Romancing The Stone: Booty Call?

So. this feels a little out of sync with the Romance that I'm trying to conjure. This hearkens back to the old "Virgin Read" days. Here's the deal, my ultra-amazing husband bought me the entire hardbound collection of Girls by the Luna Brothers. Yeah, that's right. It looks amazing and I can't wait to read it. And yet, I've had to wait, because it's really heavy. Not the subject matter - though it may be, I'll let you know - but in actually pound for pound weight. This is not a train read, which is where a lot of my comic book reading does, in fact, take place, on my commute to and from work.

Long story short: I travelled home to attend a family reunion (alone?!) over Memorial Day weekend, and before that I played a gig, had a couple of hours of some much needed down time, and then I had to plan wrap up stuff for the end of the school year. There's been no time for 22 pounds of Girls, and I almost decided to take a break from comics, which seems to be the popular thing to do around here anyway. BURN

But there, in my boudoir, lay Big Question #14: Title and Deed. I kind of feel like I used it, like a good ol' fashioned booty call. (Wait - can I call a booty call "old fashioned"? Isn't that phrase relatively young? What did the colonialists call booty calls? Anyway....)

Big Questions # 14
By Anders Nilsen

Basically, just by looking at it, I knew it would be good. I knew it was just my kind of thing. And yet, I also knew that I had no intention of taking my reading of it any further than this issue any time soon. Sure, maybe some time in the future I'll be willing and able to commit to it, but it's just not where I am right now. And, yes, I could actually walk over to the mancave and pull every single issue of the series off a shelf. Maybe later, I promise. but for right now, I just needed something that I would enjoy. And I did. 

Now since I've not read any of these before (but have read a few Anders Nilsen comics, including one that made me cry my eyes out), I realized that it was possible I wouldn't really understand where this comic had been or where it was going, or if there was even a linear plot to follow. Now, although it's possible that the issue before this one had all the same characters and setting in it, it's also plausible that this issue is all on its own. There's a guy who "came back" according to the birds in the story, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he was in the last issue. Know what I mean? 

Overall, it's a poignant comic that certainly made me think. (Hence the title?) It starts off with a "simple" guy trying to communicate with a bird. There's clearly something a little off with this guy as he seems to be entirely mute and a little out of sync with the world - and very hungry as his grumbling stomach tells us. It's a pretty sweet scene, followed by several pages of other birds watching their bird friend who went travelling with the simple man. The simple man is inside a tent, the bird friend is on top. Shortly thereafter, though, that man I spoke of earlier--some type of soldier, I think--"comes back." Apparently it's his tent. I'm not sure what exactly he is emblematic of except possibly the worst parts of our humanity - rage and violence. He first loses patiences with the simple man and begins to beat him. The beating inspires similar behavior from the birds, who attack the angry man in retaliation and defense of the simple man and their bird friend. Although it's a violent and chaotic couple of moments, the scene is still very natural in setting and tone. But then, in the midst of this very natural scene the angry man pulls out the most unnatural of things - a handgun. He begins to shoot the birds. It's shocking. It's so out of proportion to what's been going on before. It really upset me. Then, a snake arrives, carrying some more birds, and he joins the fray, biting the man's ankle and giving them a chance to escape. 

The man shoots the reptiles head off, which is what you see on the cover. 

Generally speaking, Big Questions #14 seemed like it was all a comment on how we, "man", have the tendency to destroy the natural world with our clumsy, out-of-proportion rage which is due to us being completely out-of-sync with the natural world. I felt like it was illustrated that we are so out of sync with the communication that is happening all around us, to us, all the time; that when we don't understand the actual language that is being spoken to us because we are unable to slow down and really see, hear, and listen to what is being communicated - we respond like bratty children in a frustrated rage and destroy everything. The few last frames show the simple man, sitting with his nose bleeding and finally eating the sandwich he'd been so hungry for, amidst a pile of destruction and death.  

For whatever reason, that moment made me want to move out to the country and just slow down, sit and observe life. Get in sync.  

It's a stark comic. That's totally the way it should be. Generally, it seemed like a pacifist's war comic. I found it really interesting. And hey, you might get something completely different from it, I can't imagine what this issue read like if you've been on board since the beginning. (My husband said it was "pretty fantastic".) I'm down for more.

-Nina Stone, 2010

Comments

[LurkerWithout]

Anytime I see a Scandanavian named Anders I want to punch them. I blame the webcomic "Anders Loves Maria" whose protaganist I still want to beat with a stick. A lot. Stupid, jerk-face Anders...

[Kenny Cather]

You'll like Girls. It's awesome. I really enjoyed that one.

[John Pontoon]

I liked Girls a lot too, but - and I know that Some Guy Will Disapprove - I really thought it fizzled at the end. Where "The Sword" went out with an exclamation point, "Girls" goes out with an ellipsis. I look forward to your review, anyhow.

"Ultra" is strong competition for "The Sword" as the ne plus ultra of Luna Brothers oeuvre, their apotheosis (so happy to see David Uzumeri bust THAT word outta fart jail!)

So go call your husband a dick-ass for not getting "Ultra" instead, or pick some sort of fight wherein you obsess over the minutiae of every ill chosen word he released until he is worn and can only hide in computer land. THAT, then, is the setting of "Girls."

Hah, bet y'all thought I was ONLY being an asshole there! Cheers!

[LurkerWithout]

"Ultra"? Really? I mean it was a nice enough bit of super-hero fluff, but not much else...

[John Pontoon]

Naw, you're wrong.