Reconstruction of the Fables
Mar 29
(WARNING: If you haven’t read Fables yet, and hope to someday, and you would NOT like spoilers for your reading, please surf elsewhere. Thank you and godspeed.)
There’s a great old Alan Moore essay, the foreword to one of the myriad editions of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, where he talks about how DKR is so great because it gives the Batman mythology an ending. Maybe not the only ending Batman will ever get (and as we know, with Dark Knight Strikes Back Miller essentially took away the very ending he gave the character), but an ending nonetheless.
Myths require an ending, Moore says, to truly resonate. Robin Hood has the lone arrow marking his grave; the Norse gods have their Ragnarok. Thanks to Miller, and even in spite of his own sequel, Batman will always have that hand around Superman’s throat, the quiet tick of a heart reawakening in the grave, and a new empty cave full of heroes and potential.
I think about this essay often because unlike the world of endless corporate superhero universes, more and more comics are giving us stories with endings. Not just miniseries or graphic novels, but long form stories in the tradition of Sandman, perhaps the first modern comic to adopt this template. Eighty issues, many stories and characters; spinoff miniseries and graphic novels and one-shots. But eventually, an ending.
The Bin – 3/26/10
Mar 26
God, here we are again. Every week we gather up the leftover grease from what our brains have been cooking and we use it to create something new, something special, something that smells only as stale as your dreams. We call it the Bin.
Acceptance of a Higher Power – LOST 6.9: Ab Aeterno
Mar 25The metaphor of The Island as a stoppered bottle of wine containing uncontrollable evil has me in the mind to think of LOST through the lens of AA – and, as we have a few characters with drinking problems (and a few actors, too), why shouldn’t it?
What has this show been if not an examination of broken, powerless people being given a second chance to accept a higher power and make amends for their past misdeeds and missteps? In Sawyer, in Jin, in Jack and most recently in Ben, we’ve seen redemptive arcs come to fruition. The Island makes the lame walk, brings estranged spouses and fathers and sons and siblings back together, allows the haunted and unlovable to find love. But it always allows for the choice to reject it, which we saw Sayid do in “Sundown” – no strike that, as far back as season 4 when he chooses freely to become Ben’s hired gun.
That this is exactly what Jacob’s agenda is (at least, as he describes it to Richard; Mark Pellegrino’s Jacob is as mystic and inscrutable as ever; he’s not a liar, but he rarely says everything) is a welcome confirmation, but hardly a surprise.
Redemption is a major theme in “Ab Aeterno” (which literally means ‘from eternity’ and colloquially means ‘for a really long time’). Instead of parallel-world hijinks that we still aren’t sure are relevant to what has been a disjointed and lumbering (if still highly enjoyable and packed full of Moments) A-plot, instead we get a taste of LOST’s old bread and butter – the flashback. In it, we see Richard (who might also be Ricardo, Ricardus or Rick Astley depending on who’s addressing him) wrestle with his own inadvertent damnation and his struggle between TMIB’s easy path to salvation (which involves stabbing someone to death) versus Jacob’s eternity of service pitch.
In the present, not much happens beyond a frame to enwrap the flashback, at least until the end of the hour, where Hurley comforts Richard by acting as an intermediary between he and his dead wife. I am going to resist making a Ghost joke, because I’ve already seen like five thousand of them in regard to this scene. This finally helps Richard to get his head on straight after a moment of shouting-at-the-jungle doubt. And it’s an understandable doubt. As has been pointed out about Avatar, religion is not faith on Pandora, but rather fact. It is the same on The Island, especially for those like Richard who have had a close relationship with its primary inhabitants. With his god dead, his people scattered or massacred and his life dependent on a snarky-ass interloper like Jack Shephard, what else can he feel but despair?
And thus, with 9 hours behind us, we move into the second half of the final season. Team Jacob’s can do spinal surgery, talk to dead people, stare creepily and have impressive eyelashes. Team Flocke has Zombie Sayid, Kate, Clairzy (Claire + Crazy) and Cindy the Stewardess. Sawyer’s running his own game. Jin’s been bear-trapped into uselessness. Real Locke is still dead and buried. Widmore is back and has a Flocke-proof fence set up. We’re moving inexorably toward a showdown and the outcome is still anyone’s guess. Will it be Lostie vs. Lostie? Will the good guys keep the wine in the bottle, or will evil overdramatically smash the hell out of it? It’s too close to call, but it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
Alert Nerd Press Spotlight: Do You Want to Grok My Avatar?
Mar 24
In college, I made my own ‘zine. It was called FanGirl. It had a purple cover, a stapled spine, and multiple unfortunate font choices. I still have many, many fond remembrances of parading down College and Telegraph Aves in Berkeley, dropping issues off at Cody’s and Pendragon, hoping someone might be drawn in by the cute cartoon astronaut girl on the cover.
All of us at Alert Nerd have “I made this!” memories like that (ask Matt about his Clara Peller ‘zine sometime, won’t you?) and I think that’s one of the big reasons we started Grok, our little PDF ‘zine that houses essays, fiction, and general silliness centered around nerd culture. And Grok led to Alert Nerd Press, which has now published multiple book–like things. We’ve got some pretty dang crazy plans for ANP this year, so I thought it might be fun to keep you up-to-date via a monthly column that spotlights various aspects of stuff we’re working on: upcoming releases, Grok contributors, random incriminating pictures of Chris and his proton pack collection. It will be an absolute delight, I’m sure.
Lost 6.8, "Recon"
Mar 21
(epically cool Sawyer sketch above via artist Grant Gould)
One of my favorite parts of the vast Lost landscape has been the quasi-sorta Luke/Leia/Han allegory of the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle. I’m not a huge fan of the triangle itself, mind you, just the fact that the producers have always referenced that other Star Wars triangle when discussing Jack/Kate/Sawyer. Which must mean that they’re giving us subtle hints for a “OH SHIT KATE’S MY SISTER” reveal in the final episode. Cannot WAIT.
Let’s be honest; without all the Jedi nonsense and the daddy issues, Luke’s nowhere near the most interesting character in the Original Trilogy. Without the constant episodes focusing on his alcoholism, his stubbornness, his need for control, and every other personality quirk the writers can muster, Jack’s nowhere near the most interesting character on Lost.
Sawyer isn’t, either, to my mind. (For me it’s gotta be Benjamin Q. Linus.) But there is something incredibly compelling about the Han Solo of Oceanic Flight 815. This week, we get a big fat reminder of that, not just from our boy on the island but from his counterpart in the flash-sideways timeline.
