DRAMA

DRAMA
Publisher: Sirius
Published: June 1994

My copy on Ebay

The name of Joseph Michael Linsner is one of those that kind of floats about the shared netherworld of comics fandom...a lot of people will have heard of him in relation to 'Cry For Dawn', just as they'll be familiar with the names of the creators behind something like 'Faust', yet the odds that they've actually seen or read the works in question are pretty long, due to the fact that they are scarcely-distributed indies that your local comic book retailer may have decided not to stock. So kudos to the retailers who do take a gamble once in a while, rather than take the safe option and stock up on whichever multiple variant cover First Issue monstrosity the big guys are pushing this month.

This particular book came out in 1994, which by my reckoning would mean that Joe Q. Retailer would have had to have gone through the latest offerings from Marvel, DC, an ever expanding Image Comics, perennial Wizard Magazine favourites Valiant, and then Dark Horse, before having any money left to look at taking a speculative punt on some indies.

I can't honestly remember, but I have a suspicion this might have been around the time of that whole 'Bad Girls' meme that had gripped comicdom...I'm thinking Lady Death, Shi, Vampirella (Come to think of it, I've got the first issue of the Harris Comics reboot of Vampirella, with the Adam Hughes cover, which was 1992, so the timing may be about right...oh, and before you ask, yes I will be selling it on here. Probably next!), so that may go some way to explaining why this one somehow managed to slip through the net and end up upon a retailer's shelf. I would have been living in Milton Keynes at the time this came out, so I suspect I purchased it at Forbidden Planet in London (the old store off of Oxford Street, for those who know London). I can't say for sure, but it just 'feels' like that's where I got it from.

Why did I get it? Well, I'm the kind of guy who likes to give out-there indies a chance, as you will no doubt come to see as this blog progresses. By 'out-there', I really mean 'out-there'...this one is comparatively mainstream next to some of the indies I have. Don't worry though, I've got plenty of mainstream stuff to get through too...Marvel, DC et al. I'm dreading the day when I have to get around to explaining how it is I own issues of Youngblood.

Also, I'd picked up the buzz on this Linsner chap, so I thought I'd try some of his work out. Whether you care for the themes he explores in his work is one thing, but you can't deny that the guy is seriously talented in artistic terms.
I think a third factor would be the fact that this is to all intents and purposes an 'adult comic (or 'Mature Readers', to use the industry's prefered jargon), and that would have still been something of a novelty to me at the time. I went through a period of buying Heavy Metal magazine, which is of a similar level of 'Maturity' in terms of content, but I've no idea whether that was before or after I bought this.

I know we didn't have the internet at home in 1994, so unlike today's feckless youth, I was not raised in a world in which all manner of hardcore pornography is a mere few mouse clicks away, but on the other hand, I wouldn't say my existence was that sheltered either...I had a couple of cherished top shelf mags hidden away.

Despite living in a country where you can crack open a tabloid newspaper to the sight of a beautiful young woman with her tits out, nudity and toplessness in comics was something of a novelty, especially in a medium which is far too often dismissed out-of-hand by the snobbishness of mainstream critics as essentially a child's one.

I would have been precisely eighteen when this came out, so I imagine I picked it up partly to revel in my newly-bestowed status of legal adulthood. In short, I bought it because I could buy it.

The comic itself is a very high quality affair from a production standpoint...very nice cardstock covers and glossy interior pages. It does the level of Linsner's artwork justice.

The story is a self-contained one-shot which is comprised of three separate stories or 'acts' (The Fall Of The Goddess, Psychobabble, Angry Christ), and is highly metaphysical in nature, indeed possibly too metaphysical. I don't do drugs, but one cannot escape the feeling that, like a video for a Tool song, to truly understand the deeper meaning behind it you would probably have to be under the influence of hallucinogens, or nicely stoned.

If I knew any sort of spiritual hippie chicks, I tend to think this would score major points with them. I have no proof to back this up with, but it's just the sort of idea I get. It has that 'Whoa....man!' factor, a bit like Donald Sutherland explaining how our entire universe could be contained in an atom which is part of another beings' fingernail in National Lampoon's Animal House.

In short, it's part painted poem, part metaphysical meditation. I like to think I'm an intelligent guy, but this one kind of flew over my head. Way over.

I'll regret letting this one go a little simply because the artwork is so beautiful, but it's not a book I love in the same way as some of those I have that have been put together by admittedly lesser talents. It doesn't 'resonate' with me emotionally in the same way other books do. Hence, it's one I've decided I can part company with.

Alas, it is now time to say goodbye.

Adieu, Drama, Adieu.

My copy on Ebay