I drank a bottle of wine
with Becky Cloonan last Friday, the moral of which is this -- KIDS: You CAN
achieve your life’s goals with perseverance, discipline and faith. Seriously
though, how amazing was she? She blew into town and left with the key to the
city and all of our hearts. Come back soon, Ms Cloonan…
By the looks of this
Kate Beaton calendar, I will likely be well on my way to Japan by the time you read
this. “Say it ain’t so, Cam!” I hear you
scream at me through your screens. Never fear, I am putting the finishing
touches on the next two weeks’ columns and I shall be bright-eyed and
bushy-tailed and ready to ramble on about my visit to Tacho-che(!!) when I get back. Puro-Resu fans also take note when
watching NJPW Road to Destruction, September 11th from the mighty
Korakuen Hall, for this skinny, pasty gaijin shall be there, five rows deep,
hoping Katsuyori Shibata doesn’t mistake me for the emaciated, reanimated zombie
corpse of Bruiser Brody
and kick me in my beardy face.
But enough violence.
This week’s comic is all about love!
COMIC OF THE WEEK : FEDOR
By Patt Kelley
Published By Hic & Hoc Publications
“I want to be the water
in the tub. The smoke in her lungs. The ink on her skin.”
So lovely…
The unlikeliest of feel
good romance comics, Fedor is Patt
Kelley’s remarkable re-imagining of the lives of star-crossed circus freak
lovers, Jojo The Dog-Faced Boy and Helena The Tattooed Lady. Spanning over
twenty chopped up and re-assembled years, Fedor is a touching, adorable and
occasionally truly poetic look at how powerful true love can be as it spans
time, distance and physical abnormality.
Jojo (real name Fedor
Jeftichew) was not only a real man, but also one of the more famous circus
freaks of all time. Dubbed “The Dog-Faced Boy” by none other than legendary
circus promoter PT Barnum himself, the photo Kelley includes on the inside back
cover of Jojo reveals the closet thing to a human Chewbacca imaginable. I don’t
say this to be mean, but it’s seriously the closest, most obvious reference at
hand. However, the picture also reveals a pair of dark, soulful eyes and,
perhaps I’m romanticising here, but a kind of quiet dignity and an inner peace that
myself and I suspect many of you struggle to keep.
I also suspect that Kelley
noted this as well as he presents Fedor as a smart, sweet and articulate suitor
for young Helena, a girl who somehow won the genetic roll of the dice despite
the fact her father is The Reptile Man and her mother The Bearded Lady (and
what a “normal” and loving family unit they are). Fedor and Helena’s interactions are sweet and
tender from the start, their connection and increasingly romantic attachment to
one another deftly communicated by Kelley.
The book opens in
Paris, 1904. Fedor has shaved his face down, allowing him to pass through
crowds essentially unnoticed. He has come to meet Helena, from whom we quickly
learn, he is frequently estranged as the two travel in different circus
circles.
“You look funny,”
Helena says, seeing her lover’s face for the very first time, her uncertainty
only alleviated once they retreat to a hotel and she can unbutton his shirt,
bury her face in the fur of his chest, and say, “There you are.” It’s an odd
moment, but a perfectly tender and believable slice of honest interaction
between two long-separated lovers.
From here, Kelley
bounces through the years, from 1884 where the lovers first meet in London at a
show, all the way back to 1904. We see their romance bloom, repeatedly halt and
falter along the way, and the changes that the years bring upon personality and
physicality. Kelley’s blobby, scrawled
cartooning captures the sweetness and sadness of his tale perfectly. His pages
created with water colour and digital ink and the olde timey feel of his light
tan pages have the essence of faded daguerreotype about them, adding further
atmosphere to the retro sailor tattoos, corsets, suspenders and top hats he
costumes his characters in.
One can only hope that
the real Fedor had as much love in his life as Kelley allows him in this
comic. At any rate, I’ll take this
fiction over the truth any day of the week, for Fedor has the ring of hope about it, not just for its characters,
but anyone struggling with the tyranny of distance and the cruelty of time
apart.
Have at this one with
gusto, hopeless romantics.
WEBCOMIC OF THE WEEK : THE SHEETS WERE ALL BE-BLED
WITH THE BLOOD
By Julia Gfrorer
I hope your heart has
room yet to swell, because love conquers all again in this week’s webcomic by
the returning Julia Gfrorer.
Adapted from a 12th century poem, Lancelot, The Knight of the Cartby
Cretien De Troyes, Grfroer, in just two gorgeous, scratchy pages, illustrates
the lengths the Sir Lancelot went in order to rescue Queen Guinevere from
abduction in The Sheets Were All Be-Bled
With The Blood. It’s Lancelot’s love
for this Queen, and hers for him, that enables the Knight to burst through her
barred window. “…if you refused,” he says from his knees, staring into her
eyes, “the way would have been impossible for me.”
**sniff**
COUNTDOWN TO MOZ
METAL: OCTOBER 1977
But enough embracing
and kissing and junk. Bug-eyed goblin creatures with potbellies and droopy
breasts claw at a mace-wielding, goggles-wearing, punk rock, half-man,
half-tiger! Yes, it could only be the cover to Heavy Metal’s October 1977 issue by Jean-Michel Nicollet.
If that’s not enough,
you can also “Drive the sound that drives your parents wild,” according to an
ad for Panasonic car stereo systems, which appear to have had the approximate
weight of your average passenger.
As always, I can’t pass
up an opportunity to drool over the editorials.
This issue, the mystery wordsmith says that the 16 Moebius pages within,
“…should remind us that reality is for people who can’t face drugs.” Who are you, oh-unnamed editorial writer? The
world of periodicals is poorer for your silence…
What’s that? Comics?
Yes, here there be comics. Not only comics but also a short story from Theodore
Sturgeon (More Than Human), proving
once again that this magazine rubbed shoulders proudly alongside the greatest
fiction periodicals of not only that day, but any. “Mesmer-Eyes,” begins
Sturgeon’s “The Singsong of Cecily Snow,”making it immediately the most Heavy Metal thing ever in just its first
word.
This luminously-prosed
story stars master seducer Bulbul Byo, whose “score so far was sixty-six
successful satisfactory seductions, thirty-seven shattered lives, six suicides
and fourteen thousand nights of bitter tears,” as he tries it on yet again,
this time with the ravishing Cecily Snow. Sturgeon’s prose is alliterative and
mesmerising, conjuring a near-trance state of words roughly equivalent to
staring at some of Richard Corben’s skylines from “Den” for far too long.
Sturgeon’s absorption and regurgitation of the HM aesthetic in prose-form is
remarkable and this issue should be sought out for this story alone.
The legendary “Airtight
Garage” by Moebius begins this issue, but as the waffle is strong with me this
week (sorry), so we’ll save it for next time where it continues onward, as it’s
not only fascinating as a text, but has quite the creative backstory.
But, holy shit, here’s
Angus McKie with his slick, airbrush-sheen pages appearing in HM for the first
time. “Jetman” is the short little story of a fighter pilot who is forced to
eject from his jet with such ferocity, McKie makes it look like a mighty
ejaculation.
“Turod” by Iso Kahn and
Phil Rosilio is notable for the fact that it may possibly be one of the first
attempts at westernising the manga aesthetic. Rosilio’s androgynous characters
have huge, shoujo style eyes and
sleek, waifish bodies. The story’s
lovers journey to a place where “time and space are united in permanence.”
Tezuka-ish angels descend from an ornate skylight as the two lovers become one
and the beams of light that emanate from their now singular form become portals
to a utopian, matriarchal realm where our nubile angels travel to live forever,
to swim, sunbathe and strum lutes…pretty much in the nude.
I swear I’m not making
that up.
In true magnificent
“Den” style, Richard Corben gets his character imprisoned and laid, before he
flees, only to tumble yet again into calamity (a waterfall spill this issue).
The seams of Corben’s formula are so well worn at this point they are really
ready to rip, but here I am, clutching to the stitching and begging it to hold.
“Operation Omega” by
Leblanc and Lire is Alex Raymond’s Flash
Gordon with as much muff as sleek Mongo-designed rocketship, so I give it a
hearty thumbs-up and hope for more saucy retro-ness from these creators in
future issues.
Finally for this week, “Polonius”
gets deliberately gross, with revolting orgies and leprous slaves abounding,
with our hero, penniless and crushed by the city’s corruption, selling himself
into prostitution. It’s an increasingly dark and heady brew, this strip by
Tardi and Picaret, and one might find themselves needing a couple of these at
its end:
COMICS VIDEO OF THE WEEK : 2000AD TIMELINE 35 YEARS
Rejoice Earthlets! The Judge Dredd Mega Collection has hit down under! Released in fortnightly hardcover graphic novels, the spines of which will form a massive character line-up, the collection will take in every classic moment from not only the titular character’s near forty year history, but also include every great other moment from the Dreddverse (so no Zenith, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, etc) – Judge Anderson, Devlin Waugh, Missionary Man and many more – it really is the collection and the format I’ve been praying for. Rush to your newsagent just like teenage Cam did many, many moons ago to get your dose of Mega City Madness.
In honour of this moment, here’s a super cool video featuring every cover of the comic’s first thirty-five years, also including assorted spin-offs, merchandise and more, as chronologically released. A mighty, supremely glorious nerd effort, this video…
See you next week. Love your comics.
Cameron Ashley spends a lot of time writing comics and other things you’ll likely never read. He’s the chief editor and co-publisher of Crime Factory (www.thecrimefactory.com). You can reach him @cjamesashley on Twitter.
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