Saturday Splash Page #247

"Dirty Laundry," in Total Suplex of the Heart, by Joanne Starer (writer), Ornella Greco (artist), Nathan Kempf (letterer)

Georgie is a writer for a pop-culture website, when she gets the idea of writing an article about a local hardcore wrestling league. The angle being that she's going to be part of the show, as a valet. She doesn't understand what she's getting into, but finds herself hooked on the experience. Making friends, performing in front of a screaming crowd (though what they're screaming isn't necessarily all that great.) And there's a lot of hot guys for her to make terrible decisions with.

That's a lot of this graphic novel, Georgie making terrible decisions. Sometimes with good intentions, like when she works really hard to support her boyfriend Steve's career by playing homemaker or acting as a one-woman ticket booth and concession stand for one of his shows. She's trying to be a good partner, be supportive and helpful, without noticing she's making all the compromises. She's pushed down any thoughts of her life or her desires in favor of Steve's routine and his dreams. 

And if she finds herself questioning that, she feels bad. Because guilt is another big part of this. She's often very cheerful and friendly, gets along well with guys. People make assumptions about her as a result, and when she draws lines, when she decides she is not, in fact, comfortable climbing up on stage with an exotic dancer and making out with her for the entertainment of her male coworkers, she feels awkward and guilty about drawing that line, or being perceived a certain way The guilt usually drives her into one terrible decision or another - binging on high-fiber snacks, sleeping with complete assholes - and then she feels guilty or embarrassed about that. The cycle begins anew.

Her mother only appears in one scene, via video chat at the very beginning of the book, but we can't underestimate her impact on Georgie. In between criticizing her for not making time to call and not having a real job, she does compliment Georgie for working to stay in shape. She wouldn't want to end up like Aunt Sadie, who Georgie points out is happily married with two kids and millions of dollars. Her mother's rebuttal? 'But she's fat.' Oh well, then Sadie's whole life has been a waste.

Later, there's a scene of Georgie trying on a possible new look for her ring attire, and the first panel is the reality of how she looks, while the second, much less flattering panel, is how Georgie perceives herself. Starer and Greco don't use that more than once, but you can see it in how Georgie acts throughout. Never seeing herself positively, amplifying all her faults and blaming herself for things. 

It isn't all a downer. Georgie does find several people who believe in her and support her idea she can build something herself. (Starer admits in the afterword it took her an additional year to reach the point Georgie does in the story, and longer to start to confront her body image issues.) Her own promotion, her own life, that doesn't require her to throw everything she cares about away for someone else. There are lots of scenes or her sitting around with other wrestlers or promoters, laughing or dishing gossip, and once she finds her footing, Georgie really loves pro wrestling, in spite of all the sexism, racism, homophobia, etc.

Greco doesn't get to draw a ton of action, since so much of the plot happens outside the ring, in homes or bars. When there is action, the art captures the athleticism of the people involved. Someone taking a knee to the nose, or flinging their opponent over their head. The art captures the near-superhuman physiques of several of the wrestlers, plus their sheer size. Georgie barely reaches pec height on some of the guys.

The art captures all the sides of Georgie's personality. The playful, loud part, that'll catcall a guy or joke around with her friends. The quietly happy part that genuinely enjoys cuddling with her boyfriend, where her expressions and emotions are smaller and gentler. The vulnerable part where she opens up to people and shows what's eating her, even if she doesn't intend to. Where she's asking for help, but not really hearing what they're saying. And the times when she shrinks in on herself, hunched up on the couch in a hoodie and draped in a blanket, hating herself.

Here's my original review from February. 

What I Bought 6/17/2026

I've been using the TV to watch Youtube lately. Drawback, it doesn't have an ad blocker and, for some reason, over half the ads are for Iowa political races. I don't in live in Iowa. On the plus side, this means I have no stake, so I don't get depressed about what the candidates represent and what they chose to highlight as their positive qualities!

I only found one of the three books for this week. Which wasn't a surprise, but I could have used a pleasant surprise after a 3-day inspection trip in completely miserable weather. Also, i can't decide if it's a good or bad thing none of the stores around here ever have Chachu. Is it popular and constantly selling out, or did none of them order it? 

Marc Spector: Moon Knight #8, Jed MacKay (writer), Devmalya Pramanik (artist), Rachelle Rosenberg (color artist), Cory Petit (letterer) - Clea looks oddly happy on that cover. Should anyone be that pleased to be hanging out with Daredevil and Blade? She needs to get out more often.

A flashback reveals that during Marc's disastrous solo attempt to rescue his crew, the Mansion made him an offer. Bring it souls, and get his friends back. Hence, the double-cross on Blade, Rider, and DD. The Mansion, predictably, does not honor its terms, claiming it never specified how many souls he needed to deliver. But that's fine, because getting it to accept the three Midnight Sons leaves it vulnerable to the fact that terms refers to a ritual, not a team. Um, is that true? I never read all that '90s supernatural Marvel stuff.

That frees everyone. Marc's crew, the three he betrayed, and - well, we'll get to that. Tigra's very happy to see Marc. While it's not really in keeping with the tone of the rest of the issue, I do love that Pramanik drew Tigra's tail as wrapping around Marc and flicking excitedly.

The other Midnight Sons are somewhat less happy, though Blade puts it together the Mansion would have read their thoughts once they were taken, so it had to be genuine. I noted that when Marc is initially explaining, he's looking at his crew, and not, you know, the people he actually betrayed. Guess he can live with them being pissed - as long as they don't kill him - but not with Reese and the others hating him for doing something like that on their behalf.

The Mansion isn't dead, but Marc's got an army with him, courtesy of all the people the Mansion took, freed along with the costumed types. Clea pulls out some spell that gives everyone magic weapons. Daredevil got an axe, and is immediately testing its sharpness against his finger, what the heck, Matt? Tigra got a chainsaw, though, so Clea clearly knew who Marc would want to have the best toy. And now the Midnight Militia are ready to get to work.

Plus, there's still whoever is Marc's ace in the hole. Clea mentions a last ally who will help them escape. Which makes me a think teleporter, or portal creator. I kind of want it to be The Spot, but I figure magic is probably needed so, Illyana? Guess we'll see next month.

Mars on Earth - Mark Johanson

Johanson starts the book by discussing how NASA uses Chile's Atacama Desert as a testing ground for equipment they send to Mars, as the aridity, soil chemistry and the levels of ultraviolet radiation. But the book isn't really about that.

Johanson does spend a fair amount of time describing what traveling up and down, back and forth, through the Atacama does to him. The way it dries out his lips, the way his skin cracks from the wind and the sun, the way his eyes bulge and sinuses bleed as he travels into the high mountain regions of the desert. But the book isn't about how empty the Atacama is, but how much there is there, and how much a part of Chile's history it is.

In that regard, it was a fascinating read for someone that doesn't know a whole lot about Chile beyond what I picked up in the those books about the (U.S.-orchestrated) fall of the Allende government in the 1970s. Especially in regards to the various Indigenous peoples that lived there long before Europeans ever showed up. The oldest known examples of people mummifying the deceased are from the Chinchorro people in northern Chile, who were doing so at least 7000 years ago. The increased rains brought about by climate change are steadily unearthing new mummies. Some whose faces were preserved as is, others were painted with red clay or blue, while some are adorned with masks showing a variety of expressions.

(Also, the mummification seems to have started during a period when their was high infant mortality because the river they were living near and drinking from was extremely high in arsenic. Now, the people who still live there have an inherited tolerance for arsenic.)

Earlier in the book, and further south, he travels to the eastern border, to a town beneath a mountain called Licancabur, and meets with a married couple who are of the Likan Antai. One of the things they describe is that they have constellations made not just of the stars, but of the darkness between the stars. Like, negative space constellations, each meaning something different, and the intensity of the message depends on how well-defined they are.

There were a lot of passages and experiences he relates like that. Maybe they're old hat to those more versed in the history Latin America, but it was all new to me. And there's also more recent history, like the struggles of the workers of the European-owned mines to unionize in the early 20th Century, or a particular coastal town known for a brutal prison that future dictator Augusto Pinochet commanded earlier in his career, and which he'd later use to disappear dissidents once he rose to power.

Or, on a somewhat lighter note, how the British who came looking to mine nitrate (guano) passed along the concept of elevenses, except Chileans have turned it into a late afternoon meal called "once" (Spanish for thirteen), with regional variations in what sort of foods you have with the tea. The tea may also be spiked with something stronger, as that's apparently what the miners did on the sly back in the day.

The other part of the book, interwoven with Johanson learning about this vast desert in a country he's lived in for 7 years, is him trying to figure out what he's going to do. He settled here with the boyfriend he met in New Zealand, after years of a vagabond, traveling writer lifestyle. But is that what he really wants? Is he doing this desert expedition to better know his partner's home country (and the country Mark is descended from, though he was born in the U.S.), or is it a way to start breaking ties by putting distance between them?

I'm not sure that aspect of the book works as well. Maybe because it's such a personal thing for him, it feels like he struggles to describe what he's figuring out as he goes along. Or maybe it's me, as it doesn't really resonate. I'm a solitary sort, certainly more than Mark, and also not the type to just travel to a country with whatever money I've got and see how long I can stay there. The particular push-and-pull he's feeling doesn't necessarily strike a chord. I can't see how what he's seeing and experiencing in the Atacama is tipping the scales one way or the other for his decision.

Also, because he's trying to set the stage for that theme of the book, it takes a while before he actually gets into the desert. Initially, he's discussing mass protests in the capital where he and Felipe live, started by a student protest over increased metro fares, that help to oust an ineffectual, billionaire friendly president. The hopes of getting a new constitution, one voted on by the actual people of Chile, instead of one created by a handful of economists who thought neoliberalism was the cure-all, are impeded by the strain of enforced isolation and confinement, not to mention the economic pressure, brought on by COVID.

All that's important for establishing Johanson's state of mind. The fear, the stress, the uncertainty about his future, and why he takes the opportunity to flee into what appears from the outside (even within Chile) a forbidding and lifeless desert. A place where you can get out of the house, and not have to worry about social distancing, because there's hardly anyone around. A place well-distant from many of those concerns, because there are more immediate ones. Like if there's going to be water for your well if the aquifers keep getting drained to mine lithium.

But it did leave me wondering, initially, when he was going to start talking about the desert in his book about the desert. FYI, it's 57 pages in, about 20% of the way into the book.

'The horizon broadens as I veer slightly inland near Totoral, offering more sand and less rock, more shrubs and fewer cacti. Where it was once a study in the color brown, now everything is blazingly white. The aridity hits me at full force, and it becomes a stupefying drive. There are no dust balls rolling across the road, as in the American Southwest; rather, it's a raw rugged nothingness with only the sunlight to hold things together.'

Overdue Movies Reviews #16 - Pitch Black (2000)

A transport ship passes through the tail of a comet in a deserted trinary star system and crash lands on a rocky hellscape of a moon, orbiting an enormous ringed gas giant. Only a handful of the 40 passengers survive, mostly due to the navigation officer refusing to let the first officer dump them in an attempt to make a better landing. (The captain was killed in his cryo-pod by some of the micro-meteorites that punctured the hull.)

But the nav officer didn't buckle his seatbelt, so he didn't survive. Which leaves First Officer Fry (Radha Mitchell), a couple of prospectors, an antiquities dealer, a teen traveling alone, a priest (Keith David) on a pilgrimage with his three sons, and a bounty hunter (Cole Hauser). Oh, and the bounty hunter's prisoner, one Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel). Murderer, escaped convict. Emphasis on "escaped," because he's on the loose.

Of course, the satellite they've landed on is pretty inhospitable. No visible water, no trees. No nightfall, as there's always either the red-orange pair or their blue third wheel in the sky, if not all three. There are skeletons of enormous creatures in a vast plain, but no sign of any living specimens, or any other life. Maybe just let Riddick stay escaped? An entire ashtray of a planet to himself.

They find a mining outpost, abandoned. This solves the water issue, and if they can get some power cells from their ship, there's a dropship that will at least get them off this rock. If they can get them before the planet's remaining inhabitants come out to feast.

Is this Vin Diesel's big break? Iron Giant was the year before, but it was an animated movie so his voice was in it, but necessarily him. Saving Private Ryan the year before that, but he's a supporting character. The birth of the legend that is Dom Toretto is still a year away. I don't think Boiler Room did much for him. Riddick as a character relies a lot on Diesel's physical presence. That he's a big guy, that he can glare intensely, or offer an unsettling smile. It fits with Riddick's initial monologue about how the only part of your brain still aware in cryo-sleep is the low, animal part, and that's why he's still awake.

Because Riddick is, or is playing at, an animal. The "shine-job" on his eyes, allowing him to see in the dark, that glow like those of an animal with tapetum lucidum. The way he gently encourages Fry to come closer, then lunges like a guard dog on a chain. The bit where he covertly cuts a lock of her hair and sniffs it. Dislocating both his shoulders to escape, like a fox chewing off its leg to escape a snare. He speaks with his body; you can't trust the voice because he's trying hard not to let anything slip that way. Everything is a growled accusation, or a smart-ass remark delivered with a sneer. When he tries to mockingly laugh at Fry's accusation that he's afraid, he can't even manage a convincing laugh (he also leans back a bit, like she jabbed at him with knife or something.)

All that works to Diesel's strengths. The few moments where he needs to emote a little more, not so much. OK, really it's just the scene when Fry dies and he tries for a distressed?, anguished? cry of 'Not for me!' Actually, the part right before that, when Fry is trying to stand him up and get him walking, is good, and it relies on body language. Riddick doesn't try to lean on Fry for support so much as collapse into her arms. Which could be exhaustion after dragging all those power cores, fighting Johns, killing some of the creatures. But he flings his arms around her, and with their relative positions, Fry has to do the same. They end up in an embrace. Not romantic, more like a comforting hug, something it doesn't sound like Riddick - 'found in a dumpster with an umbilical cord around my neck' - has gotten much of in his life.

I enjoy the look of the landscape, especially in the scenes when the blue star is shining. Everything washes out to this almost blinding white, like everyone is directly under an incredibly bright spotlight. It really makes the planet seem dry, like there's so much heat sweat would evaporate instantly. Along with the bleached skeletons they find, and those immense, termite mound-like, spires the creatures make, that look so formidable, but are easy to break through. Just dry as dust.

Some of the CGI isn't great, the green screens when the characters are in the foreground of shots with the planet or the stars are jarring. The creatures' hands always seem strange to me, though I guess they're meant to have evolved for grasping, so the teeth or tail can deliver a finishing blow. The biologist in me wonders about the creatures evolving wings on a planet with such thin air, but maybe the heat creates updrafts to keep them aloft.

Even after the eclipse begins, though? But it doesn't seem like that prison planet from the second Riddick movie, where one side is an inferno, the other an ice box, so there must be some normal heat retention. The creatures are very thin, though I don't think their bones are hollow like a bird's, given one was trying to headbutt its way through a skeletal backbone to get at Jack. As always, the biology and climatology of worlds in Riddick movies fascinates me.

The story revolves around the Fry/Johns/Riddick trio. Fry, who was prepared to make a ruthless decision to save, at best, 2 lives at the cost of 40, and is now struggling to save the survivors as a form of penance. Johns, the lawman who is ultimately self-serving and dishonorable. Riddick the criminal that has given up on things like trust or support because the world has never shown any to him.

Johns makes Riddick an offer, help them escape this planet, and he'll go free. An offer Johns has no intention of honoring. Riddick surely knows this, but is willing to play along. Fry is the one in the middle, the other two tugging her their way (even though their ways are the same.) Riddick mentions Johns' morphine habit, that he didn't offer any to let the nav officer die in peace. Johns mentions Riddick can pilot a ship like the one they plan to use, that's how he made his last escape, and the crew didn't survive.

It isn't so much Fry's decision is relevant to how things play out between Johns and Riddick themselves. The two meatheads were always going to settle that personally. It's more what decision she makes. Does she honor the deal with Riddick, because he's honored his side? Does she leave him to die, because she fears he'll kill her? Does she make the choice to save herself, and abandon the survivors alongside Riddick? Prioritize her own, higher, chance of survival, versus the lower possibility she can save the others?

She's already done that last one once, and had her unwitting, prospective victims thank her for saving them. It eats at her. Mitchell moves through the movie like someone carrying an invisible 50-kilo sack on her back. Constantly exhausted, hair stuck to her forehead in a way that has to be irritating. Leaning against things or away from people. The guilt eats at her more every time she's praised, and drives her to desperation to try and save people she quite likely doesn't even really care about, when she has only the vaguest idea what she's doing. Fry understands ships enough to know how they can get the one they find in the air. Everything else? She's winging it. That makes having all these people rely on her even worse, especially when unforeseen circumstances - the rain, Jack's monthly cycle - create complications.

Johns and Riddick are the only two (alive) that know the truth. Each of them use it, too, in different ways. Johns uses it to undercut Fry when she tries getting on her high horse. The charming, noble protector veneer Hauser gave Johns up to then falls away, and we see someone that fights to win, whatever it takes. Maybe he learned that from Riddick shanking him in the back, or maybe it's something he always had.

In contrast, Riddick is gentle. He tries to coax Fry onto the jump-ship, to forget about Jack and Imam, and leave with him. Maybe there's a hint of mockery in him to start, but as the conversation progresses, I think he comes to first pity, then resent, her. In the former, it's how broken she seems about her inner conflict. Wanting to survive, but not wanting to hate herself for abandoning people. So he encourages her to do what he would. Survive. Even offers her a hand, then steps out of the ship to guide her in.

Eventually though, the fact she won't leave them digs at him. It's a little like The Killing Joke, only instead of it being a "one bad day" thing, Riddick wants confirmation that given the choice, other people would make the same decision as him, and think only of themselves. If Fry does it, then Riddick is fine. It's not just him, the universe really is as selfish and terrible as he claims as he sees it when he and Imam discuss God. But when she keeps insisting on going back, that means maybe it's just him that's the asshole. You don't have to always distrust kindness and cloak yourself in cynicism. Instead of Riddick pulling her into his way of seeing things, she pulls him the other direction.

Hit Reset

Seen that before. Guy ties the knot and it's like he forgets everyone else in his life. 

The 8th volume of No Longer Allowed in Another World is about most of the cast coming to realize the troubles of their world go deeper than the Seven Fallen Angels.

After Archbishop Elton's transformation and rampage in the previous volume, Annette has questions for His Holiness. They stop in the village Annette where vaguely remembers growing up (ominous statement), but find it almost deserted. All the men huddled in a single cabin, in deep depression because their wives are bewitched by an Otherworlder. The same Otherworlder that promptly captures Tama.

(This marks another volume where writer Hiroshi Nota doesn't really have anything for Tama to do. Outside a couple of cheap gags, she might as well not even be there.)

Annette goes alone to confront the "Fallen Angel of Lust", whose ability allows her to seize people's memories, making them into an easily controllable puppet. Annette, remembering what Sensei said about her not being a caged bird, resists, breaking free about the time Sensei shows up, excited to be dissolved by this strange power he heard about from Diantha, the only young elf woman in the village not bewitched. Significantly, Diantha's also the only young elf woman in the village not married.

The Fallen Angel's attempt to use her power on Sensei backfires. I think because his soul is too bleak? When she enters his thoughts, it's just a dark void. Or else he's so nosy his will overwhelms hers and he ransacks her memories instead. In this volume's tragic flashback, Eliza was a child TV star. Boys constantly hit on her, then insulted her for not responding. Girls assume she's sleeping with the guys and treat her horribly. Her one friend is a shy girl who draws a comic about a girl who looks like Eliza and is transported to a high fantasy world to become friends with an elf girl. But when Midori's boyfriend assaults Eliza, Midori blames Eliza for it. Enter the old Isekai Jackpot Truck.

Eliza joined the other Fallen Angels and was sent to conquer the elves, but made friends with Diantha instead. Diantha just wants to craft jewelry, but is constantly hounded to marry some douchebag man-elf. When they trashed her workshop, Eliza decided it was time to get down to business.

Sensei having seen all this while poking through Eliza's memories like a dirtbag private investigator, is disgust by the locals claiming their village is full of love. The wives, understandably, are not inclined to take the word of a woman who enslaved them, and insist their husbands did nothing wrong. Eliza probably made their husbands intimidate Diantha and wreck her workshop as a method of intimidation and coercion! So Diantha takes Eliza and they leave the village together.

So Eliza's better future is to stay here. This only makes the fact Yuriko and her sister were sent home even more curious. Their happy future involves being sent back to a world where the sister is always very ill (she was healthy in Zauberberg) and Yuriko's entire future is thrown away playing caretaker because the parents were too lazy to do it themselves? I don't get what kind of point Nota is trying to make there.

Still, with another crisis dealt with - sort of; the village's tendency to impose harsh expectations upon the women to conform to certain roles hasn't been addressed - everyone converges on His Holiness. Sensei and his crew, the remaining Fallen Angels, Annette's colleagues Ysha and Wolff (also suspicious after what happened to Elton), and the Dark Lord's daughter, Waldelia. Certainly feels like time for the big showdown, but there's not much fighting.

The leader of the Fallen Angels says they were ordered to kill the Dark Lord by the Pope. Once it was done, he made them the new boogeyman, and is using Sensei to remove them. This is a piss-poor argument considering the people he's talking to, like us, know only one (Yuriko) of the 4 Fallen Angels was sent away. Tama killed the cannibal. The other two are still roaming this world. Plus, there's all the Otherworlders who simply abused their abilities for their own gain. Why weren't they being ordered to defeat the Dark Lord? Well the guy has the hairstyle of a mob lawyer and eyes like a vampire. Clearly not to be trusted.

Meanwhile, the Pope's pitching Sensei on using his Cheat to help fix this world by expelling the Otherworlders. Predictably, this bombs, all the more when Sacchan shows up and uses her "Pride" Cheat to bind Sensei to her. While Annette seems able to briefly shake the hold on Sensei, the Pope shows off his own power, resetting things to when Sensei first arrived in this world. Only this time, he and Sacchan arrive together, Sensei still bound by her power.

Sunday Splash Page #444

"No Pleasure Cruise," in Babs #4, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer)

A 6-issue mini-series about a barbarian (former?) princess roaming a medieval fantasy realm, albeit filtered through Garth Ennis' particular sensibilities. Meaning profanity, graphic violence rendered by Burrows and Troy, and juvenile humor. Like Babs being introduced riding through a forest, grumbling and cursing, and it turns out to be because a chainmail top really chafes one's tits.

Babs has a magic sword, Barry, whose only special ability is he can talk. Oh, and his guard can act as little hands, though he doesn't do much with them besides gesticulate wildly and flip people off. Usually Babs, who grumbles about his uselessness, but doesn't get rid of him.

Her history, to the extent we can trust the accounts gathered by the geeks she beat the crap out of one night in the tavern, is of winning great wealth through some feat of killing or theft, only to lose said wealth in some idiotic way. Steal a necro-ruby by kicking the witch that held it into her own acid pit, gamble it away the next day. Make a fortune killing some troll king, lose it all on ill-advised real estate ventures. Based on what we see here, I have to question the geeks' research, because this Babs doesn't seem like she can plan or successfully pull off much of anything. She mostly just wings it. Maybe that's why she keeps losing her money.

Her friend Izzy's not much better off, as we see her steal an overweight dragon's hoard, only to have to pay it all in damages to a group of leprechauns (called something I'm not typing here) she plowed through with her chariot during the escape. Lots of blood, lots of little, green-clad limbs flying here and there. There's also Colin Culpepper, a useless goober of a knight that goes on (and on, and on) about purity and how he will protect any fair maiden. He also got knocked out by a bunch of orcs, one of whom took a dump in his helmet (because Garth Ennis), and the "holy flame" of his magic sword is just lamp oil.

To the extent there's a plot beyond Babs roaming about and getting in the middle of stuff, a guy in gleaming white armor called Tiberius Toledo and his knights of 'unblemished virtue', are convincing all the humans they'll be a lot better off once all these other races - dwarves, hobbits, etc., - are gotten rid of. And Tiberius will take care of that. He'll also take most of the townspeople's stuff while he's at it.

Despite half their group consisting of an orc, a goblin, and a troll, the geeks decide to help Tiberius. By providing the information they've spent their lives compiling, ranking (via a 10-point system for different attributes!) and arguing about. Very subtle, Ennis. Should I assume they'll soon have an Official Handbook of the Babs-verse, or a Who's Who? in the Babs-verse?

The geeks are led by Mork the Orc, a pencil-necked, spiteful loser who wants things to go back to how they used to be, when guys were always in charge, and who blames his lot in life on unseen forces keeping him down. Mork is the type insecure enough to buy a dick-enlarging potion (kept in a little blue vial), but too afraid of an ironic outcome to actually use it.

He and his cronies initially object to Babs because they thought she was some other barbarian princess that killed her father and took his clothes and his name. After she kicked all their asses, it was because she was part of the Deep Realm, a mysterious group conspiring to keep dudes like Mork from getting the money and women they're owed. To him, Tiberius will put things right, and get Mork on top where he belongs. That Tiberius doesn't give a shit about him or what he wants is not something Mork is capable of figuring out any time soon.

Again, Ennis not going for subtle. Which is fine, as long as it's funny, and it mostly is. Not laugh out loud - I laughed a lot more at Touched by a Demon - but I at least grin, or utter an amused snort. Burrows treads the line where the violence can be gory, but still exaggerated enough to be funny. Babs stopping in the middle of interrogating a guy by jamming a crossbow bolt up his nose to argue with Barry, who's complaining about being left stuck in the ground like a common shovel.

In the final confrontation with Tiberius, despite her plan not working at all, Babs ultimately wins the battle. I don't think anyone won the war, but definitely not her. Which, I suppose, is why she usually works for hire. Killing assholes for her own revenge, let alone based on some principle, just doesn't pay. Action is not her reward, and half a chicken isn't cutting it either.

There is a second mini-series, which was supposed to finish in June. The penultimate issue doesn't come out until this Wednesday, so who knows when it'll actually conclude. Not sticking to the schedule was an issue for this mini-series as well, but I don't know know the reason. Maybe they should switch to soliciting it as every other month? 

Saturday Splash Page #246

"Bucket List," in Touched by a Demon #4, by Kristen Gudsnuk

Bifrons was an angel who left Heaven alongside Lucifer. Now he's an Earl of Hell, the equivalent of middle management. Stuck making cursed geometry textbooks (redundant) for an unimaginative boss (Mammon), who won't give his idea of taking the broken shards of evil in the souls they break and combining them a proper hearing, because it's too complicated.

So, nerts to all that! Frons, and his assistant Pazuzu, will start their own realm of damnation, with blackjack, and hookers! Actually he decides to slip away to Earth and start a life coaching agency. Frons reasons, if he can help enough souls, perhaps God will forgive him and let him back into Heaven. 

Unfortunately, millennia spent in Hell torturing humans, preceded by however long in Heaven, with no concept of happiness or despair, has left Frons ill-suited to the task of actually helping humans. As Pazuzu puts it at one point, she has no moral opinions. I still don't know if she means she has no opinions that are moral, or that, when it comes to matters of morality, she simply has no opinions, period. Immoral versus amoral, neither is perhaps the best foundation for helping people with their problems.

What's touching is Frons and Zuzu really try. They're not incapable of empathy or concern. Their first client is a 16-year-old girl whose parents regard her as an organ farm to keep her older, terminally ill, sister clinging to life. Nothing Wendy does gains her parents' affection, or even their notice. All that matters is she's available to provide spare parts for a girl who, based on what Gudsnuk shows us in both the present and flashbacks, will never be more than a pale, non-responsive, sickly shell.

Zuzu and Frons agree Wendy's parents are terrible, and it's lousy of them to make her feel like she should want to be sick, because then they might care about her, or to treat her like she's only worth loving as long as she lets them cut out parts of herself. But then Zuzu mentions they should let the sister die. Frons adds that the parents deserve to die, too. Then Wendy could inherit all their money and this big house! Annnnnnnnnnd, Wendy kills her parents and sister that night, damning her soul. Whoops

But now Frons and Zuzu have a new receptionist, who is happy to get room and board working for a couple of demons. Win some, lose some. Mostly lose, to be honest. Their subsequent attempt to help a man be a better husband so he can get his family back ends disastrously, and while their next client seems fulfilled, the tools they give him to accomplish that result in the death and damnation of dozens.

It's an odd mini-series, as it feels like Gudsnuk ended it early. A detective looks into the disappearance of Wendy and her family (whose bodies Frons hid in the graves of people who died 150 years ago), and visits their office the same time Mammon shows up. That's in the last issue, so despite the cop's clear suspicion that something is wrong - Wendy's not very good at lying on the fly - nothing comes of it. Frons strikes up a friendship with a local priest, Father Angelo, who looks into the idea of whether a demon could be redeemed, not realizing he's talking to a fallen angel. It felt like Gudsnuk was leaning towards Frons having a crush on Angelo, but maybe that's just me spending too much time on the Internet.

Despite all the death and damnation, it's a touching story. Frons gathers this peculiar little group around him of people he tried to help, to varying degrees of success. He gave up his lyre to get Pazuzu out of a miserable existence as Beleth's assistant 500 years ago. He offers Wendy a place after she commits triple homicide. Pazuzu may not really care about helping humans in general, but likes Frons as a boss and wants to help him, and forms an instant attachment to Wendy. Wendy, while being understandably anxious about her situation, does her best to help and forms a bond with their other assistant, an influencer who died in prison and whose ghost inhabits a speaker box.

There's a bit of light at the very end, as Frons stops trying to solve his clients' problems with magic, and help them come to a measure of peace with their circumstances. I feel like they tried that with Sergio in issue 2. I guess the difference between that and how they worked with Delilah in issue 4 was, they didn't show Sergio that the work he was doing on himself had value, even if he didn't get what he desired. So, when it didn't work out how he hoped, Sergio saw no value in anything and reacted really badly.

And yet, I also found it hilarious. Zuzu's glee at things like keeping the possessions of bodies they dispose of, alternating with her frustration at yet another human messing things up. The third issue, Frons decides to just give the client a Chimp's Paw, so he can wish for what will make him feel fulfilled. This is a terrible idea, but Pazuzu is stunned when it goes disastrously. (That was another end left dangling, she never got back around to killing Max.) The lies they try to concoct to keep the detective from suspecting anything. That skull-faced person who appeared in a burst of fire was actually an illusionist! A client! In demonic makeup!

I'm probably not supposed to find Sergio's end funny, but something about the sharp turn it takes, the way he turns his love into something destructive, while Frons, Zuzu and Wendy look on in horror, then scramble for damage control, cracks me up. Gudsnuk's art style is tailored towards those broad, exaggerated expressions, so comical dismay or anger is pretty easy.

She often adds words that describe what the person is trying to express, almost like sound effects. Instead of BIFF or POW, you get "inspire" in rainbow colors, or "unmoved" in lowercase, dark black lettering. I'm not sure it's necessary; her art and dialogue are good enough to convey the feeling, but Gudsnuk seems to like it. Maybe she feels it adds impact?

I don't know if she ever intends to return to it, but I'd like to see more. I think there was some tension in whether Frons could actually stick to the formula he found in the final issue, or if he'd surrender to temptation and take the quicker route, or frustration and abandon the project entirely.