Last night I was reading Preacher. I read the first seven issues in white heat, and then spent about three minutes giggling to myself in my room – and then decided I had to call up vrikodhara and tell him all about it. Tell I did, and I was still giggling to myself when I fell asleep, about an hour later.
Today morning, I had this conversation with a friend who had read one of my “here, read this”-category of comics. He didn’t like it at all. He was extremely pissed, in fact, by seeing panels where a guy shoots another guy in the eye – the fellow who is shot shouts something like “Ugh! I am hit! I am hit! ” and the shooter pumps a couple more bullets into him, with the consoling words – “Oh, don’t worry, you look swell.”
Personally, I would have found the spectacle extremely funny. And Preacher is gory as hell. You have people with the lower end of their skulls shot away, you have vampires sticking knives into their own necks to escape a police dragnet, a guy called Arseface who has got an arse like a face – er, the other way round, actually, and then you have a serial killer who rips body parts off people. Plus there are truckloads of blasphemous ideas thrown around. I enjoyed every moment of it.
Am I the kind of person labelled “sicko” in a normal society?
Now let me get things straight. In all the years of my indulging in things of an amoral nature in comics, films and various other forms of art, I have never really had real-life repercussions of whatever it is I was indulging in. Occasionally, I would read or hear about people who get bad dreams or depressive thoughts because they read so-and-so book or watched so-and-so movie, and when I go and watch the same movie or read the same book, I would enjoy every blood-soaked minute of it. I got into horror fiction just so I could feel the horror, you know , the way people say Exorcist made me pee my pants, or Psycho messed with my head. There have been books which have made me scared when I read them, no doubt, but nothing that has given me nightmares or scarred me for life. There has been no permanent effect on my psyche. I do not make bombs in my room, I do not torture neighbourhood cats. I love cats. I do not necessarily love human beings, but I stay in harmony with them, barring the odd bout of verbal insurgency.
Likewise, violence. It is strange that people moan and complain when they see graphic depictions of death – gunshots, swordfights, whatever – onscreen or on the printed page. Hello? Isn’t this better than showing a superman ( your average X-ollywood Film Actor) who’s being fired upon by twenty men and survives without a scratch? This is what freaking happens when someone shoots at you – you will be very if you are still alive. You will be bleeding. You might not have been hit by the freaking bullets at all, but even the ricocheting bits of the surface where the bullet hits can be deadly. Seeing geysers of blood spouting from a decapitated torso may upset you, but remember that this is what would happen if you are in a swordfight.
It’s even funnier that it’s okay for children to watch cartoons where a mouse does unspeakably horrible things to a cat or those mythological serials that show armies on a battlefield shooting arrows at each other. Or one “good” god shooting at a “bad” demon and lopping his head off. “Cartoons are divorced from reality”, is what I have heard parents say. Oh yeah, right. Is it okay to mislead ( yes, it is misleading, isn’t it? ) children into believing that violence is all cartoony and non-bloody? If it’s okay to laugh at cartoons, it should be alrght to laugh at the “real” stuff too, isn’t it?
Everybody says we are a generation inured to real-life violence, so hardened that things barely shock when we read about it in the papers. We are drawn to violence, fascinated by it. So is it a problem when I go a step further and laugh at it? Just to make things clearer, let me point out that it’s extremely unlikely that I would be laughing at somebody who has been shot in real life. I would hardly be in a position to be humorous if somebody is pointing a gun at me. It’s just that, when somebody who is not real, who is an imaginary character in a make-believe world, is in deep, deep shit, I find that extremely amusing. I kind of relish the glee with with the writer must have thought up this situation, or I applaud the director and his twisted sense of humour and the enthusiastic people who went along with his ideas. I envy the rollicking time they must have had, when they were doing all this.
Shit. I wish you would laugh along with me.
Well said da.
Am with you.
Vasu
Oh good.
Download all the anime you can. I shall mail you a list of the goriest ones.
*applauds!* Perfect, perfect. :D
Ah, I knew you would understand. :)
Violins are all fine…
…but what about the sax??
Violins can unstring you at times, but sax blows, man!
I agree, my friend. And laugh as loud as you at comic gore, if not louder.
Yet I disagree.
It has had a permanent, sick, scarring effect on you.
you love cats??
dude, that’s as sick as it gets.
Here is my complaint : 90% of horror is mostly horrible :S . Lets face it stuff like Hellraiser, a lot of Ennis (I have a feeling I am going to get a response) is just pure tripe — relying simply on gore etched out in a very graphic fashion, almost completely devoid of plot.
Once in a while we get a bit of genius : someone like Moore comes along.
While I am not protesting against body parts flying, once a bullet hits,how about a sane reason for the shot being fired in the first place?
>than showing a superman
Nooo!! Superman is pure simple escapism. Time ‘s take on superman .
And I have to agree — you love cats !!Man!!
Repeat after me “Cats are Evil”
*repeats. ad nauseum.*
Interesting Superman article.
Check out the mentioned Jerry & Supe :
http://www.jerry.digisle.tv/room.html
Ok. I am going to ignore the comment about cats. That goes for all those who commented here. Cats deserve a longer post.
90% of horror is horrible
Agreed, absolutely.
Stuff like Hellraiser agreed again. but I do not consider Hellraiser to be a proper “horror” comic, per se. it’s the beautifully painted artwork that gets to me.
a lot of ennnis
Ah, my friend. Does Ennis write horror? he is reknowned for for writing farcical stories that generally lampoon the straightlaced comic universe. Choirboy commandoes in Demon, Tommy Monaghan, the guy who dares to throw up on Batman’s boots, and now the God-unfearing Preacher. That guy is twisted, and an absolute genius.
moore is horror, yes. and he writes pretty neat stuff, too, I wholeheartedly agree.
>sane reason for shots fired …
Is gunfighting sane? I can’t think of a legitimate situation one can fire a gun at another person without having an intent to kill, or at least griveously wound. What kind of message is an average Hindi movie or a summer blockbuster showing, with their endless tableaus of men shooting guns at each other with seemingly nothing happening. give me a preacher anyday, where a single shot takes away the victim’s eye, and leaves him writhing in agony. That’s what happens in the real world. And people would be grow up a little less fucked up in the head if they could at least KNOW what destruction guns and swords can cause.
Shit. I sound sanctimonous. It’s the work, I tell you.
But I love cats. And don’t you dare call them Evil.
the beautifully painted artwork that
That we agree!! But not all, for example I’d point out that I find the art work in demon barely makes the cut.
farcical stories that generally lampoon the straightlaced
I think they lampoon the readers intelligence :P. Allright I admit Ennis was in part to get a rise from [check, that worked] you in part cause I am stuck with godess and cause I cannot appreciate demon, and hahahahahaaaa hitman. Damn! I was reading it solemnly till you mentioned Hitman :D.
average Hindi movie or a summer blockbuster showing
Wait !! I said there is no sane reason, and if I read your answer correctly then these are supposed to be sane. If you take your hindi movies/summer blockbusters seriously ….:uhuh.
I am not much of a Preacher fan, but Spider Jerusalem, now thats graphic, has substantial gore and still is uber-cool.
Shit. I sound sanctimonous. It’s the lack of work, I tell you.
have to agree beatzo, have to agree… cats, man?
um, and laughing with you, dude.
I love cats.
Gah, I really do.
Zigackly! Cats indeed!!!, your popularity ratings dipped a bit.
*eyes gleam*
I say skin the lot!
i’m a sicko too!
cartoons where a mouse does unspeakably horrible things to a cat
were you thinking about ‘Itchy and Scratchy’ from the simpsons when you wrote that?
damn i go into quiz mode everytime i see a post from you!
“Ugh! I am hit! I am hit! ” and the shooter pumps a couple more bullets into him, with the consoling words – “Oh, don’t worry, you look swell.”
HAR HAR HARRR!
Tom and Jerry, actually. :)
CATs
i heard that cats attack your neck when they mean to attack. How weak is your neck?
Wonder why i am messing with CAT. :(
That’s a myth. Like most other things you’ve heard about cats, this one is a myth too. Sometimes I suspect the damn critters create their own myths – just to confuse the hell out of us lowly humans.
all animal channels should do their feline research thrrough you. :))
I read your long post completely… you can quiz me on it the next time we meet :-D
You need to pay an admission fee of two thousand rupees for the Quiz first. That or a treat at Gallopin Gooseberries.
All that punishment for reading your long post… Oh life!
Am I the kind of person labelled “sicko” in a normal society?
No, my preciousss… its only your bad side rearing its evil head… don’t worry, smeagol knows best… :)
But seriously speaking, I enjoy taking head shots and groin shots with a sniper rifle, running a chain saw through creatures of the netherworld and dismembering mindless zombies on my video games. I’ve even watched the Hellraiser series a few times, though I definitely don’t enjoy it. Hell, I’m even a member of the Chennai Rifle Club (and a pretty decent marksman, btw). But every time I see a fight on the road, or real blood, or an accident I get very scared and queasy.
I’ve never been able to understand that. But I do know a lot of people on whom violence (real and make believe) has a very negative influence – nightmares, betwetting, fear of darkness – the entire works.
Regarding the cartoons – that’s a debatable issue. But that’s also one of the reasons why Cartoon Network launched the Pogo channel, cos there was too much violence on Cartoon network itself.
U should have been a writer or novelist.However,I wish u could write less for me.Just kidding!
I got real enthu seeing the first line of your comment. Then the last line brought it crashing down. *sob*
me me want to read Preacher….. sound like fun.. :D
Study hard, and someday you will!
well i got new wheels.So one of these nights i will be knocking ur door…
Study hard??? u always know i do :D
+Study hard??? u always know i do :D +
Another classic from you after the “I am the most normal guy in the group” statement.
oops, you got the wheels, so may be I should say
But then you always do study hard.
Re: :)
Why do I have a feeling you took this far more seriously that beatzo meant it to be ?
Or maybe I am missing sarcasm completely :D
Re: :)
Beatzo and I go a long way (5-6 years almost to the day) for either of us to let a difference OF opinion get personal. My post was a clarification of sorts to our earlier discussion. In fact, I am surprised he went through a self evaluation about being sick/normal following our discussion.
I am sure your feelings are very misplaced here. Not to mention the fact that sarcasm inevitably creeps in when I talk. :).
Paul Newman and Robert Redford conveyed it well in Butch Cassidy /Sundance, Quentin Tarantino goes overboard in Kill Bill.
Ok, but doesn’t the movie Butch Cassidy serve to glamourise the concept of the Western cowboy? You have those two guys looking and being cool and doing cool things with guns. Fine, so it’s history that’s portrayed here, but I bet real-life was never this kind with those guys. A glimpse of their blood-soaked bodies at the end of the last escapade would not have made for good cinema, but it would have definitely given a rude kick to the asses of people who sit back and think the West was all about cool cowboys.
Kill Bill was, in my opinion, all about fun. I would definitely not want to live in the world of the DiVAS and Pai Mei and The Beide, but I want that world to exist, at least in the auteur’s imagination. And personally I don’t find it overboard in any way, da.
All I am saying is, blood, gore – all those things HAPPEN for real. It’s not really legit to go all squeamish and say “ooh, this is absurd.” What makes most of us say this is the sanitary way we are brought up in, being shown bloodless violence and beautiful death throughout our lives.
Something I can say in your favour – pointless gore. I will tell you what I found pointless. The Passion of the Christ. This wasn’t fun, in any way. This was pseudo-religious, exploitative crap that sought to capitalize on religious sentiments and shock for the heck of it. You want to get ballistic about wrong portrayal of violence, that’s what you should target.
Ennis, Milligan, the guys who actually write all those comics – they don’t claim to have any intentions other than to bring out an “entertaining comic book”. They don’t claim to change your life forever if you read it. ( Shiv Khera does that. The reviewers at the back of Paulo Coelho books do that. I digress) What you should be doing is, instead of thinking about whether this makes sense, or whether that is polically correct, is just ENJOY the book. That’s all..
Ok, so you say that you don’t enjoy it because it shows “pointless murder”. Well, what the heck, all murder is pointless anyways.
CATS ARE HUMAN! SAVE THE CATS!!
Cats are friends, Not Experiment equipments.
*snigger*
But yeah, Considering the fact that I was born again when I watched “BAD TASTE” and “PULP FICTION”
(
VINCENT
C’mon, Marvin. Do you think God came down from Heaven and stopped the bullets?
Vincent’s .45 goes BANG!
Marvin is hit in the upper chest, below the throat. He GURGLES blood and SHAKES.
JULES
What the fuck’s happening?
VINCENT
I just accidentally shot Marvin in the throat.
JULES
Why the fuck did you do that?
VINCENT
I didn’t mean to do it. I said it was an accident.
*HAR HAR HAR HAR*) says it all I sps.
Come to my arms. :D
by the way you got the movie?
and what does jigabo mean.
my mailer daemon says “Racial Discrimination(jigaboo)”
DUDE! Of course I got the movie. in Multiple formats, too. :D
aah!
peace!