Doktor Sleepless: Engines of Desire by Warren Ellis and Ivan Rodriguez

Warren Ellis is one of my favourite writers, both in comics and on the web. He always has something interesting, unique, bizarre and enlightening to say. His website is always worth a gander, though it has become a little less frequently updated this past year or two, although one or two updates a day compared to his old four or five is still pretty good.

Over the past half year or so I have been playing catch up on some of Ellis’ work that was not published by one of the Big Two comic companies (Marvel and DC), and just sat down with the first eight issues of Doktor Sleepless, (collected in Doktor Sleepless: Engines of Desire), published by Avatar Press. I really enjoyed the trip through the ideas that Ellis laid down on paper, even if it’s not a full story. The series stopped at issue 13, with three last issues promised but on an extended hiatus, (and none of the issues beyond the first eight have been collected and reprinted). So fair warning; if you pick this book up, don’t expect a complete story, but more a collection of ideas wrapped up within the first half of something that promises -with no guarantee- to be something greater down the line.

For me, this didn’t matter though. I want to find out what happens, but at the same time, it was the ideas that Ellis presented that I enjoyed the most, and I got that, so felt appeased at the end of the volume. If the book is ever finished, I will be happy, but I won’t feel slighted if I never get more, either.

What plot we do get is as such:  a man who witnessed his parents die a horrible death as a child comes back to his home town after being gone for a long time, and decides to take on the persona of Doktor Sleepless so that he can speak to the masses about his belief that we have all been cheated out of the future we were promised. Knowing that a symbolic figure is more readily accepted than a mere man when it comes to speaking against the grain of accepted worldviews, as Doktor Sleepless, he reminds people that the future isn’t all flying cars, and that the future is here, it’s just not the one we asked for. The ideas that the Doktor present come in fast spurts that are both a joy and a horror to read. Anyone who has read futurist writings or noses about the futureshock scene has heard a lot of this before, but having it laid out in an easily accessible comic with Warren Ellis’ spin on it means that the reader will be entertained, amused, and provoked into thinking about these ideas readily. Since reading the book, it has captivated a lot of my quiet mussing time, which is what I want from a book with Warren Ellis’ name on it.

These ideas are so much of the book, that for me, the plot is just there to fill in the gaps between ideas. This is why I am okay with having this one book and not desperately needing closure on the story. The characters and events are interesting and I do like the story, but the ideas were greater than the narrative. While I guess this could be a failure in the writing, it’s irrelevant to me because I got what I wanted and more out of it, (which is exactly what one should account for when deciding the merit of something).

In closing, I’m going to just post a few excerpts from the book. Maybe they will appeal to a few of you enough to go hunt down the book.

“You live in the future and you don’t even know it. … The future sneaks up on us. It leaks in through the small, ordinary things. … You want your jetpack, but you don’t even think about your IM lenses and your phones. Were you born with them? No. You’re science fictional creatures.”

“In 1999, Godspeed You! Black Emperor start releasing CDs in untreated cardboard. Intended or not, it denotes authenticity. Keeping it real. … Godspeed You! Black Emperor didn’t play the media game…[b]ut of course they had a brand. You can’t help but notice that Naomi Klein’s book “No Logo” had a fucking logo on the front. Godspeed’s brand was authenticity.”

“Ronald Regan had the right idea—convince the other side that he genuinely didn’t care if Armageddon came. …[The Soviets] saw him telling his young people that they may be the generation that faced the extinction of life on Earth and smiling his funny little smile—and, well, shit, how do you cope with that?”

“In the last month, three hundred billion liters of water were drunk—but four hundred thousand people died from waterborne disease. In fact, right now, here in the future, almost one and a half billion people still don’t have access to clean water. … I want you to think about this before you sleep: What can you do to bring about the real future? Because you know that this isn’t a future worth getting out of bed for.”

Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory

Chew is a comic series written by John Layman and drawn by Rob Guillory, published by Image Comics. I just recently finished reading volume two (“International Flavor”), but since I don’t really dwell on the plot too much on this blog, I’m going to talk about the first two volumes together for the sake of simplicity.

The first volume of Chew comprised the first story arc in the series called “Taster’s Choice”, and introduces the reader to the world that Layman and Guillory have devised to tell their oddball stories in. In their universe, chicken has been outlawed due to the bird flu so an underground black market has sprung up to meet the needs of the chicken craving, and the police spend a great amount of time cracking down on these illegal investigations. Each of the first two story arcs rely heavily on the fact that the lack of legal chicken has created a demand for either illegal ways to get the product or introducing a proper tasting substitute. The other major element to these stories is that there are certain people who are Cibopathic, meaning they get psychic impressions from whatever they eat. This ability is possessed by the main character of the series, Tony Chu, who is a detective who can’t help but know the complete history of whatever he eats, which makes eating almost everything unpleasant, because guaranteed at some point his food has come in contact with something unpleasant or revolting (pesticides, the horrific way the animal was killed, etc.). Volume two, “International Flavor”, continues Chu’s adventures in solving cases through eating, but this time whisking the reader off to a small little resort island-state. It reintroduces a number of secondary characters from the first story arc, including Chu’s celebrity chef brother who loves cooking with chicken and a food critic who can describe her culinary experiences with such acute word-smithing that she can make her readers almost taste what she describes. The second story is a fun filled romp that just allows the characters to play a bit more in the universe developed in the first arc while ever so slightly introducing a bit more mystery into the series.

The idea of a Cibopath is amusing and bizarre, which is what this book aims to be right from the get go. Tony Chu is quickly swept into bizarre cases where he must eat strange things in order to deduce a key part of a crime, and the artist has the ability to make it all seem gross, regardless of how little or how much he sometimes chooses to show. This isn’t a book to read over lunch unless you have a strong stomach. It’s the bizarreness of the books that make it hard to place into a neat little genre-box. Image categorizes it as a crime book every part of it makes you laugh, so principally it really should be seen as a comedy with just the smallest dash of horror. 

The book is both a treat to read and look at. The artist has a wonderful comic style, and is a real treat. I dare people to take a peek inside one of the volumes next time they are in a book or comic store and not instantly want to buy it. Guillory has this unique style which just looks pretty. His character designs are all unique and looking at each character design you can tell he built each one around the character’s personality so that their posture and look speaks for the character just as much as what they say. Guillory also does these great panels/pages showing what Chu “sees” when he eats something, where the whole background becomes a mosaic of all the events that object was part of up to that moment, (or the moment of its death), that are great to scour for details that might be relevant to the case later on. In terms of the layout of the book, “Taster’s Choice” had more unique and interesting page layouts, but his individual panels became much more nuanced in “International Flavor”. 

Chew is a book made to entertain. When I read it, I enjoy the moment immensely, and when I put it down for the evening I feel satisfied. It is a book that sets out to shake you out of the daily life doldrums by being a fun, bizarre experience. It’s not meant to be a poignant story that sticks in your head beyond the reading experience, but it gives such fun while you read it that it leaves your mind happy and content.

Disney’s John Carter

Having just seen John Carter with a few members of my family, I feel compelled to write briefly about it. This isn’t going to be a long winded thing, and it’s not a review, but more of a what-I-think (which is pretty much what this blog is anyway, I suppose).

I went into this movie with moderately low expectations based on the trailer, which I suppose helped it some. My only true knowledge of the film so far is having seen the trailer a few times while at the movies (which has never impressed me) and having listened to the first few hours of an audiobook of the original A Princess of Mars story by Edgar Rice Burroughs when I was much younger (given to me by my uncle, who has always had a taste for wonderful B-grade things and pulp). I don’t know anything about what others are expecting or have said, but on personally, I mostly enjoyed it.

What worked for me, and why I feel it deserves at least one watch, is that for the most part, the filmmakers managed to make a world that lived in. Even though the CGI was thick and fierce, the screen didn’t feel sterile like some Star Wars prequel, and most things seemed to have a weight to them that a lot of over-the-top-CGI-fests lack. Also, the number of extras that were not just computer models was refreshing to see, and the costume designer deserves kudos for incorporating the pulpy sci-fi/fantasy clothing motif without it appearing ridiculous.

What was surprising was how little of the film I had a problem with. My only true nitpicking is that there were a few rocky parts to the story, (though not nearly as bad as many summer blockbusters), which pulled me out of the movie. The most jarring one was when suddenly grandiose assumptions were being made over a discovery that Carter and Princess Dejah Thoris had made a little less than half way through the film. Beyond that, I enjoyed the story, and was happily surprised to see Michael Chabon’s name attached (having fond memories of the novel Wonder Boys, even if it did take some time after reading it to really appreciate it).

What I appreciate most about the film is that it took a risk. While not an original IP, it is the first time that I know of that this character has been translated to the big screen, and A Princess of Mars is not an overly well-known book either. It is also a story that is pure pulp and features a unique alien world that runs the risk of turning off the masses, (though the film uses plenty of tropes to clifnote the audience whenever it can). What is incredible with this film is that Disney went all in, and didn’t cut corners to save on the budget, (which according to IMBD was an insane $250,000,000), in order to hedge their bets. I feel that the film needs to be seen just to show support for something that does not rely on a franchise or inane board game name licence in order to get made. Lastly, watch this movie for the clearly meant for the kids CGI (non-talking) wacky sidekick. They somehow managed to win me over with it, and I’ll probably watch it again just so I can see it zooming around the screen again.

So ends my brain dump on John Carter. Perhaps next time I will actually discuss something out of my backlog instead of talking about something new.

Sam and Max: Culture Shock by Telltale Games

This is a repeat play through, so not out of the backlog. Sometimes you just need to take a break from the new stuff and have a good ol’ hit of something familiar.

Sam and Max: Culture Shock is the first episode of the first “season” of Sam and Max games by Telltale Games. It’s a short adventure game that follows the exploits of Sam and Max, freelance police, as they deal with a number of former childhood actors running amok in their neighbourhood.

Now, there may be a lot of terms and names in the above mini paragraph that needs clarification for some, and for others, you can just jump right on down to the next little blurb. So, for those that want more of an explanation, here we go. Adventure games in general are games that are almost always story driven, (or in some cases, exploration driven, such as Zork), where the player controls a character, (or is the character), that moves through the narrative by overcoming obstacles in the form of puzzles. Most of these puzzles require using items picked up throughout the course of the adventure to solve them, or by selecting the proper dialogue choices to get another character to do what is needed. As such, adventure games mostly require a player to listen/read a story and then traverse the game world picking up random objects to solve the problems placed in front of the character. It should also be mentioned that the genre is known for puzzles that occasionally expects unreasonable leaps in logic (or un-logic), and getting into the heads of the developers more than doing what would make sense to you. Telltale Games mostly specializes in making these types of games, (I can’t speak for there more recent games, which seem to be straying away from pure adventure gaming at least a little bit), and they make them in an episodic format. Basically, they announce a season worth (four to six) episodes, and release one a month, each episode being a short, (2 to 4 hour), self-contained story but part of a greater whole. One of their earlier attempts was season one of Sam and Max, which was based off of the comics done by Steve Purcell, (now at Pixar, working in story development), about an anthropomorphic dog named Sam and his sidekick Max (a psychotic rabbit-y thing). His original comics inspired a short lived cartoon and one previous videogame by LucasArts that was released in the nineties. 

Okay, so we covered that. So, why would someone want to play this game? For the simple reason that it will make you continually laugh. If the idea of freelance police isn’t funny enough, and you don’t get a kick out of thinking about psychotic rabbit-y things there are still reasons to like this game. Its biggest strength is that it is well written. The whole thing is spot on, from the overarching plot down to the individual lines spouted by our heroes. The wit is high in this game, and yet it doesn’t feel like just a bunch of individual jokes strung along to make it look like a story. The game starts in the office of Sam and Max, who are just killing time when the phone rings, offering to relieve the boredom by presenting them with a case. However, their phone has gone missing, and is being held for cheesy ransom by a rat, Jimmy Two Teeth. From there, we discover former childhood stars who are under the influence of hypnosis to do the bidding of a shadowy figure. Then there is a climax. Okay, so it sounds pretty strung along haphazardly, but it’s not, or at least it makes sense within the world of Sam and Max. What is a credit to the writing is that you accept Sam and Max’s universe and understand that the plot isn’t deranged when presented within the confines of that structure.

Culture Shock is a great introduction to the world of Sam and Max. It captures many of the elements that made all of the previous Sam and Max stories so great; witty and gut splitting one-liners, wanton mischief and comical violence are presented in a way that somehow suggests whimsical innocence instead of depravity. These are, in my opinion, hallmarks of Sam and Max.  The best part of all is that this episode is so small compared to the grandiose absurdity that the series eventually builds into. The fact that you can enjoy it just as much playing through a second time, knowing that bigger and bigger things are coming is a testament to what Telltale created with these games. 

Oh! Here is a video you can watch to see a bit of what I'm rambling on about. It's the trailer released from way back before the game came out. It's full of those witty lines I was going on about, so worth a watch:

 

Squee’s Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors by Jhonen Vasquez

Squee’s Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors is a book I have been searching for for a long time. Although, to be honest, I have been searching for any comic collection by Jhonen Vasquez for a long time, and this just happened to be the first title I actually managed to find in print, (having just recently been reprinted for the twenty-fifth time since 1998 in what I imagine to be yet another relatively small run). Ever since first seeing Invader Zim five or six years ago and seeing this man’s name attached to the creator tag, I’ve known that I want to experience more of his insanity, and preferably unconstrained by television executives and the censuring that had to go on to make Zim a show for younger viewers. Discovering he was a cartoonist, I set out to track down his run of creator-owned comics Johnny the Homicidal Maniac or Squee!. Tracking either of them down proved unsuccessful until just recently, with a reprint of Squee! being released. So, was it worth the years of occasional searching?

Generally, yes, this collection was exactly what I hoped it to be. Pure lunacy, darkness, and anti-establishment jibes permeate the book. You can imagine the person who stayed up to the early hours of the morning inking pages was just ever so slightly on the edge of insanity. He has a genius that wobbles on the brink of madness; dwelling on the kind of thoughts that angry, lonely, fringe-relishing teenagers will instantly connect with, which probably explains why a portion of his fan base is made up of these types. Searching Jhonen Vasquez or any of his creations on the internet and you will discover fan pages and DeviantArt profiles that will make you cringe. And yet, that is part of what makes his work appealing to me. Knowing that the mostly normal can enjoy the misadventures that befall Squee (or Todd as he is actually named), Wobbly Headed Bob, and Happy Noodle Boy and at the same time there is a kid curled up under the covers in his parent’s basement practically worshipping each page. What I’m saying here is that the book can be read for what it is -darkly brilliant humor with some twisted delights- or for what some want it to be -a manifesto for the wretched and alienated- and it will completely depend on your age and outlook with neither way being incorrect.

The only thing I haven’t fully touched on is what this Squee! collection contains. The keystone to the whole thing is of course the main Squee! stories, staring Todd, a young, unloved child who is frequently visited by aliens wishing to use him as a specimen. Todd is relatable in that most of what he fears are the same things that many kids fear (the dark, monsters) except in Todd’s case, there is reason for this fear. There really are monsters, and aliens, and the antichrist wants to be his friend. The Todd stories are a great read and the artwork is fantastic. The inking accentuates the lurking horror and insanity of the stories, and Vasquez’s asides -written on the fringes of panels, in either self-praise or mockery of the artwork- makes the reader feel connected to the creator on some level.

The second half of the book is the collected “meanwhiles” that Vasquez created to fill the rest of each original issues of Squee! and Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. In his words he wrote them “for the purpose of quieting the cackling in my head” and keeping him sane while working on the title stories. These “meanwhiles” are where the Happy Noodle Boy and Wobbly Headed Bob stories come from (along with a gamut of one-off characters). Some of them are pure brilliance and had me laughing manically, and others fell flat. Interestingly, I felt that the one-off comics were the best of the bunch, full of great ideas and twisted humor whereas the serial ones felt like they were one trick ponies that just were not allowed to die. Of the two serials, Wobbly Headed Bob was better, and had it been one comic I would have had a mild chuckle and moved on. Instead, by the time I reached the final one, I was tired of the dribbly-goop being spouted by the character about everything in the world being, essentially, a pile of suck and I was sorely tempted to just close the book and give up. The Happy Noodle Boy stories, had they been any good, would have made me want to claw my eyes out, but fortunately were just mediocre enough that I just didn’t feel like caring. In all honesty, I can totally see a much younger version of me thinking these stories were brilliant and totally understood life. Where I am now, they read as the ravings of a miserable pre-teen. Their only saving grace is that I am fairly certain they were either written as parody, or as filler to entertain the younger, outsider teens that were reading the book.

Overall though, this was a fun collection, and fans of Invader Zim would find much to like. The title story was great fun to read, and most of the secondary stories (beyond the two mentioned above) were fast and entertaining.