Woke Thought Kills

The last week I wrote a piece I found pretty damn cathartic post about my issues with American conservatism, and really the right in general. The need for moral purity in heroes is a moral sickness in American conservativism that has destroyed many a would-be Christian, who now (for the most part) cannot separate the two out, even though American Conservatism looks a lot more like actual Satanism than anything else; the light that sickens, as opposed to healing and correcting. 

On the one hand, I'm not shocked at the existence of the woke; one had only to look at the world as it was for even two seconds to see a generation of this bullshit coming. 

On the other hand... c'mon folks, this is just Soviet-style Marxism without the moral conviction to kill 50 or 60 million people.

Now, more than a few of those who follow this ideology will immediately tell me that "woke" doesn't exist. The attempt to retcon recent history is expected (and we'll get to why below), but inaccurage: being woke isn't just being compassionate and wanting to stand up for the little guy, nor is it even really caring about the downtrodden among you, or wanting to speak truth to power (especially this one, wokeism actually encourages moral cowardice), but is specifically an engine to strip the humanity and compassion straight out of your soul and make you an honest-to-God monster with a clown's smile attached. American conservativism perverts, Wokeism destroys and salts the earth. And yes, it is a real ideology, it is particular, it is not American liberalism, it is distinct and particular.

There are people who think they sympathize with this ideology, who are not woke, who instead just want people cared for. They deny that the ideology itself is so toxic that spilling its blood would be a dangerous act like in Pacific Rim, saying they want to side with the people who actually want folks cared for. The problem is rooted in the fundamental humanity of the person, and wanting to empathize with the people who are hurt, wanting to affirm the righteous anger they're hoping is actually going on.

It's not righteous anger.

It's just rage.

I'm sorry.

Now, I've spent a few years trying to just observe what Wokeism entails. A lot of it didn't make sense for years, not until I started reading The Gulag Archipelago. And then it clicked. And now I'm writing this.

1. The most important thing is unfettered individual choice towards the (frequently immediately) pleasant. The thing, at the end of the day, that I have repeatedly seen any SJW fall back on is "what's the thing that is beneficial for me"? There isn't anything wrong with being concerned about yourself, of course, but that's not the way it's meant, but as a "No one else is concerned about my good, not really, and therefore whatever I perceive is for my own good, I will do, even if all else indicates it to be the wrong course of action."

The problem is that this way of thinking totally destroys your ability to have any meaningful relationships at all, and actually poisons you against the concept entirely. Hell, you can't even genuinely love at all with such thinking, because frequently you will find yourself in situations where the only way through with a person is to give without getting anything back at all, to lean out and get hurt because that is what's best for the other person.

Since pain is inherently evil, there is no world where you can use pain to your own (or someone else's) good. And since, in literally all previous modes of thought, pain is a necessary building block for growth, there comes into existence a divide so sharp and deep that there is literally no rapproachment possible. So long as this one damnable point is in one's soul one is Woke, and nothing else on this list can be discussed until this is dismantled.

2. All immediate hierarchy is inherently repressive. So what do I mean by this? I'm saying wokeness doesn't actually care about hierarchy they don't have to really look at. Biological ties are something right in there your face, something that binds people in a way that constrains choices, brings about inordinate amounts of pain, requires a level of discernment and wisdom where payoff may be years, even decades in the future. The hierarchy created by someone legitimately being stronger and wiser than you  in your immediate vicinity  creates similar issues. You can't run from this kinda thing, not really.

For literally any other ideology in the world this type of hierarchy is made into a feature, not a bug. The world is hard enough as it is, and if someone with more power and wisdom is actually working towards your good, save yourself some energy and lean into it willya. Local ties and power are inevitable. You can't avoid them

But for the Woke this is oppressive, because choice towards the pleasant is constricted.

And so therefore the war must be waged. Against our basic biological, psychological, and spiritual essenences. Forever.

God, it sounds exhausting to type it.

Us Christians call that nonsense Hell.

3. All societal issues are ONLY abstract constructs. Because the only thing that matters is what's immediately pleasant, anything to do with a group of people is simply immaterial. The need to procreate for both biological and psychological necessity becomes a squashing of individual potential, a threat against the very soul of a person. The idea that some hierarchy is inherently good becomes only a tool for the oppressor, because sacrifice for a whole is a completely alien thought.

4. All individual desires that aren't obviously harmful are good. And now we start to get into the real meat and potatoes, the parts where otherwise calm and reasonable and well-meaning people start going "But why not?" This question, while it's well-meaning, and while I'm extremely empathetic to the problem of pain... goes wrong.

Because society is a real thing. It is driven by very real needs, the primary one of which is procreation. If there isn't a constant influx of babies into whatever system you're living in, it collapses in on itself. This is as obvious as picking up a history book and taking five minutes with it. And it is distressingly fragile. We're at a point in history where that incredibly obvious fact is obscured, but that does not change that it is the number one rule of society: more babies are good. Less babies are bad.

And that's before we get into the unavoidable fact that somebody has to clean the toilets. Somebody has to manage the raw infrastructure necessary to help us not wallow in filth and war. There is no "living your best life" if the sewage lines aren't working, folks. And that means somebody is biting the bullet and doing something really unpleasant. And there is no getting away from that.

And anything that is not actively helping that incredibly fragile thing to exist is actually a drain upon society. There's a reason why monasteries became the center of economies in the Middle Ages: folks not interested in making babies essentially banded together and found a way to contribute anyways, because they understood that all their energy needed to be focused on something other than sex, which really only works in the long run if babies are involved, somehow.

5. An human is an individual that can give me a pat on the back for being a "good person" (aka babies are not humans, the people who throw themselves off factories in China so I can have my phone are not humans)

And this is the one that really begins to get my goat. See, most Woke folks are very quick to scream about the injustices of the world.... on their iPhones. Y'know, the iPhones whose factories have nets around them, so that the workers don't jump off and kill themselves. And abortion is the ultimate mockery of their idea that people shouldn't be oppressed.

Whenever you can tell me why something with its own specific DNA strand should die because "you should be living your best life" with a straight face, that doesn't involve the idiotic "because it's not a person", let me know. The ethical conversation around that hasn't been at that primae faciae stupidity for a long time, and instead is "Yes, it's human, but so what?" 

Why must something die for what you think of as your best life?

Or jump off a building so that way you can just amuse yourself on your iPhone?

These are not questions that are asked. I know they're not, I know they're actively avoided, because if I really  put the screws to any Woke person they simply don't have an answer. And then they deep-six it as quickly as possible. Genocide and mass slavery are fine, so long as I get mine and don't see the bodies in the garbage cans or on the pavement.

If you disagree, prove me wrong! Oh wait, that takes pain and changing your life, struggling with inconvenience, and finding peace within that inconvience, and letting that peace spread to others, who then have the option to join in. Something that is very difficult to justify doing because of the previous points.

But hey, look, Christians are being homophobes again! That's easy, you can just screech on social media about how the world is a cruel place. All the while the blood congeals in the garbage can or on the pavement. But don't worry! You got a nice little dopamine kick from the phone. Relax into it. It'll be fine.

Everything is fine.

It's fine! Go back to sleep.

6. Humans are ONLY products of their enviroment.

This is a weird one, but it is what I've observed. And, really, it doesn't take too long to figure out. See, I have not met a single leftist  who isn't aware, on some level, that the above is horrific. There's gaps in the ideology that lead to simply horrifying results. In order to hold to the point one, the cardinal point, you have to accept points 2-5. Have to. At some point, however, the human mind has to justify why those five points are acceptable. And that's fine: all ideologies have coping mechanisms in them. There has to be, because no plan survives contact with the enemy, nevermind the world.

But the leftist cope is... horrible.

Because all there is left is to admit that all you are is a consumer of corporate swill. To admit that all you can do is be a part of a series of force-fed drips. You can rage all you like, but there's not a single leftist I've met and actually talked to, on a serious level ,that actually thinks they're making a difference in the world. Not really. The only way to hold the thoughts in their heads is to admit the dirty secret that there is no leftist that is not totally dependent upon corporations for the news, the tech, the food, hell even babies.  Because families are nuked, because any and all local hierarchy has been removed, all there is left are faceless corporations who merely have to say the words back at them while they rob, rape, and kill others.

Materially Wokies are the ultimate corporate shills. Philosophically they're against what feeds them. 

Is it any wonder that there's been sudden explosions of depression and anxiety in the young?

7. Because society is not real, any attempt to see any nuance in the above points is treason to your fellow individual humans. There is no right, no wrong, just what's useful and expedient, and therefore questioning and nuance cannot be tolerated, nevermind disagreement.

I wrote one hell of a baity title, didn't I? But I really did mean it. The problem is that, at the end of the day, there is so much tension, with no release, no way out, of this point of view that any questionning of it, any genuine questionning, will create an incredibly volatile mix of frustration and hopelesness. I haven't met one single leftist who can hold all these thoughts in their head without going completely apeshit from time to time. 

I don't say that as a flex.

I think it's horrifying.

I don't want people to go through that. Ever.

So yes, questioning any of the previous six points is going to be anathema. The tension between them is so tight that literally nobody can hold it without the rest of the world shutting up and going along with it. Nuance is a luxury for those who aren't under continuous pressure. And nothing about this ideology allows one to be under anything other than continuous pressure. And so, yes, if someone gets in the way, right or wrong be damned, they must be silenced by shame, rage, threats, whatever it takes just please shut up so that there's a possibility for a moment of peace. 

But that never comes. It can't. You can't have peace by denying community and hating the world, because you are an extension of it. There's so many clearly and obviously and manifestly wrong things in this ideology, after just briefly picking up any primary source of history, nevermind theology or philosophy or whatever gets in the way right now, that really any action to quiet the noise down is acceptable. Like all humans, leftists hate chaos on a genetic level. And they will have order, or at the very least they will have silence as they seethe at problems literally every ideology before them has figured out cannot be solved.

Only made peace with.

Conservativism Doesn't Understand Heroes

 

I've been sorta sitting outside the culture war thing for awhile now, watching it in a rather clinical way, taking notes, making snide comments, and usually finding the whole matter more and more ridiculous. At this point I don't find myself comfortable with any of the sides, and the alienation only runs deeper and deeper the older I get. We will get to the leftists and their fundamental mistakes, but I'm going to pick on my former camp first; call it pride of place, conservatives.

Conservatives really don't understand heroes.

See, when I was growing up I read a lot as a child. I know that makes me stand out amongst all the bloggers and all that, but it's true. One of the things that I found as a child was that none of my ostensibly "conserving the culture" superiors seemed to be doing was actually conserving what made Christianity, or the West in general, special. They talked about conserving Christian values, preserving good families, keeping it in your pants until married or you'd go to Hell (boy someday I'm going to have a rant about that one), and generally being some milqetoast goody-two-shoes that would carry on their idea of Western civilization.

And everytime they said this I scratched my head, because none of the stories they were claiming to be defending were like that, at all.

Yeah, I know who I put up in the picture up top. I know some folks clicked on this because I laid the bait. But you're going to have to wait.

We're going to have to start with Samuel the Prophet.

I read most of the Old Testament from nine (when I actually started reading) to thirteen. Since then I've lapped it a few times. There are few things more important to me than reading the Old Testament, because it's here you find the most honest take on human nature you'll ever find. I get the New Testament is nice with all the cuddly "look Jesus is here and healing people" stuff, but honestly it doesn't really mean much without seeing people for what they really are. If you are not rooted in the Old Testament Christ isn't the fearsome conqueror of sin and death, but just some sweet nice dude who might be able to claim to be God because He was so fluffy. God stared men's nature down until it blinked, and it cost Him His life.

Samuel's story was the moment that started a watershed for me, that has lasted until this present day. Most of us know Samuel as the prophet who was told to say to God "Speak Lord, your servant is listening" when he heard someone calling for him at night. At nine I heard someone trying to teach a CCD class that the lesson of Samuel was that it was so very important to listen for the voice of God. Listen, and God will talk to you!

I was pissed. 

I went up to the teacher afterwards and asked why she didn't tell the rest of the freaking story.

For those who don't know: Eli, Sameul's foster-father, was one of the priests at Shiloh. In those days the priesthood was an unabashedly family business. If you were a priest it was because your father was a priest, and you were going to go marry some other priest's daughter and have as many kids as you could so that way the priesthood could go on. So Eli's sons were priests. And they were not good people. Eli's sons stole from the sacrifices, very deliberately making sure God did not get His due. Connected (as in, God viewed them as two halves of the same sin) to this, Eli's sons were also sleeping with the temple virgins. Now, us Catholics and Orthodox teach that such virgins were younger; Mary the Theotokos was being sent away from the Temple at twelve. Now, I don't know if that's historically accurate, given we don't know much about temple virgins, but um.... twelve is a legit number. 

So's ten.

I mean, technically so could five.

Sick yet? If not, we at least know where you stand on the priest/bishop sex scandals.

If you have information to the contrary I'd love to hear it (yes, there were temple virgins, they were a thing, so no, nothing on how they didn't "akshually" exist), but honestly the essence is that Eli's sons were either pedophiles and/or taking advantage of women who had nowhere else to go, and thus how much could they really say no? So God's message to Samuel? Y'know, the one that everyone so sweetly says "Listen to God", what did poor Samuel hear? To tell Eli, that foster-father of his, the one who told him to listen to God in the first place, that the entirety of his family was to die because he hadn't stopped his sons from either outright child rape or taking advantage of those who couldn't really resist them, and stealing from sacrifices, even though all priests got a share of all sacrifices. Eli had allowed his sons to become such monsters that God swore to Samuel that none of their descendants would live, and the books of Samuel actually keep track of this promise, coz it takes awhile to unfold, but when it does the book actualy says "That was the last descendant of Eli". And God told Samuel to say this to the man who had adopted him and raised him as one of his own.

Yes, listen to God.

It might scare the shit out of you though.

Samuel didn't want to say anything, of course, and actually had resolved to disobey God, because as it turns out telling your foster-father that his entire family had a deathmark on them for being child rapists is a bit much for a child. But Eli knew something was up, and forced Samuel to tell him the truth. 

That's Samuel's origin story as a prophet.

Gnarly shit, ain't it?

Samuel went on to anoint two kings, Saul and David, and judged Israel until the kings were set up... after failing to stop the Israelites from installing said kings. He also had sons who were of great embarrassment to him, although it's not said in the Bible how Samuel dealt with them, only that he wasn't the best dad around. Every moment of Samuel's recorded life was filled with failure and regret. He couldn't stop Israel from wanting a king, something that he stomped and screamed and outright refused to do, until God specifically told him to shut up and do it anyways. Samuel couldn't stop the first king, Saul, from letting the power get to his head, and grieved over Saul, a man who formerly had a genuinely good heart, for years. He wasn't a good dad, and his own sons turned out to be an embarrassment, even if they weren't child rapists like Eli's. Samuel was not a terribly exceptional person in the way conservatives understand it. It's not that Samuel was some sexual deviant, it's that his story is one of constant hope amidst complete and utter existential failure. What made Samuel special wasn't that he succeeded, or even if he was a particularly special person... he just kept trying as it all fell apart. And that one thing is what he sorta got right.

And that's easily one of the squeakiest cleanest of the OT stories.

David is much worse. The instant the defender of the poor and the downtrodden became king he became a murderer, adulterer, and allowed incestual rape to rip his family, and thus his country, apart. The courageous fighter for the common man became a weak and inept ruler. He also allowed a plague to strike his own country, knowing that his actions would lead to many of his people dying. And God calls David one of the best men to ever live. Which means if you got the job of monarch of Israel you'd do a considerably worse job than David.

Yes, you.

Don't get me started on the rest of them, particularly Moses, who had a habit of acting rashly that actually got him locked out of the Promised Land. Humans act out of character, and even when they do act in character it's usually a bad thing to do.

And that's just the Bible, folks.

You look at actual mythology and it gets much worse. Humans are, to a one, the playthings of the gods, who treat them like pets. Humans are at the mercy of the world, and their moral strength doesn't come from rising up and standing up for themselves, but in figuring out which god likes them and doing whatever the fuck that god tells them to do, no matter what it is. Odysseus, the man who loved his wife Penelope so much that he fought like hell to get back home to her over the course of twenty years, didn't even flinch when Calypso demanded him into her bed and body. A god demanded. He got up in the bed and did what had to be done. Hell, we know there's a third act to the trilogy of the Iliad and Odyssey, where his son by that fateful night accidentally kills him on the road!

Yup, that's how Odysseus, the most cunning man alive, slayer of men, and the favorite of Athena, dies.

In a tragic highway manslaughter accident.

It gets worse once you actually start looking at Chrtistian medieval stories, like La Morte D'Arthur or the Medieval Romances. People are constantly fucking in those stories, married or not. Arthur alone sleeps with at least three women, one of them his own sister, upon becoming king. Gawain, the best knight of the Round Table, second only to Galahad (and does he even truly count???), is the one who destroys Camelot because of his inability to forgive Lancelot. And these are the good guys! These are the ones who manage to actually get something done that's worthwhile. They're the ones who face down the entropy of the world and actually try not to blink. 

They try. And fail, but what makes a man good in classical and Christian thought isn't whether or not they succeed, for no man can, but their willingness to face their interior and exterior entropy and try to do the best they can with what they have, even knowing they'll fail. Because it's not about results, it's about what they can do right now. And yes, some of these heroes blink and do actually give up in total despair, and some of them stay that way, and some of them manage to come back. It depends. The idea of a hero never giving up is so inaccurate to the lore that it's actually hilarious.

Y'know what actually makes someone a hero? Get a pen and paper, coz here it is: they're the scapegoats of their people. Their life and suffering and joys (but usually their suffering) make majorly impacts society.

That's it.

Whatever they're going through personally, it hits their society at large. Call it chance, call it fate, call it being a half-god or whatever, whatever their own personal struggles and cares, they have a large societal impact.

Some of these heroes will notice and care that their actions have effects upon those around them... and a lot of them won't. This whole notion of the "self-sacrificing hero" is most certainly not endemic to the type. Hell, even a momentary look into Tolkien's own legendarium reveals that heroes can be literally anybody, with any kind of mental makeup. In fact, many heroes are actively against such ideals like self-sacrifice... and their fate isn't that  much worse than the nicer heroes, if we're being honest. Turin and Feanor don't exactly have a different ending than Hurin (AURE ENTELUVA! DAY SHALL COME AGAIN!!!!) and The Trees. What is the point of hacking through 80 or so orcs with an axe screaming "DAY SHALL COME AGAIN!! AURE ENTELUVA!!!!" when you're forced by LOTR Satan to watch your children and grandchild die after an incestuous marriage and then having to purposefully withold that truth from your wife so she can die in peace? 

Don't pretend you know, you fucking liar. There is a reason why theodicy exists: if the fate of a good man looks so similar to that of a bad one who gives a shit about being good? And to pretend this is not a question that is frequently asked by heroes is to ignore the Psalms and the Wisdom literature, where that question has entire books dedicated to it.

Now we get to the bait I laid at the front of the article.

Do you see the core issue I have with those who dislike Luke in TLJ? Luke's central issue, as detailed quite thoroughly in the classic The Empire Strikes Back, is his fear that his desire to do good will make him into Vader, a fear given major credence by the revelation at the end of the movie. Luke wants to do good, but is afraid that his instincts will trip him up. No, you don't get to grow beyond problems this elemental, sorry. Luke's utter recklessness in the pursuit of what he thinks is good is his defining trait, and it is both his strength and his weakness, like for anybody else. Those who say "he should have grown beyond being so rash" misunderstand how humanity works so fundamentally it's funny: Luke's vritue is also his flaw. You can't get the virtue without the vice to trip you up.

And yes, losing 13 of your foster children to your core motivation as a human being may break you and make you into a bitter asshole. That may be how humans work.

A lot of emotion is spent by leftists on how conservatives view people as cogs in a machine, and they're not entirely... wrong.  If your supposed heroes are just there to serve the whole, as opposed to the individual affecting the whole at large (and all of them being some form of cautionary tale), then yes, that's essentially just cogs in the machine. As much as I dislike leftist ideology, even I have to admit when they're right they're right. I have always found the conservative faux-stoicism to be disingenuous, when elves in Tolkien's literature can literally cry themselves to death, or Ajax can be driven mad by the gods and commit suicide, or Achilles avenges his friend by committing actual war crimes...

Now, granted, some will read the above and go "Yeah, but what about Christian stories? Stories about good guys fighting bad guys and being good and my goodness isn't all the virtue so nice? 

Look, at some point enough is enough. The absurdity is obvious, one way or another.

Go read even a page of La Morte D'Arthur to see what an actual Christian story and heroes look like. Where people are incredibly flawed creatures, who can't seem to hack it no matter what they try, where even if they win they lose, just like you and me, and at the end have to stare the death of all they know and love right in the face, knowing they had a hand in it... but still begging for a chance to do the right thing, even if it's just at the end.. if they're lucky.

It actually looks an awful lot like this, and all the moments leading up to it, green milk especially:

Gnarly shit, ain't it?

Christianity ain't for the weak.

But if you don't have the stomach for real Christianity, I suggest sticking with conservatism.

Returning to Hunter Ninja Bear

 

One of the things I’ve become painfully aware of is how shallow most reviews of geeky things are. It’s a sad fact that most geeky things are just poorly disguised cash grabs, flashes of “ooh shiny!” that are meant to distract us for two seconds from anything meaningful in our lives, as opposed to helping us find deeper meaning and peace where we’re at. Art, real art with depth, is usually set aside for a profit. There’s nothing inherently wrong with content, just that content and art need to be identified for what they are and their usefulness has to be accepted. 

Content is for when you’re tired and need a break.

Art is for helping you become better. Stronger. Wiser. Possibly a little sadder, as that’s usually what happens as a part of becoming any of those things.

Part of the problem is that most of us grew up on these corporate properties that were meant to sell toys, but found that the advertisements disguised as stories couldn’t not betray meaning, and so a lot of us connected with those toy advertisements as stories, as art. Humans are meant to find meaning in anything, to see the hand of God in all creation, so much so that even a naked toy commercial like Pokemon (or on a more personal level Digimon) can have a deeply profound impact on someone. 

And so, once hooked with something with even a modicum of meaning, the eternal chase begins for finding meaning. In toy commercials.

That’s not destined to make a toxic fan culture at all! 

Or make everyone feel beholden to the one kinda entity no one should ever feel allegiance to: corporations.

This loop hit me like a ton of bricks, ended my time with Marvel Champions, and subsequently most mainstream properties, all in one fell swoop. Since then I’ve tried to stick with things that I think strengthen me principally, while figuring out any form of a shtick for a blog that has any regularity without becoming a shill for something that doesn’t actually inspire me.

So when I realized that I could return to Hunter Ninja Bear and give a unique perspective, I was thrilled! Why is my perspective different, you might ask? Because I’ve genuinely been rereading this book once every three months, at the least. As in, I sit down and read it straight through, from beginning to end. In other words I actually love it, have spent time with it, and am unconcerned as to whether or not I benefit from a hype train.

First off, the binding on the book is starting to give way a little. In all the book feels solid in the hands, but on the closer inspection the glue is starting to give out. The paper has also smeared in a few spots, given it’s the same quality as the Big Two’s comics. That being said, it’s all in one tome and that’s handy! So overall there’s some wear and tear, but nothing worse than “the standard”, not even by a long shot.

The art is absolutely fantastic! Mel Rubi’s pencils are exactly my kind of style, with a fine eye for allowing the inker and colorist to work their magic. Rubi proves to me that one can make a color comic from the ground up. I honestly can’t think of a single illustration I don’t like. Rubi’s storytelling, however, is the real star of the show. He knows exactly how to set up a page, creating truly stunning compositions that I can just stare at for undefined amounts of time. Top notch all around!

That being said, Dixon’s script is the real star of the show here. This shouldn’t come as any surprise; Dixon is a legend for a reason, no matter how hard the mainstream tries to crap on his work. Dixon puts so many emotions and themes into this book, his narrative builds beautifully, and the slow burn goes nuclear at the end, while setting up for a sequel I’m honestly getting impatient for. 

Hunter Ninja Bear is the densest collection of emotions and themes I’ve ever encountered in a comic. Each location in the story is a confluence of histories, personalities, and emotions that don't feel constructed so much as discovered, in media res. The mixings of genuine hope, muted denial, and principled resentment of the ninja village are so strong that there's practically colors and soundtracks for each of them in my head. The same is true of the rage, comradery, and pragmatism of the Americans; these aren't places, they're microcosms. I think I reread Hunter Ninja Bear as much as I have because I feel like returning to these imaginal spheres of emotion. These places feel real to me in a way I've not run into for many comics. And the thing is that it's so freaking casual; the team don't really call attention to what they're doing. The atmosphere isn't well done, it is what makes the story works.

The narrative is an explosion of death and mayhem, leading to a journey divided into two parts: getting to America and getting back to Japan, all the while promising epic carnage at the end. Dixon understands his job, and so takes his time setting up all these characters, steeping you in that atmosphere I already mentioned, showing you what everyone thinks they are. Thinks. Because, when it all comes down to it, they all die screaming. What everyone thinks they are, whatever it is, it all dies about two seconds before their heart stops. There's something deeply raw and disturbing about the way everyone in this book dies. No stops are pulled out, everyone dies pitifully. The end is jarring, awful, and makes the journey before it... sad. Tragic. Event after event after event ends in a trainwreck of pain. And we're all headed for it. Like it or not. For whatever reason, these scenes give me strength. I know what the end will look like, no matter what the details are. Life is, on some level, about preparing for that moment at the end, about facing it as clearly as you can.

But perhaps the thing that makes it all work the hardest for me is the very end. I didn't really know the first two or so times reading this book how much I needed the ending. If anything, I got a little annoyed the first time around. The story was over! Why was the epilogue there? But honestly, if there's any particular reason why I keep rereading this collection of comics, it's because of that ending. I like that the book ends on its own two feet, running. The story doesn't end. It simply stops at a point where you know you'll want more.

Look, I'm not going to pretend to be a Chuck Dixon aficionado. This is honestly the first work of his I've ever read, directly. But there is something so freaking potent in this book, so primal, so elemental, that I keep coming back. I keep getting different stuff from it, from a line of dialogue I suddenly find moving for no particular reason but there it is, to a random facial expression, to even how the water is drawn. I don't know if anyone else will ever latch onto this book the way I have, but for me the book is magical. It reminds me of a part of me that I didn't know was still alive, and that I need to go find him. Somehow.

If something helps you remember you, how is it not art?