Ferals # 1 - David Lapham & Gabriel Andrade

Truly frightening werewolves stories don’t come easy. I won’t even try to find a good one in comic books, suffice to say that in movies, for instance, it’s not that difficult to come across interesting productions about Dracula or other classical monsters. I can think of several extraordinary productions about vampires, such as Tomas Alfredson's “Låt den rätte komma in” (“Let the Right One In”).

Nonetheless, in recent years films or comic books about lycanthropes are not only rare but usually quite disappointing. I’m pleased to see that David Lapham has created a very solid narrative that brings werewolves into an isolated and peaceful town.

cover by Gabriel Andrade / portada de Gabriel Andrade

When a man is found in the woods savagely mutilated theories start to abound. For some, only a bear or a mountain lion could be responsible for such butchery, nonetheless, as officer Dale asks “what kind of animal stuffs a man’s dick in his throat?”. Nobody can explain this death and there are no suspects.

So when Dale gets drunk and finds comfort in the arms of a mysterious albeit seductive Norwegian woman, an ominous moment takes place. As they head for the bathroom to have sex, the woman demands to be hit, she demands violence. What is the essence of sadomasochism? For some, the quintessential sadistic pleasure derives from the Marquis de Sade’s philosophical assertions. For others, however, the masochist is the one who adopts a particular position in the sexual structure (sadomasochism and sex are, after all, undividable which explains why the sex scene between Dale and the woman is indispensable). The masochistic subject makes himself the instrument of the Other's volonté de jouissance.

check the mouth... / revisen la boca...

A werewolf could easily be seen as a manifestation of the otherness that we carry inside ourselves. The savageness, the bestiality, the undiluted rage… There is, nonetheless, a jouissance present in the behavior of the man –or woman- who turns into an animal. An undeniable jouissance that explains why the werewolf seems to target sexual organs with a special ferocity. The entrancing perversity created by Lapham’s wild imagination successfully places a classical monster of black and white cinema into the colorful although bleak reality of today’s world.  

Whosever the werewolf might be, he or she is clearly a pervert. A pervert is the person in whom the structure of the drive is most clearly revealed, and also the person who carries the attempt to go beyond the pleasure principle to the limit "he who goes as far as he can along the path of jouissance" (Lacan).

This is a very promising issue but, of course, it wouldn’t be so great if not for Gabriel Andrade’s wonderful pages. Gabriel provides the reader with a clear sequential approach while retaining all the details that we need to see. For instance, the viciously disemboweled bodies are shown in its integrity, while the sex scenes are enticing without becoming too graphically explicit. Avatar Press has yet again released a series that no horror fan can miss. You’ve been warned.   
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Las buenas historias de hombres lobo son escasas. Ni siquiera intentaré encontrar alguna en cómics, basta decir que en el cine, por ejemplo, no es tan difícil hallar producciones interesantes sobre Drácula u otros monstruos clásicos. Puedo pensar en varias obras extraordinarias sobre vampiros, como “Låt den rätte komma in” (“Let the Right One In”) de Tomas Alfredson.

the masochistic woman / la mujer masoquista

No obstante, en años recientes las películas o cómics sobre licántropos son poco habituales y usualmente decepcionantes. Me complace ver que David Lapham ha creado una sólida narrativa que lleva al hombre lobo a un aislado y pacífico pueblo.

Cuando aparece el cuerpo de un hombre salvajemente mutilado, las teorías abundan. Para algunos, sólo un oso o un león montañés podría ser responsable de semejante carnicería, sin embargo, el oficial Dale se pregunta "¿Qué clase de animal metería el pene de un hombre en su garganta?". Nadie puede explicar esta muerte y no hay sospechosos.

Así que cuando Dale se emborracha y se acerca una misteriosa aunque seductora noruega, llega el momento de lo ominoso. Mientras si dirigen al baño para tener sexo, la mujer exige ser golpeada, ella demanda violencia. ¿Cuál es la esencia del sadomasoquismo? Para algunos, la quintaesencia del placer sádico deriva de las afirmaciones filosóficas del Marqués de Sade. Pero para otros el masoquista es aquel que adopta una posición particular en la estructura sexual (el sadomasoquismo y el sexo, después de todo, son indesligables y esto explica por qué la escena de sexo entre Dale y la mujer es indispensable). El sujeto masoquista se convierte en instrumento de la voluntad de goce del Otro.

Dale's lover / la amante de Dale

Un hombre lobo podría ser visto fácilmente como una manifestación de la otredad que tenemos en nuestro interior. El salvajismo, la bestialidad, la ira sin control... Hay, no obstante, un goce presente en la conducta del hombre -o mujer- que se transforma en animal. Un innegable goce que explica por qué el hombre lobo parece ensañarse en los órganos sexuales con especial ferocidad. La sugerente perversidad creada por la imaginación salvaje de Lapham ubica con éxito al monstruo clásico del cine a blanco y negro dentro de la colorida aunque desolada realidad del mundo actual.

Sin importar quién sea el hombre lobo, se trata claramente de un ser perverso. El perverso es la persona en quien la estructura de la pulsión está más claramente revelada, y también la persona que intenta llevar el principio del placer hasta el límite y más allá "aquel que va tan lejos como puede en el camino de la jouissance" (Lacan).

Este es un primer ejemplar muy prometedor pero, por supuesto, no sería lo mismo si no fuese por las maravillosas páginas de Gabriel Andrade. Gabriel le proporciona al lector un claro enfoque secuencial mientras retiene todos los detalles que necesitamos ver. Por ejemplo, los cuerpos salvajemente destripados se ven en su integridad, mientras que las escenas de sexo son eróticas sin ser demasiado explícitas gráficamente. Avatar Press, nuevamente, ha creado una serie que ningún fan del terror puede perderse. Están advertidos.

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? - Gaiman & Kubert

But the most fascinating and surprising confession comes from Alfred Pennyworth, the loyal butler of the Wayne family. “He was moving away from me, away from the world”, explains Alfred. Bruce Wayne is, indeed, an improvised masked vigilante that has found failure in his nocturne missions. Alfred’s loyalty goes beyond everything imaginable, and he devises a method to keep his master in check and also providing him with the satisfaction he so eagerly yearns for.

Robin

Alfred convinces his friends, all actors, to disguise themselves eccentrically and carry out crimes of the utmost extravagancy: that’s how the Riddler, the Penguin, the Scarecrow and so many others are born. Isn’t it ironic, that the villains we as readers consider a normal part of Batman’s life are here nothing else but vaudeville actors? By undermining the verisimilitude of the most classic and absurd villains, Gaiman recreates them and actually makes them more real than one could hope for.

But the moment of true genius comes later, as Alfred admits “what master Bruce needed was a Moby Dick to his Ahab, a Moriarty to his Holmes. And so, regretfully, I did what needed to be done”. The one and only trusted man in Wayne’s manor becomes the urgently needed nemesis: the Joker. The whimsical fights between the Dark Knight and the Prince of Clowns become a regular, habitual activity. Until Bruce Wayne discovers who the Joker is. When the narrator’s voice from the first pages comes to the conclusion that something doesn’t add up in Alfred’s recount, he becomes aware of another presence, a woman he thinks is the personification of death. Anyone who has read Neil Gaiman’s Sandman will easily detect the references to Dream’s sister, Death.

Funeral

Frank Miller, Kelley Jones & Joe Quesada

How did Batman die? That’s irrelevant. The only thing that matters is that we differentiate between what Jacques Lacan used to call the real death and the symbolic death. The burial place is the first symbol in which humanity can reorganize itself. Animals live and die anonymously, so to speak. For humans, unity and irreplaceability must be protected and remembered through language, through the inscription of words in a tombstone, that's why we speak of the dead, why we erect monuments and cemeteries, thus creating what Lacan called "a second death" that pertains to the order of the symbolic. Whenever people remember our names, remember our deeds and so on we continue to exist in the Symbolic even though we have died in the Real. Therefore, Batman is not truly dead as long as friends and fiends continue to remember him. A masterpiece in just two issues, there is really no excuse for skipping this one.

Andy Kubert’s art deserves a especial analysis. Many readers will remember him from X-Men in the 90s, when he was still struggling to find his own style; luckily for us, he got better. Much better. And this is simply his best work to date. There’s so much thought in each page, so much planning and love for details that it makes me feel enamored of his lines. Gaiman had many requirements in his script, as he had planned to recreate specific versions of Batman’s classic characters. So Kubert had to recreate the artistic styles of dozens of legendary creators. The page that shows Batman’s coffin in three panels is a good example: first we have Frank Miller’s Batman from The Dark Knight Returns; and then Kelley Jones’ magnificent vampire-like rendering of the hero (first seen in Batman Versus Dracula); of course, we also have the striking first version of Azrael, as designed by now Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada. The Joker panels are a clear nod to Brian Bolland’s genius work in The Killing Joke (in others we see Bruce Timm’s influence). The penultimate page I’ve posted shows a number of crucial scenes from Batman’s lore: Year One, with art by David Mazzucchelli; the origin of Man-Bat, art by Jim Aparo; Knightfall, more exactly the sequence in which Bane breaks Batman’s spine; Arkham Asylum, art by Dave McKean, and in the center Batman kissing Talia, daughter of Rah’s Al Ghul, following into the footsteps of one of the most popular Batman artists: Neal Adams. And Andy Kubert draws so brilliantly that you can immediately recognize the artists that have inspired him. Excellent!

The Joker

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Gotham

Pero la más fascinante y sorprendente confesión viene de Alfred Pennyworth, el leal mayordomo de la familia Wayne. "Él se alejaba de mí, del mundo" explica Alfred. Bruce Wayne es, de hecho, un enmascarado improvisado que fracasa en sus misiones nocturnas. La lealtad de Alfred va más allá de todo lo imaginable, e inventa un método para mantener a su amo bajo control y darle la satisfacción que tanto anhela.

David Mazzucchelli, Jim Aparo, Dave McKean & Neal Adams 

Alfred convence a sus amigos, todos actores, para que se disfracen excéntricamente y lleven a cabo crímenes de la más absoluta extravagancia: así es como nacen the Riddler, the Penguin, the Scarecrow y muchos más. ¿No es irónico que los villanos que los lectores consideramos como parte normal de la vida de Batman no son aquí más que actores de vodevil? Al socavar la verosimilitud de los más clásicos y absurdos villanos, Gaiman los recrea y los hace más reales de lo que uno podría esperar.

The end and the beginning / el fin y el principio

Pero el momento de genialidad llega luego, cuando Alfred admite que "el amo Bruce necesitaba un Moby Dick para su Ahab, un Moriarty para su Holmes. Y por lo tanto, con arrepentimiento, hice lo que necesitaba hacerse". El único hombre de confianza de la mansión Wayne se convierte en ese némesis urgentemente necesitado: The Joker. Las disparatadas peleas entre el Caballero de la Noche y el Príncipe del Crimen pasan a ser una actividad habitual. Hasta que Bruce Wayne descubre quién es el Joker. Cuando la voz del narrador de las primeras páginas llega a la conclusión de que algo falta en el relato de Alfred, advierte otra presencia, una mujer que imagina como a la personificación de la muerte. Cualquiera que haya leído Sandman de Neil Gaiman detectará fácilmente las referencias a la hermana de Sueño, Muerte.

¿Cómo murió Batman? Eso es irrelevante. Lo único que importa es que diferenciemos entre lo que Jacques Lacan solía llamar la muerte real y la muerte simbólica. El sepulcro es el primer símbolo en torno al cual la humanidad se reorganiza. Los animales viven y mueren anónimamente, por así decirlo. Para los humanos, la unidad y lo irreemplazable deben ser protegidos y recordados a través del lenguaje, a través de la inscripción de palabras en una lápida, es por eso que hablamos de los muertos, es por eso que erigimos monumentos y cementerios, creando así lo que Lacan llamaba la "segunda muerte" que pertenece al orden de lo simbólico. Cuando la gente recuerda quiénes éramos, así como nuestros actos, continuamos existiendo en lo Simbólico incluso cuando hayamos muerto en lo Real. Por lo tanto, Batman no está verdaderamente muerto mientras que sus amigos y enemigos continúen recordándolo. Una obra maestra en sólo dos números, realmente no hay excusa para perdérselos.

El arte de Andy Kubert merece un análisis aparte. Muchos lectores recordarán sus páginas de X-Men en los 90, cuando todavía buscaba su propio estilo; afortunadamente para nosotros, mejoró. Y mucho. Y este es simplemente el mejor trabajo de su carrera. Hay tanto pensamiento en cada página, tanto planeamiento y amor por los detalles que uno se enamora de sus líneas. Gaiman tenía muchas exigencias en su guión, ya que había planeado recrear versiones específicas de los personajes clásicos de Batman. Así, Kubert tuvo que recrear los estilos artísticos de docenas de creadores legendarios. La página que muestra a Batman en el ataúd en tres viñetas es un buen ejemplo: primero tenemos al Batman de Frank Miller de The Dark Knight Returns; y luego la magnífica interpretación vampírica de Kelley Jones (vista por primera vez en Batman Versus Dracula); por supuesto también tenemos el espectacular diseño del primer traje de Azrael, creación del ex editor en jefe de Marvel Comics, Joe Quesada. Las viñetas del Joker son un claro guiño al genial trabajo de Brian Bolland en The Killing Joke (en otras escenas veremos la influencia de Bruce Timm). La penúltima página que he colocado muestra escenas cruciales: Year One, con arte de David Mazzucchelli; el origen de Man-Bat, arte de Jim Aparo; Knightfall, o más exactamente el momento en el que Bane le rompe la columna vertebral a Batman; Arkham Asylum, arte de Dave McKean; y en el centro Batman besando a Talia, la hija de Rah’s Al Ghul, reproduciendo el estilo de uno de los más populares artistas de Batman: Neal Adams. Y Andy Kubert hace un trabajo tan brillante que podemos reconocer de inmediato a los artistas que lo han inspirado. ¡Excelente!

Mysterious Skin (2004)

Directed by Gregg Araki

It all starts and ends with a little league’s pedophile coach and two kids: Neil and Brian, who unbeknownst to their parents are the victims of a sexual predator. But what is the authentic aftermath of this encounter between the man and the 8-year-old children?The repercussions of sexual abuse will affect greatly the lives of Neil and Brian, but in so many different ways that one could almost wonder if they shared the same experience. As a matter of fact, being sexually abused is such a traumatic event for Brian that he blocks it out of his mind unable to cope with the real, and he then proceeds to fill in the memory gaps with a fantasy of alien abduction. Recurring to such self-defense mechanisms is quite a normal psychological strategy, but it also mingles well with a recurring theme in Araki’s cinematography.

Neil, on the other hand, fills in the gashing void with an idealized image of the pedophile. After all, during an entire summer the two of them spend many nights together. Neil actually functions as an accomplice, helping the coach to lure in unsuspecting boys, thus creating a perverse bond between them. Perhaps one of the greatest accomplishes of the novel is to invert the roles, creating a pedophile that seems to be nicer and more caring than the boys’ parents, while at the same time embedding at least one of the victims with an attitude that one would find difficult to sympathize with. Araki’s film, of course, thrives because of that: the complexity between the characters relationships. This is not, after all, a lesson of morality. Here the coach leaves the town, with an untarnished reputation, and leaves behind Neil, a very obsessed boy who admits later that “it's a huge part of me. No one ever made me feel that way before or since [...] I was his one true love”.

Perversion seems to be the one predominant constant throughout Neil’s life, but as Lacan would define it, a perverse individual is the one who assumes the position of the object-instrument of the "will-to-enjoy" (volonté-de-jouissance), which is not his own will but that of the big Other. In this case, Neil accepts to serve as a garish tool of pleasure for the coach, and years later, as a teenage hustler, he has no quandaries when it is his turn to be the instrument of joy of the other (namely his clients). Emotionally detached from everyone, only a girl, a friend from childhood, remains as his one and true humane anchor. His mother, after all, has always been a carefree woman, constantly hooking up with men, and paying no attention to his son; that’s why when Neil is about to depart to New York, she looks at him and utters “my baby, all grown up”, not as a typical motherly affirmation but rather a discovery: time flew by, and she wasn’t there at all.

Brian’s dreams are a reminder that another boy was with him the night of the alien abduction, consequently the insecure boy starts the search for Neil, and learns of his whereabouts just after Neil has left for the big city. It is then that Neil’s friend, Eric, a very flamboyant gay kid, befriends him. Brian is quite a timid and introversive teenager, perhaps as a result of having a very dominant mother and an absent father (even before he abandons the family, he was only there to state how disappointed he was at his son). Eric describes him as "weirdly asexual" (even without knowing how Brian had violently rejected a UFO obsessed woman that intended to caress his penis); indeed, Brian is unable to reclaim sexuality for himself, and after having always lived in a world of his own he finds in Eric’s friendship everything he needs to break out of his shelf.

As a male prostitute, Neil finds the horror of the real in New York, and he will soon realize how dangerous his line of business can get. Back in town, Eric is preparing himself to let go of the one reality that has sustained and nurtured his psyche, but can he embrace the real if Neil tells him exactly what happened that fatidic night?  

Araki brilliantly depicts this honest, heart-wrenching and unruly story, taking advantage of the exceptional acting qualities of Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Neil), a daring and talented actor that has worked in many interesting independent films, such as Brick, The Lookout or Latter Days (a gay themed movie). This actor finds in Brady Corbet (Brian) the ideal partner; Corbet creates a subtle but fascinating character, completely different from his roles in Funny Games US or Thirteen, proving not only that he is a great actor but that he also knows how to choose the best directors to work with.

And that's why Mysterious Skin makes it into my top 100 films. I highly recommend it.

And by the way, I'm glad to see that every month my blog gets more visits. Cheers!
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Fiel a los principios de Coherencia, mi rechazo por la candidata a la presidencia prevaleció. Ni siquiera haber perdido casi dos mil dólares en la bolsa de valores de Lima logró disuadirme. Aunque, por supuesto, como decía Fernando De Szyszlo en relación al otro candidato, a ese tampoco le creo. 

Así que decidí hacer lo único sensato, o sea contribuir con las arcas fiscales. Con la multa evito la votación, y me ahorro esa sensación horrible de tener que elegir a un mal menor (y honestamente, nunca he tenido la línea Sartriana de Mario Vargas Llosa que le permite hacer justamente eso, elegir una de las dos opciones, a pesar de todo).

Las pérdidas también me han hecho ver que algunos ajustes son necesarios, al menos por ahora. Así, por ejemplo, he cancelado mis tarjetas de crédito, todas menos una. Así que adiós a tarjetas con límites de 5000 soles (como la del BBVA que siempre me sacó de apuros) y cosas por el estilo. Para bien o para mal, este domingo ha sido elegido el próximo mandatario del país.

Lost Girls - Alan Moore

“Desire’s a strange land one discovers as a child, where nothing makes the slightest sense” (Book 1: VI, 3). Forget everything you knew about desire, this is one of the most lucid approaches anyone could ask for about a most fascinating subject.

We have heard much about how controversial Alan Moore’s Lost Girls was and still is: forbidden in some countries, withheld by custom officers in others, we could easily dismiss it as a polemic work and thus leave it forever imprisoned into whatever mental drawer we put our taboos and scandalous items. Nonetheless, it would be a gross error to do so. Moore’s work is highly literary and profoundly intellectual, it has nothing to envy to “serious” novels or academic authors. Using well-established literary creations such as Alice (from Wonderland), Dorothy (from the land of Oz) and Wendy (from Neverland), this long-bearded British man has, once again, made an innovation in the 9th art that perhaps will go unnoticed by some.

Let’s make a quick review, chapter by chapter, of what exactly are those innovations, and why is it that Moore has put so much thought into each and every one of these lavishly illustrated pages.

Everyone familiar with bedtime stories knows about mirrors. A Mirror is a magic and powerful thing. But then again, in real life, mirrors are that which help us define ourselves, at least according to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. In Lacanian theory, the mirror stage starts when the child is between six and twelve months old: unable to walk properly, to talk fluently, unable even to control sphincters and thus bodily emissions; the child, indeed, is a clumsy, messy, unfinished creature, not at all like the adults he sees constantly. Then, one day, the mother will point at the mirror and say “that boy in the mirror is you”. This means that a reflected image turns into the first “self” (at that age, to perceive oneself as a whole is quite a task), but this is nothing but an ideal image, for the boy is not the reflection captured by the mirror. However, in the mirror he is whole, he is that which the mother wants him to be, and thus, submitting to the desire of the mother, the child faces the intense dynamic of inter-subjective desire. But why should any of this psychoanalytic mumble-jumble have any relevance to “The Mirror”, the first chapter of Book One? Because every frame in this chapter is, indeed, a mirror, Alice’s mirror, that reflects what’s going on in her life. Her casual lesbian encounters, her masturbatory sessions, but also the desire of the mother, translated into the desire of the mother’s servants, who besiege Alice and affirm that no lady with such good upbringing should act like her. Indeed, by violating every taboo of a society too true to Victorian ideals, Alice defies the desire of the mother (she admits being “most unladylike”), and thus rejects that idealized image of her in the mirror.

“Silver Shoes”, the second chapter, deals again with childhood experiences and the conformation of the “self”. Here Dorothy, a young woman from Kansas, arrives to the Himmelgarten hotel. There, a good looking gentleman woos her, complimenting her on her lovely silver shoes. Is this man fixated on high heels? Well, of course he is. Footwear has always been one of the main fetishes in classic psychoanalytic theory. Freud, for example, used to say that all women desired the man's penis (he was no feminist, of course). A woman was somehow incomplete because of the lack of penis. Other authors have stated that foot fetishism starts at a very early age: A child, any child, is playing on the floor and raises his head to look at his mother, looking through the mother's skirt, he realizes she does not have a penis, and therefore she is incomplete. And the young boy suffers as he stumbles upon this discovery. And he suffers so much for it that he wishes to fill that void, to replace that lack of penis with something else, hence he looks down to the floor again and he stares at her mother's shoes, and unconsciously he turns those shoes into the penis, thus replacing the absence with something else. The shoes could be seen as a symbolic penis; Lacan, for example, would later re-elaborate the theory explaining that the high heel shoes would function as the mother's phallus, a phallus which has been previously denied by the father. It’s no wonder, then, that Dorothy is seduced by Mr. Bauer, and while walking in the gardens, she gives in to the man’s advances. She, however, cannot foresee that all that Bauer cares about is ejaculating onto her precious silver shoes. It would be fair to assume that only fetishism drives Bauer around.

The third chapter is titled “Missing Shadows” and is linked to one of Alice’s earliest assertions on Plato’s philosophy. If we remember the cavern allegory in “The Republic”, then we will accept that the “real world” is but a world of shadows, “mere reflections” that could barely bear some resemblance to the “ideal world”. Only one of the smartest writers could pull this off so coherently. Moore has already let us know Alice’s opinion on Platonic theories. And in this chapter, the world of shadows becomes more real and intense than reality. Wendy arrives to the hotel with her white-haired husband, who pays little attention to her and seems more concerned with an erotic book filled with lascivious illustrations. Melinda Gebbie’s talent shines even more displaying many different artistic styles here, the one referring to the erotic publication is reminiscent to illustrators of the 19th century, and even the details of the capital letters are revealing: every letter shows men and / or women engaged into some form of sexual activity creating with their bodies the silhouette of a given letter. There is indeed a great deal of unresolved sexual tension in this marriage, as it’s made obvious by dialogue and facial expressions, but the best part is the shadow game. In front of a source of light, Wendy plays with a needle, gives her husband a sealed document, and takes some clothes out of her luggage, meanwhile her husband holds the document, wrapped up as a cylinder, talks to her, and in the end lets the seal fall to the floor. This apparently harmless scene, however, is seen as a very graphic fellatio and anal penetration, as the shadows behind them mirror not what truly happens but that which is sexually repressed. We must not forget either, the typical game of Peter Pan chasing after his rebellious shadow, and Wendy then stitching it back to his owner.

The next two chapters are a wonderful exercise of different perspectives coming together to tell one complete story. Chapter four, “Poppies”, shows the moment in which Alice, known by all as Lady Fairchild, invites Miss Gale, the young American, to her table; the girl from Kansas, of course, is no other than Dorothy. In a nearby table, Wendy and her husband Harold are also having dinner. After the meal is over, the two women retire to Lady Fairchild’s room. In there, after smoking laudanum, they start caressing each other, it’s not long before mutual cunnilingus absorbs their attention completely. As they reach climax, they hear strange sounds coming from the next room, the room which houses a certain married couple. Chapter five, “Straight On Till Morning”, shows what happens in Wendy and Harold’s table. There he complains continuously about the effeminate characteristics of Art Nouveau, as well as the mild mannered gestures of the hotel’s owner; once they finish eating, they go to their room at the same time Alice and Dorothy reach theirs. Overhearing part of what’s going on in the next room, Harold imagines the two women naked, one with a whip and the other on the receiving end. Then, as things progress, Harold enters into even more wild fantasies, while Wendy goes over arithmetic procedures in her head. At one moment, she gets into the tub and cries out. Her husband asks her what’s wrong and she answers that the water was too hot. This moment, however, is interpreted as a post-coitus conversation by the two women in the previous chapter.


In chapter six, “Queens Together”, Alice and Dorothy are having sex outdoors, but amidst the bushes they sense someone else staring at them. The two women quickly confront the voyeur who turns out to be Wendy. The three of them then take some time to talk about personal issues and share confidences.


“The Twister”, chapter eight, focuses mainly on Dorothy, as she narrates a paramount moment in her childhood. At 15 years old of age, an enormous twister menaces to shatter her house. Fearing for her life, she regrets dying a virgin, and soon finds herself aroused and decides to do that which she is not supposed to do (she also uses the word “unladylike”): pleasuring herself. She admits being wet down there and proceeds to satisfy herself with her fingers. Her orgasm also marks the twister’s disappearance but also her relocation to what she believes to be the Land of Oz. It’s Wendy’s turn in chapter nine, “Come Away, Come Away”; in this occasion she remembers her first encounter with a boy who had knelt down on top of a naked girl “shoving backwards and forwards”. At night, talking about this weird moment with her two brothers, she finds out the same boy climbing up to her room. There, the three of them receive them and ask for an explanation. To this, Peter Pan lowers his trousers and proceeds to explain the nature of “happy thoughts” while Wendy’s brothers start rubbing each other penises. Wendy also touches Peter Pan’s “affair”, as she calls it, and a few minutes later, her brothers ejaculate onto her bed, while Peter Pan does the same over her body. Finally, in chapter nine, “Looking Glass House”, Alice explains how a friend of her father invites her to accompany him. The bald, anxious man then proceeds to teach her to seat down as ladies should, but of course, that’s not enough, he makes her drink a mysterious liquid that never ends, and as she starts feeling hot, the man suggests that she should remove her clothes. During this “statutory rape” scene, Alice imagines that a girl identical to her comes out of the mirror to have sex with her.


The last episode of Book One “Older Girls” is chapter ten, “Stravinsky”. Here, Lady Fairchild has invited Wendy and Harold, as well as Dorothy and Mr. Bauer to the ballet inauguration in Paris. There, while ecstatically admiring the dancers, Alice, sitting in the middle, will proceed to kiss Dorothy, at her right, and then Wendy, at her left. Of course, then she will place one hand on Dorothy’s thigh, and the other hand on Wendy’s bosom. As the two men grow bored watching the ballet, the three women have the time of their lives.


Books two and three of Lost Girls dig even deeper into the three women’s psyche. Sex plays a fundamental part in this psychic and physical exploration. Sex humanizes characters such as the scarecrow, the lion and the tin man in Dorothy’s Land of Oz. Nonetheless, sexual acts become potentially dangerous in Wendy’s Neverland; after all here Captain Hook is a pedophile whose main goal is to molest Peter Pan and Tinker Bell is more of a sexual victim than a fairy. Finally, Alice finds refugee in the home of a mature lesbian that will force her into acts of such depravity that at the end will become insufferable.


When Austria’s archduke is assassinated World War I is upon the protagonists, but when everyone flees from the hotel the owner (a gay writer of erotic books) and part of the staff stay behind, only to partake in wild orgies for entire days. With unflinching ease, Dorothy will understand the power of sex; Wendy, previously seen as a shy and subjugated character, will no longer feel ashamed or diminished; and at last, but not least, Alice will reevaluate her entire life thus feeling more comfortable with her sexuality than ever before.


In a thoroughly orchestrated journey, this elliptic narration draws near to the end as the penultimate chapter mirrors the first one: it’s all about mirrors and what do they mean. In this case, Alice’s mirror no longer reflects the characters we met on the first pages, since they have changed and evolved. If the mirror was the key in identity conformation, then it’s no surprise to realize that once these women have reached their true selves, the idealized images on the glass surface are no longer vital. Last chapter is, perhaps, a subtle but touching adage that reminds us that, although some may doubt it, to make love is always a better option than to make war.


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LOST GIRLS


“El Deseo es una tierra extraña que uno descubre de niño, en donde nada tiene el más mínimo sentido” (Libro 1: VI, 3). Olviden todo lo que sabían sobre el deseo, por fin existe un trabajo totalmente lúcido sobre un tema complicado pero fascinante.


Lost Girls de Alan Moore es una obra controversial: prohibida en varios países, retenida por aduanas en otros, fácilmente podría ser descartada como uno de esos trabajos polémicos que quedan encerrados en algún recinto de nuestra mente en donde guardamos nuestros tabús y pensamientos escandalosos. Pero sería un grave error hacer justamente eso con esta novela gráfica. Utilizando creaciones literarias bien establecidas tales como Alicia (del país de las maravillas), Dorothy (de la tierra de Oz) y Wendy (de la tierra de nunca jamás), el conocido autor británico ha logrado, una vez más, innovar el noveno arte.


Hagamos una rápida revisión, capítulo por capítulo, para entender por qué Moore le ha dedicado tanto tiempo y reflexión a estas páginas.


Todos los que estén familiarizados con las historias infantiles, sabrán reconocer la importancia de los espejos, estos objetos mágicos y poderosos que a menudo juegan un papel clave. Los espejos también nos definen, al menos de acuerdo con psicoanalistas de la talla de Jacques Lacan. En la teoría lacaniana la etapa del espejo hace referencia a un niño entre 6 y 12 meses; es decir, una criatura incompleta, vulnerable, incapaz de caminar con soltura o incluso de controlar sus esfínteres: la viva antítesis de los adultos que lo rodean. Hasta que un día la madre señala al espejo y le dice “ese niño de allí eres tú”. Esto significa que su imagen reflejada se convierte en su primer ideal del ‘yo’; en el espejo él es un ser completo, es lo que la madre quiere que sea; y de este modo enfrenta por primera vez la intensa dinámica del deseo intersubjetivo. Pero olvidémonos de todas estas charlatanerías teóricas, ¿qué importancia tendrían en relación al primer caso? El libro uno comienza con “El Espejo”. Cada viñeta de este capítulo es, de hecho, un espejo; en realidad, es el espejo de Alicia que refleja los eventos cotidianos de su vida: sus furtivos encuentros lésbicos, sus sesiones masturbatorias, y la desaprobación de la moral tradicional, representada aquí no por una madre hostigadora sino por las sirvientas de la madre que nerviosamente se preguntan cómo una dama de buena educación puede caer en situaciones tan aberrantes. Cuando Alicia rechaza su imagen idealizada también desafía el deseo de la madre.


El segundo capítulo, "Zapatos de plata", se centra también en experiencias de la infancia y en la conformación del "sí mismo". Cuando Dorothy, una joven de Kansas, llega al hotel Himmelgarten, es seducida por un apuesto caballero que elogia su calzado plateado. ¿Se trata de un hombre con un fetiche por los tacones altos? Vaya que sí. Se trata, desde luego, del fetichismo más clásico. Freud (que por supuesto no era feminista) afirmaba que todas las mujeres envidiaban el pene del hombre; la mujer, de algún modo, estaba incompleta al no tener pene. Un niño jugaba en el suelo y, de casualidad, levantaba la vista, a través de la falda de su madre descubría que había una ausencia de pene; así, descubría que su madre era un ser incompleto, por ello el niño, desesperado por suplir esa falta, al bajar la vista veía los zapatos de la mujer, y por lo tanto reemplazaba simbólicamente al pene con esos zapatos. Para Lacan, estos zapatos de tacones altos servirían como el falo de la madre, un falo que habría sido previamente negado por el padre. Cuando Dorothy cede a los avances del señor Bauer no es capaz de predecir que la única intención de su compañero es embadurnar con semen sus finos zapatos argentados.


"Sombras perdidas" nos remite a una de las afirmaciones de Alicia sobre teoría platónica. Si recordamos la alegoría de la caverna, aceptaremos que el mundo real es un mundo de sombras, simples reflejos que guardan una vaga similitud con el mundo de las ideas. No obstante, aquí el mundo de las sombras es mucho más intenso y real que la propia realidad. Wendy llega al hotel con su esposo, un hombre canoso y amargado que no le presta atención y que parece más interesado en un libro con ilustraciones eróticas que encuentra en su habitación. La tensión sexual no resuelta es evidente en la pareja. De pronto una fuente de luz proyecta sombras en la pared de la alcoba; Wendy está zurciendo calcetines, guardando ropa de las maletas, y alcanzándole un documento (envuelto de forma cilíndrica) a su marido; no obstante, las sombras muestran algo muy distinto: una fellatio y una penetración anual. Y es que las sombras no muestran lo que sucede sino lo que realmente ocurre al interior de estos personajes. Además, no deja de ser divertida la referencia al juego de Peter Pan y su sombra rebelde, y a la habilidad de Wendy de coser la sombra al cuerpo de Peter Pan.


En los capítulos siguientes vemos cómo las tres mujeres se conocen, y cómo cada una de ellas recuerda estas experiencias mágicas y extrañas de su pasado. Así, para Dorothy, el momento en el que un tornado amenaza con destruir su granja en Kansas sirve para que ella se cuestione sobre la utilidad de morir virgen (como una dama), y cómo la excitación sexual la recorre mientras decide, ya que no tiene nada que perder, masturbarse libre de culpas, como nunca antes. Mientras Wendy recuerda su primer encuentro con Peter Pan, a quien ve desnudo y "agachado" sobre una chica, mientras ambos practican movimientos que la niña no logra comprender. Cuando Peter Pan aparece en la habitación de Wendy, procede a explicarle a ella y a sus dos hermanos la naturaleza de los "pensamientos felices" (esos que son necesarios para volar), mientras los hermanos de Wendy se masturban mutuamente, Wendy se encarga de facilitarle dicha labor a Peter Pan, hasta que en una escena final los tres eyaculan juntos. Finalmente Alicia explica cómo la inesperada visita de un amigo de su padre la toma de manera desprevenida, especialmente cuando este sujeto calvo le sujeta las piernas con el pretexto de enseñarle a sentarse "como una dama", mientras que la hace beber un líquido misterioso que no parece acabarse nunca para luego desnudarla y proceder a otras actividades.


Los libros dos y tres indagan mucho más sobre la psique de estas tres mujeres. Y el sexo se convierte en la clave de esta exploración física y psíquica. El sexo humaniza a personajes como el espantapájaros, el león cobarde y el hombre de hojalata. Sin embargo, los actos sexuales son potencialmente peligrosos en el entorno de Wendy, sobre todo cuando el capitán Garfio es un pedófilo que solamente quiere ultrajar a Peter Pan (y de paso a Campanita). Finalmente, Alicia encuentra refugio en el hogar de una lesbiana que la obliga a participar en actos de tal depravación que ella no podrá soportar...


Cuando el archiduque de Austria es asesinado, empieza la primera guerra mundial. Mientras todos huyen, el dueño del hotel (un escritor gay de literatura erótica) y su personal organizan orgías que incluyen a las protagonistas. Así, Dorothy entenderá el poder del sexo; Wendy, previamente vista como una mujer subyugada e insegura ya no se sentirá avergonzada de nada; Alicia reevaluará su vida y aprenderá a sentirse por fin cómoda con su propia sexualidad.


La narración elíptica de Moore conecta las primeras páginas con el penúltimo capítulo, nuevamente centrado exclusivamente en el espejo de Alicia. Pero la superficie ya no refleja a las mujeres del inicio de la historia, sino a personajes que se han redefinido, que han madurado y que al fin se aceptan a sí mismas. Ya no hace falta estar a la altura de la imagen idealizada del espejo porque ellas por fin pueden ser lo que realmente son. El último capítulo es un sentido adagio que nos recuerda por qué, en última instancia, es mejor hacer el amor que hacer la guerra.

KID ETERNITY

“There’s only one joke worth laughing at and it’s the joke of existence”. Too existentialist for you? Well, if it is, I strongly advise you to take a few classes of contemporary philosophy and come back to Grant Morrison’s KID ETERNITY. This is not your average retcon or your regular miniseries about an obscure character of the DC Universe. This is a metaphysical adventure that involves super-powered beings, hereafter metaphors and even hell itself, albeit a hell so chaotically ferocious only Mr. Morrison could have come up with.

Kid Eternity was one of those characters that wouldn’t have escaped oblivion if not for Morrison’s attempt of bringing it back for a more postmodern audience. But what does postmodernism has to do with it? Well, our era has strengthened the exscinded subject. We live in more schizophrenic times than, say, a century ago. Kid Eternity is the battlefield in which the never ending struggle of unconscious versus “conscientious I” carries on. I’m not suggesting that this work is less complex than others, but certainly at first glance it might look a bit more complicated, which is why I think psychoanalytic theory can come in handy, specially Lacanian theory. Jacques Lacan stated that there is no ‘I’ in the subject. The ‘I’ is the ego, and as such can remain pretty much consistent throughout time. The subject, on the other hand, as the very words implies, clearly derives from subjectivity and it’s prone to alteration and constant modification. Kid Eternity is both: ‘I’ and ‘subject’. However at the beginning of the story there is no divisiveness, the kid is still whole. As the story moves on changes are put into place and the reader discovers along with Kid Eternity that identity relies heavily on the gaze of the other. After all, the only question that matters is “what am I in the eyes of the other?”.

Much has been said about deconstruction; nonetheless Morrison takes upon a rather different approach which I could denominate de-configuration: the fragmented narrative lines, the seemingly chaotic order, the focus on multiple unrelated moments have but one goal which obeys a carefully orchestrated tapestry displaying different characters experiences and interpretations of what’s going on. In the end nothing is random: Kid Eternity, Jerry, the Priest and the Woman will each play a fundamental role in chapter three; for the readers, though, this grand design might make little sense in the first pages. The Scottish writer’s work in this case is more akin to such films as David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive which requires a much larger amount of work and concentration; these authors will not spoon-feed the public, quite the opposite indeed. De-configuration then is the key to understand what Morrison is trying to do in this miniseries.

It’s up to you, the one holding the book, to come up with the answers. All necessary hints are provided within the 144 pages lavishly illustrated by Duncan Fegredo, an amazing artist that creates remarkable images. Why is it that “Kid Eternity” goes very much unnoticed by most Morrison fans? If only for the art alone this is a miniseries deserving of praise. Perhaps it is the complexity of underlying themes, from Saussure’s linguistics (signifier versus signified): “there is no meaning, the sound is the meaning” to the apparently inconsistent nature of Kid Eternity. It is then necessary to understand that consistency has no place in this tale, because as the kid learns while facing the Unnamed Five, reality can dissolve and reconfigure very easily. The audience with the Five, arcane creatures of uncanny power, reveals a number of things: first of all, Kid Eternity has spent years fighting for forces he did not know at all, he will then be shocked as he understands who has he been secretly serving all this time; but it’s not just a dramatic anagnorisis, this information changes everything about him. Thus the ‘I’ and the ‘subject’ become exscinded as required by postmodernist guidelines. In the same way Kid Eternity’s subject has been built upon safety blankets, id est, repressing the traumatic memories of his childhood (he had been sexually abused by a pedophile captain), his identity had also been built upon false pretenses, thus the impact of the truth threatens to destroy the very ‘self’ of the character. Rather than deconstruction I’d like to think of this as a much needed de-configuration of a character that otherwise would have remained forever forgotten.

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"La única broma de la que vale la pena reírse es la broma de la existencia". KID ETERNITY de Grant Morrison es una aventura metafísica que apela a diversas corrientes intelectuales y que involucra personajes del Universo DC, seres sobrenaturales y un infierno tan caóticamente desquiciado que solamente Morrison podría haber inventado.


¿Quién es Kid Eternity? Bueno, es uno de esos tantos personajes de DC que podrían haber permanecido para siempre en el olvido si no fuera por Morrison. Se trata de un sujeto escindido, es decir, un sujeto típicamente postmoderno (recordemos que la postmodernidad está más vinculada a dinámicas esquizofrénicas de lo que podríamos adivinar a simple vista). Lo interesante es que la diferencia que establece el psicoanálisis lacaniano entre el yo y el sujeto está claramente presentada en la personalidad de Kid Eternity. El yo vendría a ser el ego, mientras que el sujeto estaría supeditado al super-ego y al mismo tiempo sería vulnerable a alteraciones y constantes modificaciones. Cuando Kid Eternity descubre que todo lo que ha hecho en los últimos años ha sido en beneficio de fuerzas siniestras empieza la crisis. Porque, al fin y al cabo, si lo vital es la respuesta a la clásica pregunta "¿qué soy yo en los ojos del otro?", entonces Kid Eternity se preguntará qué es él ante el mundo. Si su vida ha consistido en servir a las fuerzas equivocadas y en reprimir las verdades traumáticas (entre ellas, el abuso sexual que sufrió a los once años a manos de un capitán pedófilo), ¿cómo evitar la escisión final y el desmoronamiento de la identidad?