Spanking the inner sea-monkey...

I went to the comic book store yesterday; I hadn't gone in a couple weeks, because I haven't been all that interested in anything that was released. I did want a copy of Terra Obscura Vol. 2 #1, which naturally was sold out. It was a first issue, after all, so I guess all the fanboys bought two copies -- one for reading, another for double bagging and stashing away. I ended up buying Blue Monday: Painted Moon #2 -- I like that comic, because it reminds me of my years of high school, no more so than in the latest "Everybody masturbates"-themed issue. **"ADULT" CONTENT WARNING** (just in case) I had this talk with my friends back in high school, and was disconcerted to find out that one of my friends claimed she broke her hymen, she was masturbating so vigorously. (It was at night and she had the light off; she received a telephone call, turned on the light, and was naturally pretty distressed to see her hands all bloody.) For some reason, I don't recall being all that shocked by learning all the girls -- er, young women -- masturbated, bloody fingers notwithstanding. Another friend admitted he had first masturbated while watching "The Golden Girls". Which is weird to begin with, but he's gay. Surely Bea Arthur isn't that mannish! **END "ADULT" CONTENT WARNING**

I also bought Seaguy #1 & 2. I am a big fan of Grant Morrison's writing; there is a fairly sizeable contingent of fanboys who are quite vocal about hating his writing, claiming it is weird for weird's sake. And his stories do tend to be... eccentric. But I don't see that as a fault, but rather an indictment of the lack of imagination of the majority of mainstram comics writers. (Writers in general are given short-shrift in comics; with the exception of writers like Gaiman, Alan Moore, and the like, artists tend to be the focus for a lot of readers. I'm always surprised by people who buy a comic solely for the artist. Maybe I'm just too text-oriented, but I don't have the sort of storage space to collect artists, with the exception of Kirby and Ditko.) Morrison is one of the few writers capable of the sort of dizzying invention that Kirby and Lee were doing during the heyday of The Fantastic Four. Some inventions work better than others, but on some level they are all exciting. This is always clearest in the limited series he does, usually using his own milleau (Flex Mentallo, Marvel Boy, The Filth), than it is in the Big Name Franchise series (JLA, New X-Men, Fantastic 1 2 3 4). I collect the latter anyways, because even in the X-Men, he managed to make the stale flatulence of a series I despise(d) into something fresh and interesting.

Seaguy is yet another example of his abilities. I was initially drawn to the cover by its logo, because, well, I really liked the logo; I hadn't been aware that it was a series by Morrison. Then I saw the writer's credit, and I snatched it up. (I wasn't aware that the series was already completed, and I didn't see issue #3, so went back and purchased it today.) The first issue begins with the eponymous hero beating Death (dressed as a gondoleir) at chess yet again, owing to Death's inability to discern black from white. (So at least Death isn't racist.) Seaguy's buddy, Chubby da Choona, a fish that floats through the air, is afraid of water, and sports a little sailor's hat, doesn't see why Seaguy has to play Death every week...

You get the picture. Weird, true, but strangely compelling. We are told that the world has moved beyond needing heros, but we are also shown some very unsettling things that suggest otherwise, including the Mickey Eye themepark (imagine if the Residents had been invented by Walt Disney) and Xoo, a synthetic quasi-sentient lifeform marketted as a variety of foodstuffs at the local GrubStop. During the first read I was honestly stumped; the story had the strange fluidity of a dream, especially with the abrupt changes in tone as the hero suddenly finds himself in danger. Characters are introduced and discarded with little explanation, and the background characters don't seem as convinced of how perfect the world is than the primary characters are. The free-associative and absurd nature of the story occasionally seems to be more like some post-modern fairy tale than it does anything else currently available in mainstream comics. Strangely enough, it reminds me a bit of Dame Darcy's best stories. I was afraid that it would turn out to be a dream (Because seriously, how perfect is covering the polar ice caps with Europe's surplus of dark chocolate to keep them from melting? Or the moon being built by ancient Egyptians as the tomb for the most Boastful Mummy Ever? A mummy, I hasten to add, with alzheimers.), but Mr. Morrison did better than that. The ending was compared by other webfolx to the dilemma faced by The Prisoner, and this seems as good a comparison as any.

The art is phenomenal, as well; some might describe it as cartoony, but the fact is the entire world depicted is intended to be a cartoon, so it's difficult to say if this is just Cameron Stewart's style (not being familiar with it), or if it's meant as a deliberate mislead to make the audience believe the optimism. I'm thinking both. Either way, this is easily my favorite comic of the year; the sudden dearth of Alan Moore comics have done a lot to keep me from going to the comic book store with any regularity. Apparently this is the first installment of three mini-series(-es?); if the other two are as fascinating as this, I say VIVA SEAGUY!

I do believe I need to read the entire thing again.

Song: "Uncontrollable Urge" by DEVO.