “thanks” with a smile and a pointy finger, like “thank you” and tipping her finger at/to me. Her eyes were like onyx. These deep-dark pools of glittering forever, washing over me, through me…for a minute I thought I was over the event horizon and she put some voodoo on me, but I burped and felt better.

So guess what, the castle never eats the guy like on the cover. I read an interview with Corben where he says he never intended the castle to be a real boy but the editors wanted at least one drawing of the stay-puft castle. It did make me read the advert synopsis and that made me buy the book, so call me the sucker. There is some pretty awesome gargoyle-on-man action though. There is also this lighting effect to the illustrations, could be digital or some sort of layering technique, that gives them a depth, and I would say at times too polished of a depth. I like the grain of Corben’s stuff in the past, I like to see the marks of tools on a tangible surface. The illustrations of the castle Ragmoor and its bloody pre-everything ancient origin are amazing. Speaking of sistahs, the lady in the book is red bone thick, man! And again, boobies.

Strnad got into writing television animation after working in underground comics (much with Corben early on) but hasn’t been back to comics for a while. I like the story so far, I like our hero and the butler, but those awesomely-amazing-Corben-birthed-monster-castle-back-story panels were just a big fat info dump I didn’t want. This book is awesome, words and pictures, but I like foreplay. A little lick and nibble, a pinch here or there in some sensitive areas before the skull-face-baboon rape. At least in my mind they raped me. In interviews Strnad has said that Ragmoor was meant to be a one-shot, so I forgive. But I do not forget. He also said Darkhose wanted to make it a four issue series, so why not take a little more time and sherlock that shit out holmes. I know, easy for me to say.

I’m going to get the next one. I’ve seen the preview covers for a couple on the study of comic books intrawebsite, and the whole H-P-Poe-and-Call-of-Cthulhu’s-House-of-boobies thing is cool.