Epic Beards of Review: Joe the Barbarian

“King Death! From your world did he spy mine! From sunless Hypogea his endless night extends. Restore my throne of light! The journey—arduous, companions on the way, et cetera! Traditional rules apply! Failure means an audience eternal with King Death!” –Lord Arc, Joe the Barbarian

There comes a time in life when we must give up childish things.

Really, though, who are we kidding? I’ve got a shelf of action figures, and those are the ones that aren’t yet packed away in boxes. Comic books abound in my apartment, with four longboxes full, even after culling two or more this summer.

Even more so, with a kid on the way, now’s the time to bulk up on heavy reading while I’ve got the chance.
I’ll admit, picking up Joe the Barbarian the other afternoon was an utter impulse buy, but you’d have to admit that Christmas Club money was burning a hole in my pocket. I was fortunate enough to make it through a week. It was one of those books I picked up when I was looking for something else, but quite surprised when this was really what I’d been looking for.

Like the story inside, the cover is this amalgamation of images: toys at Joe’s feet, scores of crosses from a veteran’s graveyard, Joe’s room—not to mention a floating island towards the top of the cover. Then there’s Joe, quite typically out of place through all this. It helped a heapload that the story was written by Grant Morrison, a real mainstay in comics. It also didn’t hurt that it was and Eisner award nominee for best limited series, comics’ highest achievement.

This graphic novel opens with Joe Manson on a school tour of a veteran’s graveyard for school. We soon come to find that his father has died in one of the Gulf Wars, and this field trip has special meaning for Joe. After being harassed by some high school bullies, they end up taking his candy, which has major implications for Joe throughout the story.

See, Joe’s got a mean case of diabetes. As he heads home to a room stuffed to the gills with all manner of action figures, he starts to hallucinate, heading off into another world where toys (and the threats) are real. Joe’s pet rat becomes a quite adept bodyguard, and the house itself represents this land where one wrong move could spell disaster for the world of Hypogea.

In just eight simple issues, Morrison and Murphy move characters like chess pieces not quite unlike Oz or Narnia. The level of fantasy is high, but spotting all sorts of random Transformers and other action figures from my childhood made the reading thankfully slow down a bit to take in the scope of the drawings that worked in tandem with the words.

Growth from Joe and a handful of other main characters kept the story moving from one of denial and dismissal to that of determination and daring. What begins as this motley crew of characters with differing motivations, brings them all together in the end to an appropriately fantastical ending.

This article originally appeared at Strip Tease in December 2013.

Trip. Trap. Trip.

(Concept sketch credit: Justin Gleghorn)

Barry crested the rise of the covered bridge, the stifling claustrophobic air already so hot this early in the morning.  It would normally be cool and rainy and it wasn’t even June yet.  Was a sign, but hopefully not one that read disaster for the caravan heading West to Alton A.

It was on his descent that he spotted the other man at the mouth of the cavernous river crossing, seemingly filling that space with all of his perpetual bulk.

“He’s never early.  And it’s barely past nine.” Barry mumbled with trepidation.

He was a hulking behemoth of a man.  Corn-fed and well bred, as big as a horse and could eat like one, too.  He would eat one at that, had it been on the menu.  There were five extra teeth in that massive head of his and though there weren’t any cases of him knowingly using them on his victims—there was always that possibility.

Quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, but boy when he did…  Arms like tree trunks and hands like stumps and long thick roots of fingers reaching out for his prey.  Grizzled beard and wild look of an ogre, who, if he wasn’t feral already, would turn on the unsuspecting wretch who would infer that is where his name came from.

"Trip.  Trap.  Trip.  You're late."  the man grumbled.

Yet his eyes were blue pools of goodwill, reflecting the purity he could see in everyone.

Barry hopped off his bicycle, only to be forcibly grappled by the monstrosity that was Ogethan.  Bones cracked audibly, which was normally the case.  One could always judge how happy Ogethan was to see you by the number of vertebrae protesting ‘yays’ and ‘nays’ from within Barry’s back, assenting or dissenting approval based solely upon the fact that it hurt so good.

“Big day, huh, buddy?”  Ogethen inquired of Barry.

“Ouff.”  was all he could reply for the moment.  He straightened himself and Barry looked to him briefly, as if the trip one last questioning.  Barry nodded committedly, as if every today was going to give him one last chance to back out.

“Word.”  Barry responded.

“Word to your mother.”

“And your mother, too.”

Left hands on each of the bike’s handles, rights launched into a secret handshake so complex (not to mention secret) that it can’t be written about here.  Ogethan hefted his rucksack and Barry wheeled his bike down Water Street as hot dust drifted up from its place at their feet.  It moved lazily beneath their footsteps.

They stared down their future like the barrel of a gun making their way through the park.  The cannon guarded Haven from ancient foes of a long time forgotten, the veteran’s memorial park one of their last bastions of hope.  Though pointed towards Barry’s home, sedition had since been reconciled, and the five counties of Clint now worked together as a whole.

They both walked in unusual silence, of which Barry was quite content.  Ogethan would normally be re-enacting some of the previous night’s tomfoolery.  But instead, rolled himself a cigarette, and had yet to offer any of it by the time they were halfway down the block.

“You know those things’ll kill ya, don’t you?”  Barry offered.

“Barry, my boy, I’m only living til I’m forty, ‘cause you’ll have killed me by asking the same old questions over and over again.” Ogethan protested.  “Smoke?”

They stopped at the street corner, and Barry nervously switched his packback from shoulder to shoulder.  Half a block away was Sally Fallon’s School for Exceptional Children, where Barry had boarded on and off the last five years of his life.  Though he would be glad to leave it behind, there was more than a lingering regret to be abandoning this place.

Barry’s apprehension was palpable, as thick as the heat and the humidity of the morning air.  Hadn’t Barry been wanting to be rid of this place for as long as he’d known him?  Ogethan fished into his pocket, coins jingling quietly for the lack thereof.

“Say, I’ve got a few coin…want to head over for a farewell breakfast of sorts?”

“Yah, my grandfather game me some money before I left…” muttered Barry, tearing his gaze from The Fallon House to Ogethan before he realized the error of his ways.
         
“Well then, it’s settled—breakfast’s on Pap.” Ogethan remarked as he made a left down a comfortably tree-sheltered Grove Street, with Barry quickened his pace to keep up.

Christmas in (The Last 4th of) July

"I shall sit here upon this rock, this new cornerstone of American civilization.  I will gaze across the barren lands with arms spread wide and I shall harbor those which this world has left behind, brought forth, through pain and suffering of the worst kind.
"Upon wings of glimmering, golden mirrors reflecting the true shape of things to come--as a phoenix rises from the ashes, life begins anew."

     So began a most epic saga half-a-lifetime ago...and I'm really just getting down to it.  Funny that I mention it, too, because one of the other members of this itty bitty life o' mine just walked into the coffee shop I closed down a half hour ago to write this.  He'll show up from time to time in pictures for a project I'm working on, too: he plays a big part in the cast of characters, not just in real life.  To quote "Throw Momma from the Train" as he leaves:

"All you ever do is sit there at your typewriter and
peck peck peck 
just like a fat pigeon."  

  
     Truer words were never spoken.

     "What is all this rambling for?" you may ask yourselves.  "Can he keep it up consistently?"  "Traveling Tales of what?"
     These are all fine questions that I will one day hopefully answer here or elsewhere in the aether.

1.  I ramble because I care.  If I don't, you (or I) might miss something important that could leave us stranded in the previously stated aether.  Truthfully, though, I have an ultra hard time focusing my attentions onto a keyboard (sans typewriter) because my fingers travel faster than my thoughts.  'course, maybe that should be the other way around...  Anyhow, I edit a bit as I write, too.  Not very well, either.

2.  I'm gonna try really hard to be on my game with this.  At least every other day.  I figure that if I've got people's attention (or keeping my own?) I'll do this for as long as I can.  I need an outlet, and though I despise sitting in front of a computer, I figure I'll be here anyhow.  Might as well do something productive with it.

3.  The Traveling Tales of Waybackwhen (TToWBW) is a little something I've been working on since time out of mind.  Seriously, I've been working in this in one form or another since I read Robinson Crusoe in ninth grade.  (Followed by reading The Stand, you couldn't expect this to not be slightly off, could you?) 
     So, TToWBW has taken so many twists and turns in the last fifteen years that I hope this newest venture into comics and graphic novels is just the ticket.  I've seem to've gotten all my personal junk out of the way (and having an illustrator helps) so now I've got time to devote to this story mostly wholeheartedly.

     What's it about?  Tune in to see...

     The Oracular Beard