COMICS REVIEW: SP4RX (2016)

Written and drawn by Wren McDonald

Published by Nobrow in 2016.

. . .

“I thought you didn’t give a shit?”

“I don’t. Now let’s get to it.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker. 

Between two covers on one hundred sixteen pages of paper and in black, white, and two shades of purple we find ourselves in the near future dystopian mega tower of Avalon-a city rigidly divided by class. Much like in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the capitalist overlords occupy the heights, the squishy middle management’s just below that, and below them you have the zero mobility wage slaves-and below them you have the subterranean layer just for the criminals, militants, and homeless folks. From the outlaw depths emerges SP4RX a mercenary cyborg superhacker with a mean streak who despises fools and fuck-ups. SP4RX is consciously focused on two things: kicking ass and getting paid. His unarticulated third passion is for his best friend and roommate CL1PP3R, a more easygoing cyborg street doctor who specializes in diagnostics and maintenance for the heavily modded hacker underground. The restless SP4RX likes adventure, hates failure, and prides himself on his hyper-competence. CL1PP3R is totally at ease with himself, loves nothing more than being plugged into virtual reality, and rarely goes outdoors. 

SP4RX is one of those stories where you have an angry mercenary hero who doesn’t give a fuck . . . until he sorta gives a fuck. SP4RX is intriguing in that he is focused on externals-combat, money, vengeance against people he doesn’t respect-but his journey leads him to an unexpectedly internal destination. SP4RX explores themes of competency and efficiency by pitting a ruthless mercenary against a growing horde of brainwashed employees of an evil corporation. Free will seems to be the difference between SP4RX and his enemies, but even he seems to be fated by his perfectionism to transcend his draggy meats in order to merge with cyberspace. In an amusing irony, SP4RX drives himself harder than any corporate master ever could.

SP4RX is eventually recruited by one of them thar rebel underground type outfits. The Star Wars vibes even include an adorbs toyetic robot sidekick.

The climatic mission involves penetrating a convoluted enemy base while blasting cannon fodder bad guys. Yep, it’s got one of those.

What I liked best was how mean and antisocial SP4RX is-the dude rampages against copbots and brainwashed employees and even steals a motorcycle on a whim. He smokes cigarettes. He’s got this robotic left arm that serves as a hydraulic ram, lockpick, and cigarette lighter all-in-one. He’s got a de rigeur Neuromancer/Ghost in the Shell cyberbrain to plug his consciousness into cyberspace. He also has no problem telling people he doesn’t respect to get fucked. SP4RX is ironically optimized to conquer a shitass lousy world he despises. Now, this isn’t really in the spirit of Neuromancer, since Gibson’s vision is far more humanistic. Gibson’s characters prevail to the degree that they resist total mechanization. SP4RX is born of a more callous age that feels congruent with both the police state Machiavellianism of Ghost in the Shell and Neo Gilded Age America in the back half of the 2010s: mean, stupid, greedy, obsessed with technology, always online, strung out on every kind of drug, hypersexual yet anhedonic, heavily armed, and self-destructive.

Much of what transpires here is familiar, but the commentary on work/life imbalance in the gig economy age of hustle and grind is on point. There’s also great world-building featuring lots of posthuman architecture. I especially liked the squalid, tightly packed VR parlor that SP4RX visits in the depths of his alienation. SP4RX’s technological dystopia replaces human intimacy with absorbing, fully monetized virtuality at every turn: fuckbots, full immersion brainlink fantasias, and corporatized media shilling greener grass lifestyle pornography in lieu of actual information.

SP4RX is an example of a creator-owned genre exercise done well. Writer/artist Wren McDonald isn’t pulling out his guts for some indie autobiographical masterpiece on this one. This isn’t Harvey Pekar or Alison Bechdel or Dave Sim. Wren is doing what he wants with a cyberpunk saga of an antisocial mercenary hacker fighting to survive in a world he never made. This isn’t the literary, densely ironic cyberpunk of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Count Zero, or Mona Lisa Overdrive, but rather the action-oriented highly processed fructose corn syrup cyberpunk of GURPS, Mike Pondsmith, Shadowrun tie-in novels, Robert Longo’s film of Gibson’s Johnny Mnemonic, and the Albert Pyun flick Nemesis. SP4RX is focused on kicking maximum ass spiked with some Robocop/Starship Troopers style Media Break-esque satirical asides. It goes down easy and leaves you with a memorable aftertaste. Overall, it’s one more exhibit in the case for the superiority of an actual human creator over a corporation or an AI even if it’s just for entertainment purposes.

DARK MUSINGS IN A UNIVERSE SANS HOPE #3:

 

In my mind’s eye, I see Lee Harvey Oswald burning in Hell. 

Devils and demons and fallen angels chatter inanely and incessantly about various JFK assassination theories.

Oswald, dressed only in a towel as though sitting in a sauna, rolls his eyes so fuckin’ hard. 

“You guys . . .”

COMICS REVIEW: CLIMATE CHANGED (2012, 2014)

CLIMATE CHANGED: A Personal Journey Through The Science

by Philippe Squarzoni

English translation by Ivanka Hahnenberger.

Published in 2014 by Abrams ComicArts.

Edited by Carol M. Burrell

Designed by Meagan Bennett

Production Manager Alison Gervais

Managing Editor Jen Graham

Original French language publication in 2012.

. . .

“We choose an image that fits the idea that we started with . . . so we hold on to that idea . . . so we keep choosing that same image . . . and BAM! We’re stuck in a loop of one vision of the world.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Climate Changed is a five hundred page non-fiction comic book covering all of the core aspects of human caused global warming on planet Earth. It goes over the scientific basis of climate change, the research methods of climate scientists, and how the data are worked into comprehensible educational products for the benefit of politicians, business leaders, and concerned citizens. Climate Changed weaves a harrowing tapestry of doomsday scenarios while also pointing to systematic solutions. It confronts the central injustice of global warming: wealthier, technologically advanced societies contribute the most to global climate change which causes the poorest societies to suffer the worst outcomes. 

Climate Offender Number One is, of course, the United States of America, which consistently denies climate science in favor of a no limits fantasy regime of endless cancerlike economic growth, unlimited consumption, and the absolute externalization of all environmental harms in the name of infinite profits. Climate Changed unmasks this fantasy regime as ultimately doomed once certain physical consequences kick in-peak oil, lethal heat waves, superstorms, rising water lines, huge populations of climate disaster refugees, plagues of insect borne illnesses, water wars, collapse of democratic rule, rise of authoritarianism-and makes a compelling case for a global transition away from fossil fuels and the extremist ideology of completely deregulated right wing libertarian capitalism.

Climate Changed also offers a metastory about its own making. French Writer/Artist Philippe Squarzoni tells his own story of a journey from climate innocence to climate experience. He casts his memory back to his Edenic carefree childhood, and crashes those visions against his present day immersion in charts, graphs, endless days of reading and note-taking, long form interviews with France’s top tier climate researchers, and deconstructs his own culpability as part of the global capitalist prosperity religion of consumption without consequences. Squarzoni doesn’t do phony optimism, but neither does he rant and rave. Yes, he feels deep pessimism about the prospects of drawing down the system that will very likely limit the future prospects of the human species; but Squarzoni also describes substantial solutions in convincing detail. Climate Changed is a persuasive argument for a new kind of “globalism” that is authentically global in its concerns, and not just a techno-capitalist sophistry justifying the domination of the poor by the wealthy.

There’s also some self-deprecating humor and wit. Squarzoni weaves in his cinephilia, particularly for the films of Coppola, Sidney Lumet, and Akira Kurosawa. Squarzoni seems to draw inspiration from The Godfather’s indictment of capitalism; Frank Serpico’s crusade for rule of law; and Ran’s warning against the dangers of foolish gerontocratic despots having their way. At one point, Squarzoni indulges in a superhero fantasy of him and his wife using lightsabers, a katana, and an AR-15 to symbolically massacre a hulking Voltronic consumption monster, a carbon polluting SUV, and a gang of Santa Clauses. Squarzoni knows very well that these passages play like corny-ass The Matrix fan fiction, but after hundreds of pages of sober analysis of climate policy paralysis, well, even a stoic film bro has to cut loose.

Climate Changed is over a decade out from its original French language publication. Some of the milestones it describes in terms of lethal heatwaves and storms have been long surpassed. The situation has only gotten worse. And yet its depiction of the core malfunctions of carbon pollution, inadequate governance,  and capitalist avarice have become more valid than ever. It is also a weirdly enjoyable read. To be clear, Climate Changed is not a giddy celebration of doom-that’s the book I would’ve written. In fact, the book is engaging because it is so meticulously reasoned and thought through. Squarzoni isn’t trying to bamboozle himself or the readership with false hope or non-productive hysterics. He acknowledges his frustrations and his fantasies while also pushing beyond them to deal with reality itself. And all of this is accomplished with black and white line art that ranges across abstract visualizations of intricate climate processes, lyrical evocations of childhood nostalgia, and incisive satirical caricatures. Climate Changed is an impressive panorama of nostalgic memory, fantasy, science, and irrevocably harsh physical reality.

There’s nothing comics can’t do.

Except, perhaps, convince politicians and business leaders to do what must be done to avoid climate catastrophe.

Alas . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #78:

SOME DUDE NAMED KEVIN MCCARTHY IS ALL BUTT HURT ABOUT SOMETHING, SO HE’S QUITTING HIS JOB. LIKE, NOBODY EVEN LIKED HIM, SO WHY DO WE CARE, NOW, HUH? IT’S SO STUPID. I DON’T EVEN KNOW. PEOPLE DON’T LIKE ME, AND YOU DON’T SEE ME QUITTING. JUST SACK UP, DUDE, WHO CARES WHAT ALL THOSE BASIC ASS REPUBLICAN BITCHES IN CONGRESS THINK?! TAKE UP THE SPACE. OWN YOUR SHIT, MY DUDE! BUT NO. PEOPLE JUST QUIT WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH. IT’S FINE. I’M ALREADY OVER IT. I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER IT. POOF! NOW IT’S A FULL BLOWN MYSTERY. LOOK AT HOW MYSTIFIED I AM. HOW EXCITING.

HUMPDAY THINGS I LIKE #15:

 

I like it when someone is trying to say the word “library” but ends up saying “liberry.” It just gives me that sudden rush of feeling superior. So neat!

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #68:

Why do I have to join the Patreon to access the alcoholic movie review YouTuber’s liver transplant video?

It’s bullshit.

I’m already subscribed. They got my views. They got my likes. They got my time. Now they want my money.

It’s fuckin’ bullshit.

He caves, of course, and pays actual money to get that sweet, sweet liver transplant content.

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #77:

 

COP28 INNOVATES GLOBALLY MINDED MARKET FRIENDLY BUCK PASSING SOLUTIONS.

MOVIE REVIEW: GODZILLA MINUS ONE (2023)

Written by/Directed by/Visual Effects Supervised by Takashi Yamazaki

Cinematography by Kozo Shibasaki

Edited by Ryuji Miyajima

Original Music by Naoki Sato

featuring themes by Akira Ifukube

Produced by Minami Ichikawa, Kazuaki Kishida, Keiichiro Moriya, Kenji Yamada

Starring

Ryunosuke Kamiki as Koichi Shikishima

Munetaka Aoki as Sosaku Tachibana

Minami Hamabe as Noriko Oishi

Sakura Ando as Sumiko Ota

Sae Nagatani as Akiko

Hidetaka Yoshioka as Kenji Noda

Kuranosuke Sasaki as Yoji Akitsu

Yuki Yamada as Shiro Mizushima

. . .

“My war isn’t over . . .”

. . . 

Review by William D. Tucker.

Here we have a new Godzilla movie. It is called Godzilla Minus One. It functions as a kind of remake of 1954’s Gojira, but with an emphasis on the harsh realities of survival in the immediate post-World War II rubblescape of Japan. In this version, Godzilla is an embodiment of Nature’s Wrath, a grotesque monster awakened by the violence of Imperial Japan and further mutated by the US’s creation of potentially world-ending nuclear weapons. Godzilla Minus One features vivid scenes of computer generated monstrosity-no men in suits this time-and a terrific lead actor performance. It isn’t perfect. It’s a step down, creatively, from the complex satire of 2016’s Shin Godzilla, but it is a very sincere and entertaining giant monster melodrama in its own right.

Elsewhere on this blog I describe a close-up of a fictional Japanese Prime Minister’s weeping face at the climax of Godzilla 1984 as the most spectacular special effect in the entire Godzilla franchise. In Godzilla Minus One there are, indeed, impressive computer effects, but the human emotion here is no techno-gimmick.

Koichi is a young man who has been trained and indoctrinated to become a kamikaze pilot: a suicide attacker sworn to crash his fighter plane into an American naval vessel during World War II. Koichi puts off consummating his fatal mission by falsely claiming that his plane wasn’t operating properly during a shakedown flight. The flight mechanics do a thorough rundown, but everybody already suspects the machine is in top form. The machine isn’t usually the problem in this sort of situation. It’s usually the emotional component of the human pilot wherein the true malfunction lies. The dilemma of Koichi the kamikaze pilot-a sworn suicide soldier who still hopes he can live-is the very heart of Godzilla Minus Zero. 

Yes, this is also a giant monster movie. But the human conflicts are explored with a surprising amount of raw emotion. Postwar, Koichi weeps in despair and desperately begs for forgiveness and understanding from the women in his life, partner Noriko and neighbor Sumiko, who both suffered through Curtis LeMay’s firebombings that annihilated scores of civilians. Sumiko, in particular, shames Koichi for not fulfilling his mission. The “failed” kamikaze stews in his misery and questions whether or not he’s alive or dead, awake or in a dream, cracking up under the weight of PTSD and survivor’s guilt. Later, the chief flight mechanic Sosaku-still burning with rage-binds and beats Koichi mercilessly for his “failure” to immolate himself in defense of the nation. Koichi’s postwar existence is no less of an ordeal than the traumas he suffered in battle. He is impressively played by Ryunosuke Kamiki in an almost expressionistically emotional performance. Godzilla Minus One is a well shot color picture as one would expect, but Kamiki’s work really deserves timeless black and white. Alas, that’s just not how movies get made anymore. Too bad.

As for the monster in question, Godzilla is here and ready for action. It is vividly rendered in different life stages. Godzilla wreaks havoc on land and sea. Moreover, the very presence of Godzilla is so overwhelming that people get killed from panic and freezing up in terror as much as from the monster’s extreme violence. This version of the iconic kaiju is realized by superbly crafted computer graphics. My favorite visual of the beast is when it has breached the water line in relentless pursuit of a tiny ship, its creepily intelligent eyes locked onto its prey-very effective.

Aside from my burning desire to see a new Godzilla film in black and white, I do have some more down-to-earth criticisms. Godzilla Minus One depicts a devastated postwar Japan in some detail, and yet it did feel a little too clean, a little too idealized at times. It could’ve used a little more street level grittiness. A little more Shohei Imamura, and a little less Spielberg. Godzilla Minus One portrays a situation in which Japanese people can no longer trust their own government-that led them into calamitous war-or the occupying US forces-that slaughtered so many of their people with napalm and nuclear weapons. The heroes must depend upon themselves to defeat Godzilla, and therefore embark upon an intriguing post-imperial, post-nationalist project. But I’m not sure Godzilla Minus One fully explores this skepticism about authoritarian force. Koichi is the only character imbued with any complexity. Almost everyone else is written as one note can-do spirit types. Even the tough women-Noriko and Sumiko-are sidelined despite some very good scenes. Godzilla Minus One loses its edge when it focuses on the big plan to deal with Godzilla. But this is certainly not a case of absolute failure. This is just a movie that chooses to be more of a crowd-pleaser in how it resolves itself despite the harshness of its initial set-up. One sequence is a very obvious homage to Jaws. There’s even a brief visual callback to the recent cycle of Hollywood Godzilla flicks. Godzilla Minus One isn’t a better movie than Jaws, but it easily incinerates all trace of those overblown Warner Brothers “Monsterverse” productions.

Godzilla Minus One is a popcorn monster movie done well. 

All the same, what I wouldn’t give for a Shin Godzilla 2 . . .

Alas . . .

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #76:

 

COMMENTARY: “OUR WORLD IS NOW DEFINED BY THE DIALECTICAL CLASH BETWEEN TOKUSATSU METAL HERO LOGIC AND 1960S BATMAN GOON SQUAD LOGIC-WHICH SIDE WILL YOU CHOOSE?”

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #75:

 

SHART HILL FRANCHISE ANNOUNCES ‘BORN FROM A SHART’ DLC; CLIMATE APOCALYPSE LIKELY UNAVOIDABLE.

OCCLUSION #4:

a meek bespectacled man in close-up

grotesque insectoid mouth parts reflected in a corrective lens

the dorko office worker’s body swells, smokes, cracks,

nuclear white light stabbing outta the cracks

dorko office worker throws his head back, emitting a primal howl

foregrounded, he expands unto explosion

fires burning amid rubble

‘cause dorko carries his rubblemind everywhere he goes

a shadow stands up in the Deep Background,

so much impenetrable lore

stirring orchestral rock theme

gang of rubbery insect head villains staggering onto their collective backfoot

I stride out of the flame, new steel (actually plastic) body’n’being ready to give battle

just look

you’ll find no trace of meats on me

not now

choreographies of fate

villains all fucked from the moment of cosmogenesis

my punches land

sparks fly

rubbery bug heads burst

my kicks connect

I put my foot through a stomach

guts’n’circuits evacuated through an exploding lower back

fuck your lumbar

but antagonistic goo doesn’t stick to me

not when I activate my Justice Boil

which hots up my body

to obliterate all Enemy Impurities

see the slime cook off

of course

there’s this monumental cosmic plot

there’s a sinister (not so) secret organization

there’s two puppet masters

one for the first half

another for the second half

‘cause you need a (not so) surprise twist

at the halfway point

makes up for the budget cuts

at that very same halfway point

which is also the scientifically determined threshold

beyond which advertiser buy-in declines precipitously

sure,

we live in hope

of breaking in

to the Big Picture

but we know 

realistically

that we’re likely just to rate Flavor of the Moment

good memories for the completionist faithful

someone’ll rework our shit into a YouTube retrospective

a decade down the line

assuming no nuclear war

assuming no giant meteor

assuming YouTube doesn’t precipitously lose its global audience and/or burn through it’s server storage

me

I live in the moment

fuck legacy

fuck Big Picture

I likely won’t even be played by the same actor/stunt performer duo even if the hype wheel rotates through my nostalgia star sign

giving Justice Prevailer a series re-up

but I’ll live on

amorphous spirit of ass-kicking transforming heroics

I should be called

Pattern Prevailer

something like that

gooey puddles and chunks of goon squad

all over the asphalt parking lot

the dead mall cast as the monster of the week’s domain

explodes elaborately

every episode

a guaranteed dead mall demolition

each time

couldn’t shoot too many fight scenes inside ‘em

one stunt guy got a bad lung infection from some cursed air

three more were injured in a sudden food court collapse

so the brawls and swordplay and raygun shootouts are typically staged in the desolate parking lots

it fucked up the original logic of the teleplays

but no one noticed anyways

mighty steel

actually plastic 

body

turns its back to us

striding from the foreground

into the fires of the Deep Background

more impenetrable lore

so there I go

back to the meats

and gone

DARK MUSINGS IN A UNIVERSE SANS HOPE #2:

 

You ever wonder if Melissa Joan Hart has to deal with well-meaning yet befuddled people congratulating her for her fine work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #74:

 

ALL THAT IS SANTOS MELTS INTO SHART.

BURNING QUESTIONS IN A UNIVERSE OF MYSTERY #67:

Suppose I am a former U.S. Secretary of State. Suppose my policies-which got lots of media coverage in their day-did not win a single war. In fact, my policies contributed to mass slaughter and destruction . . . but none of it happened on U.S. soil, so no one noticed, I guess.

Now, despite all of this atrocity and loserdom . . . I come to be viewed as “influential,” “respected,” “a shotcaller,” “a disruptor,” “a paradigm shifter,” even “a big shit diplomacy fuck.”

I get book deals. Hacky cable news outfits worship my nuts. I influence multiple generations.

Here’s my question:

If human life counts for just about nothing, and wars don’t really get fought to achieve anything like victory . . . then what, exactly, is the basis of my glory? 

I want you to actually think about this one.

Because the longer you think about it the weirder it gets.

Sure, sure, sure-I’m obviously cynical about my government, and frustrated at the illusory self-image of my nation that gets absurdly propagated across the generations-

But how in the hell is it possible that Failure and Horror become Victory and Reverence? 

It’s reverse meritocracy, isn’t it? The harder you suck, the greater your glory.

Could it be that right and wrong don’t really matter in the end?

What actually matters . . . is doin’ stuff. Do lots of stuff. Do good. Do evil. Just make sure people notice. Document it. Embellish it. Lie, but don’t get florid about it. If your lies make you sound like a Jon Lovitz character you’ve gone too far. Then point to it. Say, “Look at all the stuff I did.” Use words like “resume,” “curriculum vitae,” “experienced,” and “seasoned.” Get those book deals. Collect those speaking fees. Get those talking head spots on the punditry programs. 

What’s the old saying?

“Showing up is 90% of everything.”

Show up, babe.

Show up forever.

Show up ‘til you die.

Then keep showing up.

Be the cause.

Be the effect.

Be the effect of your own cause.

Be the cause of your own effect.

Swallow your own tail.

Swallow your own tale-nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!

Speak gibberish in a tone of absolute certainty as often as possible because there’s a certain percentage of people who’ll go for it. Work that blessed percentage hard.

Enjoy rewards forever.

Or, uh, as close to forever as you can get.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #20:

 

KEYS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS A CONVENIENCE; HOWEVER, IF YOU CAN NEITHER LOCATE THEM IN THE WILD NOR AFFORD TO BUY THEM IN STORES BATTERING DOWN DOORS IS ALWAYS AN OPTION. IF YOUR STRENGTH IS LOW AND/OR YOUR PAIN SENSITIVITY HIGH CONSIDER USING STEROIDS, ALCOHOL, AND PCP TO STRONG UP AND POWER THROUGH THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY ORDEAL STYLE!