Yesterday I was floating around Google searches when I stumbled onto this painting of Arseface from Preacher.

You all remember Arseface, the teenaged rock-fan who survived his botched suicide attempt at the expense of his looks, leaving himself disfigured with a sort of groove through the middle and a mouth that looked vaguely like an anus (hence the less than PC name; ‘Arseface’).

I don’t remember what I was searching for, but it wasn’t at all Preacher related, so I had to pop the image open for some context.

What I would find beyond that link would throw my entire perception of reality into question.

This image was not a painting Arseface at all, but a real guy named James Vance. At first I was fascinated by the superficial similarities, believing it to be a coincidence, but the more I read, the more obvious it became that James Vance’s life had formed the basis for Arseface’s. The fictional character I’d been reading and re-reading about since my teens was barely fictional at all, but the very real embodiment of teenaged tragedy that we see here;

Mind blown, I blurted this revelation out in a (possibly insensitive) Facebook post and asked everyone I knew if they had known this all along. Many of my industry friends were aware of it, but most of the readers I know from my own generation had no clue.

This raised questions. ‘Why was this lost on so many of us us?’ ‘Was it really okay for Ennis to use Vance’s likeness and basic life story in an often comedic context?’… and ‘should we ever have laughed at it?‘ I don’t know the answers (I’m still trying to iron out these new mind-wrinkles as I type this down), but I’ll attempt to explain my thinking on this as best I can.

Vance’s story was famous back in the 80s because it tapped into the then-current religious fear of rock music. After he died in ’88, his parents famously put the blame on Judas Priest and took the band to court for allegedly hiding the subliminal messages in their songs that convinced James to take his own life (this was essentially disproven in court). Before yesterday, what little I knew about this case was half-remembered from the stand-up act of another real-life person who had once made a posthumous appearance in Preacher;

The late, great, sane man himself.

This in mind, I can only assume that the Arseface parody of Vance wasn’t intended to be hidden at all. Instead I think that Garth Ennis fully expected us all to recognize him. Hell, maybe audiences did in the 90s, when Arseface first appeared in the comic and this case was prominent in the country’s collective memory… but these days you’d be hard pushed to find a person on the street who remembers Judas Priest, let alone some legal battle they fought in way back in the boring part of the 80s.

Now that I think about it, it’s not that much stranger than some of the other dead celebrity cameos in the series, like Bill Hicks or John Wayne… the biggest difference with this cameo/parody is that they made this poor kid’s disfigurement synonymous with the less-than-flattering name ‘Arseface’. I can’t fool myself into thinking that this was a particularly generous move on Garth Ennis’s part.  On the other hand, Ennis did go to great pains to make readers care about Arseface and to essentially see beyond his extensive scarring and onto the fragile child inside. This might have been more of a blessing than a curse, had James Vance survived for long enough to see it.

This is why I’m torn. I first read preacher back in my middle-teens and I remember Arseface’s origin story in great detail — a story that I now see is essentially a mostly accurate retelling of James Vance’s failed suicide attempt.  As a teenager constantly fighting depression, rejected and often bullied by my peers, I really felt the character’s sense of claustrophobia and misery. I could feel what made him pull that trigger.  Before I had read that issue, it’d been easy to dismiss this character as an idiot (in much the same way that Bill Hicks dismissed the real James Vance up above), but that Arseface origin story humanized him and helped me understand and empathize with that character. Now I feel like the knowledge of that fiction helps me better understand this true story and the real human behind it.

In a strange way, that much feels like a service to the guy’s memory, but there’s no forgetting that choice of name. Perhaps by making us accept the character as a joke acted as a gateway to us to understanding him as a person… Or maybe Ennis was showing us that accepting a disfigurement and the nasty names that come with it de-powers the people who might use those names against us (after all, what can you say to insult a guy who calls himself Arseface? Not much, I’d wager).

… Or perhaps I’m over-thinking it and Garth Ennis has a sick and exploitative sense of humour. I don’t know him, so I can’t be the judge of that. I really don’t have the answers. I can only speculate.

Right or wrong, sympathetic or just plain sick; I do love Preacher. As ugly or as offensive as it gets, there is always an underlying element of humanity to it that makes it an unforgettable and enriching read.

Please feel free to leave your thoughts below in the comments.

-MVB

Click here to read Sherbet: Soul now!

OK, we’re clearly not making regular deadlines anymore. Sorry!

The problem is that a lot of these comics are getting longer.

When we first started this website all of our comics averaged out to about two pages and we rarely ever broke the three page limit. Lately, even though I try to keep the page count down, my own scripts have mostly been between four and nine pages long. It’s a tall order for an artist who doesn’t do this full time, but we’re all spending more time on every stage of these strips, because we care about the quality of our work.

So again, I’m really sorry for the delays, but we hope comics like this strange little Ghost story will make up for it. Josh Mathus and I worked very hard to make it and we’re both proud of the results, so if you like it, please share it!

I’m currently looking around for more regular talent to help out around here. I mainly need artists right now, but writers are always welcome. If you or anyone you know would like to try out, please email bramley@hadroncolliderscope.com and title the email ‘I AM A TALENTED EARTHLING’.

We hope you’ll keep an eye on us and keep reading, because we’ll be back with more as soon as possible!

Best

-MVB

P.S: I’d also like to make a note about Sherbet’s use of the ‘R’ word in that strip. I realize that it’s a slur, one that offends and devalues people. I no longer use it personally, but she would. She is after all, a cruel and offensive person who doesn’t pull her punches. I considered other alternatives to the word, but they felt like betrayals to the essence of who she is and what this comic is about. Sherbet is an uncensored, adult comic about nasty things, with some nasty people in it who say and do more nasty things. That said, I am truly sorry if it does offend you – Sherbet’s opinions are not my own and her usage of that word just felt real and natural to her character.

I’ve spoken about The Walking Dead here twice before and I fully expect this to be my last post on the subject of the TV show.

Previously, in my second review of the series, I avoided giving a fully negative review because I didn’t have the heart to knock a show based on a comic book I felt so positively about and I saw seeds of promise in the shit-heap that the show had quickly become.

Having caught up with the series, I can safely say that the show is just bad. It is bad to the point that it is inexcusable. Furthermore, being bad is the only thing that the show is actually consistent in at all.

The other day my friend Keith Bowen likened watching The Walking Dead to being a fan of Nutella, but having to eat it spread microscopically thin across a giant piece of dry Brioche. This is such an apt analogy that I have now given up on the show entirely and do not intend to invest future hours of my time into watching it.

So where did it go wrong? Let’s examine that in a post I’m going to call;

First of all, let’s look at the Nutella in the equation. That accounts for just about everything in the Darabont pilot, the mid-season finale of season two and the occasional scenes where character interaction doesn’t seem geared towards forcing unnatural tension between characters who don’t really have any reason to fight…

Well, that was quick. That’s the good part covered, onto the stale Brioche of the Dead.

Have you ever noticed how the writers of the Walking Dead don’t really know how to write people?

In one of my previous posts I complained about the characterization of Daryl (the Redneck) and how nothing in his apparent reform between seasons was ever earned… and well… that’s virtually everyone in this show. We can see the roles they’re meant to fill, but nobody earned those positions.

Here’s a quick breakdown for the sake of clarity:

Dale is meant to be the father figure of the group right? Well unfortunately he hasn’t really done anything to deserve that title beyond being old. Similarly he’s meant to have some kind of connection with Andrea, but all we see is her being a bitch to him and him trying to control her. No connection was ever established and lost, no real motivation for his obsession with her is ever explained and the audience sure as hell can’t understand it, because she’s not likable.

Then there’s Andrea. Well, I know what she’s meant to be, because I read the comics. She had a very subtle, but compelling character arc wherein she starts as a normal, boring, lucky survivor and slowly becomes a badass worthy of ‘survivor’ status. Unfortunately they made her into a whiney pain in the ass with nothing to recommend her and yet, even after she accidentally shoots a guy in the head because she’s a fucking idiot, people treat her with respect and dignity she simply doesn’t deserve.

Glenn, who is, for the most part, one of the most bearable characters in the show, is often said to be the guy who braves dangerous situations and scouts for food, but we never really see it, other characters just talk about it in shamelessly expository dialogue. As early as his first appearance in episode 2, he’s shown an overwhelming lack of survival skills – and again, hasn’t earned his place at all.

I could go through virtually the entire cast like this, but suffice to say, none of them really have clearly defined characters, none of them are really written well, and none of them act like human beings

Here, I’ll show you what I mean… watch an episode and make a note of the next time you see a character get pissed off about something. Write what it is that pissed them off and why. Then I want you to make a note the next time you see something that would piss you off if you were that character and see how said characters react to it.

Here are some examples of things that people in the Walking Dead TV show get angry about;

*Being talked out of a suicide attempt.

*The leader persisting in searches for a missing child.

*Being expected to share plentiful resources and land with the only other people on earth.  

And here is a list of things they are remarkably blasé about;

*Getting shot in the head.

*Cheating Partners.

*The death of a young family member.

It’s almost as though the writers have made a pact to literally never show characters reacting in a predictable way, but sometimes predictable just means reasonable and believable. It’s OK to break away from the norm sometimes, the comic has done it a lot, but generally in the comic, the character interactions seemed believable enough that they lose nothing by showing them react in peculiar ways. Enough of the comic’s tension is earned that it’s OK to throw away ripe possibilities for drama, sometimes, whereas the show throws out all realistic drama in favour of contrived attempts to make characters fight… and when I say fight, I mean argue in hushed tones.

Literally the only person in the entire show who ever seems to make any sense, both in terms of actions and reactions is Shane. Yep. The attempted rapist – that guy is the only person on the show who gets angry for the right reasons. He is literally the only person who makes any damn sense. And when the guy you’ve been desperately trying to make into a villain since season one winds up being your hero, you’ve fucked up.

I remember the network running ads during the first season stating that character interaction was the draw rather than horror, but the writers of the show seem to understand neither.

Where are all the fucking Zombies? Maybe the network feels like they made a promise with this picture of a vast empty space with one guy in the middle and they now feel like they need to make good on it?

 Or maybe it’s because the show is wasting money on things like pointless car-crashes that they can’t afford to actually feature the hook of the show. But even if that is the case, it’s no excuse. Having a budget never stopped Buffy the Vampire Slayer from featuring vampires, or star-trek from featuring aliens. What do you think the Daleks are? We made that shit with trash-cans and plungers and that should STILL cost more than Zombie make-up. Your monsters are the easiest thing in the world to make. Just slap on some red corn syrup, a little liquid latex and some freaky contact lenses and you’re fucking done.

Now I’m not saying you can’t tell a good Walking Dead story without Zombies, but when your show is called ‘THE WALKING DEAD’, they’re not the sort of things you should only break out on special occasions.

Sure, the show has had one or two good episodes, and one or two good scenes on top of it, but why watch over 20 hours of footage when only 5 percent or so is actually interesting? Hell, I bet I could apply that to any show that bores the fuck out of me; but I don’t watch those shows because they bore the fuck out of me. And this? The Walking Dead? It is BORING. It’s so BORING that it warrants capital letters.

It is also frustrating, annoying, plotless and unrealistic in the most basic ways imaginable. I’m washing my hands of it. I give up.

I strongly suggest the comics for those of you who are similarly frustrated with the show, but haven’t made the move over yet. The comic is consistently intriguing and in those 2-dimensional panels you’ll find more 3-dimensional characters than have ever appeared in the book’s televised counterpart.

OK, I’m done ranting. That’s all folks!

-MVB