Writing in the Margins

Our monthly roundup of indie publishing: DC Comics terrifies with Lovecraft; Lethem and Denis Johnson do avant-cabaret; a harrowing tale of the 1997 Red River flood.

By Scott Thill

May 13, 2004 | Man alive! I did not predict nor was I equipped to deal with the e-mail inundation my last column generated. But that is not to say that I am asking all of you crafty readers out there to cease and desist; on the contrary, to quote President Bush -- or John Kerry, you decide -- "Bring it on!" By all means, keep sending me your releases, kits and solicitations and I promise to try to sift through it all before turning in to watch "Cowboy Bebop." I'm interested in almost anything not involving Martha Stewart.

And another quick note before we get this bookworm party started. While this column is oriented toward the latest in indie publishing, my personal definition of what exactly that encompasses is probably a bit broader than the one offered by the excellent Punk Planet. For me, "indie" sometimes connotes a particular state of mind, usually one involving bizarre experiments and risky brilliance; sometimes I can find that confluence in a major release (Jonathan Lethem's latest comes immediately to mind, and not just because he's the finest writer working today). But the majority of the time that will simply not be the case.

Plus, today's optimistic terminology quickly becomes tomorrow's buzz-soaked ad copy. To wit, there is already a self-proclaimed "indie" radio station owned by Entravision Communications -- Indie 103.1 in Los Angeles -- that broadcasts deep cuts rarely heard on radio stations unaffiliated with universities or colleges.

All of this is another way of saying that I just want to bring you the goods, no matter who publishes it. I'll try to stick mostly to the hardscrabble outfits publishing shot-in-the-dark screeds from basements in Omaha, Neb., or Santa Monica, Calif., but just not all of the time. Let's start with an example.

"Lovecraft"
By Hans Rodionoff, Enrique Breccia and Keith Giffen
144 pages
DC Comics
Order from Powells.com

"It's a Bird"
By Steven T. Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen
128 pages
DC Comics
Order from Powells.com

"Y: The Last Man"
By Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra and José Marzán Jr.
DC Comics
Order from Powells.com

DC is one of the oldest and finest publishing houses in the world; it almost single-handedly revolutionized comics for the 21st century in 1986, the year that both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' "Watchmen" and Frank Miller, Lynne Varley and Klaus Janson's "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" wrecked the comic book shop for good. Before those graphic novels hit the streets, the superhero narrative was mostly a cliché-ridden genre out of touch with a society well past its simplistic worldview. In one fell swoop, Batman went from being a heart-of-gold crime-fighter to a self-absorbed psychopath with a messiah complex, and that dark and dangerous metamorphosis was all the world needed to explode comic books even further into the stratosphere. (Tim Burton's "Batman" came out a scant three years later, and Hollywood hasn't looked back since.)

But if you still believe at this late date that comics are strictly for kids, take a look at DC's adult readers' line, Vertigo. Hitchcock would be proud of that title, as the protagonists of Vertigo's newly released or upcoming "Lovecraft," "Y: The Last Man" and "It's a Bird" are harried males at the mercy of oppressive -- sometimes feminizing -- forces arrayed against them. While "The Last Man" series is a bit more traditional in its fantastic plot -- a heroic male magician named Yorick finds himself alone in a post-apocalyptic world full of women, a comic nerd scenario if there ever was one -- the other two derail the superhero narrative in favor of a metafictional horror; that is, they are both books about the metaphysical struggle to, well, write books.

Steven Seagle and Teddy Kristiansen's "It's a Bird" seizes upon the Superman mythos as its point of departure, but it is actually about Seagle's struggle to write a Superman comic as his family succumbs to Huntington's disease. "The two subjects collided in a unique amalgam of family history and Superman deconstruction," Seagle explained to me in an interview. "I realized I could tell one story using the other as an emotional punching bag, and that seemed like something I had never seen done before."

"There have been other metafictional moments in comics -- Grant Morrison's appearance as himself in his own superhero comic 'Animal Man' comes to mind -- but 'It's a Bird' is a bigger departure for comics than just metafiction," he added. "This is a book about the real-world Superman, the one who exists only as a comic book character. It's about the absurdity of trying to chronicle a man of infinite powers while living in a world populated with people whose 'powers' -- to speak, to walk, to feel -- are waning."

Meanwhile, "Lovecraft" is an imagined biography of H.P. Lovecraft that literalizes the horror master's legendary creations like Cthulhu and Arkham (after which Frank Miller named the asylum where Batman banishes the Joker and Two-Face in "The Dark Knight Returns") as real places and beasts that terrorize his every step. Using the bizarre intricacies of Lovecraft's real life -- his philanderer father contracted syphilis and eventually died in an insane asylum; his mother dressed young Howard up in girls' clothing and met her own demise in an asylum -- and turning them into actual events that lead him to a lonely doom, "Lovecraft" blurs the line between fantasy and reality to the point that separation is simply no longer possible.

"At a time when most horror fiction was about creatures from the deep or invaders from Mars, Lovecraft chose to explore a hidden world that existed just outside human perception," Rodionoff told me recently. "He essentially built the foundation for modern horror, and I wanted to write something that would inspire readers who weren't familiar with his work to discover Lovecraft for themselves. The story of the man is just as bizarre and ultimately tragic as many of the myths he created."

Rodionoff is no stranger to horror, having penned screenplays for more than a few Clive Barker-ish gore films (including three in 2004 alone), and Giffen's distillation of his twisted narrative, as well as Breccia's harrowing artwork, makes this a read worthy of the "Dawn of the Dead" and "28 Days Later" faithful who are currently flooding the theaters and rental shops around the country. Horror is massive right now, which means there's no time like the present to rediscover the tortured Lovecraft while you can. More important, it's long past time to stop looking down on comics as some form of lowbrow entertainment.

"Things like 'Maus' and Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' have elevated graphic novels to a legitimate form of literature," Rodionoff added. "Comics are no longer limited to being housed in plastic bags and stored away in the attic; they can now be put on the shelf with the other books."

Next Page: A prog-punk epic that should have made this year's Top 10 lists

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