Our morality play ends as all morality plays do, with the protagonist having learned something that may not have made him happier, but that certainly made him wiser. The Showman is revealed to be a tempter, not necessarily The Devil, but a serpent, so make your own conclusions.
I am curious now about the Alice Cooper album that accompanied the series. I'll have to have a look next time I'm at the used CD place. Yep. I'm that kind of a dinosaur. I've liked, but not loved, Alice Cooper for a long while now. One of my treasured possessions is an original vinyl of his album From the Inside, on which each song is about an inmate in an asylum. The album features little cardboard doors to open behind which we have glimpses into the inmates' world. In retrospect, the album is definitely not doing any favours for the treatment or perception of people with mental health issues. It's more of a concept album version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (the book, not the film), but with much less depth. Which is not meant as a disparagement, merely an acknowledgement of Alice Cooper's place in the canon of popular culture. He's more entertainer than philosopher, I think.
The end of the story has piqued in me a curiosity. In proper horror-villain fashion, the Showman fades away into the mist in the last few panels, promising to return one day and claim our hero's soul. My curiosity is when did our villains start returning like this? Does it go as far back as our early myths? Does Loki slink away, promising to return in the original Norse epics? Or is this a more recent phenomena, spurred by the increasing paranoia of society, or, more likely, by a view of history that shows us that our problems always come back and rear their ugly heads. We must simply have the courage to not let our worse selves win.
That got deep. Neil Gaiman fans will like this comic. Alice Cooper fans will like this comic.
"Did I tell that you'll be going crazy tomorrow?"
Other things you might like reading:
More thoughts on music and comics: A Different Kind of Album
Another really obscure Neil Gaiman comic: The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 251: Elric #0 - One Life, 1996
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