Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Lying Cat, my hero

Damn.

Brian K. Vaughn might not necessarily be the best writer ever in comics, but he's sure trying his best.  And his best is fucking good.  Better than most of the crap out there.

Today brought issue 18 of SAGA, which I thought was kind of a pompous name until I read the first issue.  There are almost no comics I can name besides this one and maybe V for Vendetta, and okay The Sandman that I read one issue of and was immediately hooked (mind you, the first two were #1s and The Sandman was issue #8, which was the intro issue for Death and anybody who wasn't hooked by that issue has no soul).  No concept of what the story was about, just looked interesting, picked it up because it was a number one, BAM, addict.  I've mentioned in my last post what all makes SAGA special, but, like Pam Poovey on Archer, it seems the fan favorite breakout character is an unlikely choice:

lying...
 
The apparent death of Lying Cat in a recent issue nearly had fans doubled over in nauseous shock and wanting the head of BKV on a pike in Times Square so that we might pelt it with rotten tomatoes.  That's the sign of a good storyteller, I think, somebody who can make you care so much that you go apoplectic with rage when you even think that character might die.
 
I first encountered this with Douglas Adams when he killed off Marvin, the Paranoid Android.  I think now, looking back, it was because I identified with Marvin so much.  I was always paranoid, trying to hope for the best in life but totally expecting the worst.  And of course, making everybody laugh along the way, no matter what I really felt.  Kind of... he was killing off the only character I'd ever really bonded with.  And it was obvious that he was doing it just as a fan-service, because he was very caustic in stating Marvin's death... The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the last time ever.  Not as big a "fuck you" to Hitchhiker's fans as the comedy-less ending of Mostly Harmless, but enough to make a very young version of me hand-write a letter to this author I revered and tell him that he, in fact, should be the one fucking himself, after fucking all of Marvin's fans like that.
 
Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!
 


So while I was picking up SAGA, I made sure to pick up the next reprint issue of....


 
...Miracleman #2.  I forgot how vicious and death-lusty Kid Miracleman was until I saw this pic...
 
sup bitchcakes
 
And it was just as shocking and scary as the first time I read it.  So yeah, good day for comics and memories.


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