Mindless Ones

Mustn’t let the twenties pass without a mention of Casanova 14. Non-specific spoilers hereafter, about a spF 8, mildly alkaline spoilers.

The past few issues have established this book as a real star of the stands. Building on a run of at least two good issues, no. 14 is itself a huge step-up in quality even from the impressive heights it had reached earlier. Be under no illusions – it’s an intelligent, ambitious book, that manages to fizz the forebrain, thrill the adrenaline glands and softly touch the heart. It has action, romance, sex, fun, pain, and all manner of high strangeness, and puts them to work in a way that is currently unique. The layers of structure, delicate and subtle, make the reader sit right upright and engage with the text – a living thing with wise and curious eyes. Reading Casanova makes you Read. No other genre book out there today does that – Casanova makes you realise how complacent you’ve become, how prepared to put up with any old spandex-wrapped crap you are, and makes you ashamed of that state of affairs. It’s a good comic, and it’s good for comics.

Basically, in issue 14 there’s a Twist. Way back in the history mist, there was a Hallowe’en bash and two Mihndless Ones were talking about the new Bruce Willis movie, out that week. The Mindless knew exactly four things about the movie: it was called The Sixth Sense. It had Bruce Willis in it. It was about some kid who could see dead people. It had a Twist. ‘Bet Bruce Willis is dead’ slurred a Mindless. And really, what else could Bruce be? Ever since that moment, Twists have been shit.

The Twist in Casanova 14 is not shit. It arrives stealthily, beautifully, ringing like a downpour of golden pennies. Crucially for a Twist, it entirely recontextualises all the previous issues, renews them completely. It is a generous and open thing for the comic to do – it instantly turns seven comic books you have read into seven comic books you have not yet read. The inevitable return to this second volume, ‘Gula’ (ancient Iraqi goddess of health and punisher of bad rulers – cheers Wicky-P; Latin for ‘gluttony’ – cheers weird knowledge of unknown provenance and origin), will be an utter delight.

There has to be a But, of course. No free blowjobs here.

It’s the same old moan unfortunately – for all its many staggering highs and various well-groomed charms, Casanova hasn’t shaked the winnet that’s been hanging off it’s arse since the first issue of book one: It just can’t stop fucking smirking at you. It absolutely will not wipe that ‘aren’t I cool?’ smug grin off its face. This means that there are a number of Mindless Ones out there – smart, sensitive, sexy souls to a Mindless – who don’t get this book, who sneer right back in its handsome face, not bothered by the treats they suspect they’re really missing. The problem, the cause for this willful nose-chopping and face-spiting, is unfortunately the man himself, Matt Lightscameraction! Fraction.

(First rule of cool school – Stop waving your arms about telling everyone how cool you are.)

16 pages of strip + covers isn’t great for a printers. You”re going to need some padding. The no-ads, one-colour, low-price format of Casanova is one of the many things that makes it exceptional, and also that makes Image the most interesting comic book publisher – for Mindless action freaks anyway – currently in America. But there will be some pages at the back which you’ll need to fill. There is a perfectly good, time-honoured method of doing this, and it’s called a letter’s page. Folk seem to call it ‘backmatter’ these days. For whatever reason, perhaps a noble notion to emulate some of the advantages of hypertext by providing a few annotations; or a thought to give the fan horde a peek behind the green curtain; or just a smart business move to cultivate the extent of his name/brand recognition, Fraction has always opted to fill out Casanova‘s flab with some ‘this is me’ first-person reflections on some aspect of the issue itself (with occasional interjections from his art-supremo partners Ba or Moon). It seems like a small thing to bitch about, and it is, but we fanboy princesses have delicate skins that can feel a pea through limitless layers of paper and mylar and acid-free backing board. (And it’s shame to mar such a good bookwith anything, especially something as aviodable as, whisper it, artistic ego.) These rambles, though frequently well-written or interesting in their own right, have covered such burning topics as Fraction’s general circumstances and state of mind as he was writing the issue, and the story’s influences and intentions. And something about it doesn’t sit right. For a comic as broad and multiply rewarding as Casanova, to have the author give an editorial at the end of each episode can only be a limiting exercise, can only serve to reduce, not increase the range of possible responses that the reader can make. Behind the curtain is just a crap old guy, not an all-powerful wizard, remember?

The backspatter is most annoying (and this whole problem is just annoying, not evil or anything, but sometimes it is very annoying indeed) when Fraction lists his megaclectic musical influences, as he does frequently. One can only assume he is doing this for the best, Pater-esque reasons, but sadly (annoyingly!) he always comes off like someone from an indie band giving their first fanzine interview. Id est: Annoying. Just as all the best elements of Casanova peak with issue 14, so has this unfortunate tendency, to the point where he lists tracks for a mixtape to accompany the reading experience, the definitive soundtrack. This even bleeds over into the strip itself, with each scene given its own title-tune, as to be enjoyed simultaneously. This might seem like a novel, harmless idea – but it doesn’t match up. It’s just damn daft compared to all the smart moves made in the rest of the book. Example: probably the best-known track on there is Tina Turner’s ‘River Deep, Mountain High’, an enormous, bombastic, affirmative track, that for some reason is matched with the most downbeat, saddest, almost tragic scene that this book has yet managed. Scene and song do not belong together, even if one does begin with the line ‘When I was a little girl…’. There’s a problem of taste here too. What if the reader isn’t interested in Dan Le Sac? (Dan My Sack more like – for the blissfully ignorant: Basically the ‘Preach! Preacher!! Preacherman!!!’ episode of Nathan Barley stretched out into a music career. Schoolboy French puns and cheap soapboxery somehow escaped from Speaker’s Corner and on your radio. Samples so obvious even Kanye West would turn them down.) Don’t tell me what to listen to with my comics, cheers. That’s up to me. Besides, dense and layered though this comic may be, you can’t spend four minutes reading three pages. Even if you pore over each panel, you’re still going to be finished by track five or so, with nine more to go. Fraction isn’t a film director. Matching music to the visuals isn’t one of the options availabe to him, but for some reason he thinks it’s worth a try anyway. Each individual reader is the one who gets to decide what music accompanies a comic book. That’s one of the good things about reading comics (websites, books, newspapers…) – you can experience and enjoy them alongside music (telly, conversation…) as you see fit.

This is getting petty of course. But there’s quite possibly a deep malaise at work here, and it’s not just Disco Vicar syndrome. By flashing its cool credentials so desperately, as though responding to critical voices that in reality disappeared long ago, Casanova dates itself. As if it isn’t just comfortable being a comic. When really, is anyone really telling the comic fans they aren’t hip anymore? Is anyone really still trying to ghettoise comics?

(Second rule of cool school – Ignore all the rules. I contain Multitudes/hypocrisy rocks:)

Because despite the regular gripes, comics are good and hip and way ahead of the mainstream, and don’t need to apologise for themselves or shout about how they’ve ‘got all this other cool shit going on in their lives actually’. Because we already won that battle. We’re there being cool already. We got the cool jeans and turned into god on the dancefloor. We haven’t had the ‘comics aren’t just for kids anymore’ conversation for nearly a decade. We don’t need to worry about our comics making us feel hip and validated, alluding to the crazy, sexy, cool world of the latest swinging tunes, like it’s another world or something. So a bit of Casanova, for all its composure and swagger, is really still battling with the shadows of the long departed, when it could leading the form into brand new territory.

*RE: The title. A music reference. As if I know what the fuck I’m talking about – been listening to one bloody Hawkwind record for nearly a year now.

See – it’s annoying, isn’t it?