The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1892: Razor/Warrior Nun Areala: Faith, May 1996

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 I was going to read the zero issue of Glory today, but, honestly, it's exactly the same story as yesterday's comic, just in colour. I'll wait a bit and maybe read it when I'm done with Awesome's Youngblood stuff. So we're bouncing back (based on that cover, anyway) to London Night Studios for a couple of days to finish off my comics from them. And this one might inspire another read through of a publisher's output in the collection, as it features Antarctic Press' Warrior Nun Areala - I've read some of their stuff, but maybe it's time to read through the rest.

Anyway, on to today's comic. Violence? Check. Scantily-clad buxom ladies? Check. Hypermasculine demons? Check. I'll admit that one of the tings that actually surprised me about this comic, and about a couple of the other Razor comics I've read, is that they're actually quite Christian. I don't know if this is based on a genuine belief in that religious system, or simply because the characters are set in that milieu, but there's lots of claims of doing things in God's name, most of which are acts of brutal violence.

There's always been that link though, hasn't there? For millennia, rulers have done great violence in the name of their religions (not their religious figures, mind you, but their religions - important distinction) - I suppose, since I've argued that the stories we read now are pretty much all descendants of the various stories we've created culture around, that the link of violence and religion isn't that surprising. That said, if I'm right, and Superman is a secular ethical myth, I'm pretty sure I've never heard of anyone doing violence in Superman's name. I wonder why it's okay to do it in Jesus's?

More to follow.

 

Further Reading and Related Links

As I say, I've read a bit of Antarctic Press - some good, some...not so good.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1017: Mangazine v.3 #5, November 1999 (Ninja High School Week!)

This anthology series is apparently a number of Antarctic Press comics all bound (and not very well) together, though I'm not 100% sure which issues of each series are included. It was a nice sampler of the AP output, and might have felt a bit more at home in my previous week looking at the publisher, but c'est la vie. From what I can tell, the Ninja High School issue in this collection comes from the second volume of the series that focusses on Ricky Feeple, the younger brother of the first volume's focal character. But, as with most of what I've read this week, I don't know what the heck is going on, or who many of the characters were. The same goes for the other comics reprinted in this issue, though the Warrior Nun story is sort of self-contained, and thus made a bit more sense.

And this is the thing, I think. Dunn and company created their series having been inspired by manga series, and manga series are inevitably not one-off stories, but actually one long story told over the course of a long period of time. Thus Ninja High School almost requires of its reader an investment in the whole series. It's virtually impossible to pick up a single issue and just enjoy it. There's a definite time and place for such storytelling, and I generally love it, but this haphazard way I've attempted to enter the series is just not working.

To be continued.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1007: Warrior Nun Black & White #2, January 1997 (Antarctic Press Week)

Welcome to Antarctic Press Week! I've planned out a few interesting weeks of comics for the next couple of months, and I guess this one came first alphabetically.

I don't know much about AP - they're one of those publishers whose presence I was aware of, but whose output I had never read. So here we go.

This is a weird comic. Admittedly, I'm coming in well into the story, both in terms of the overall story of Warrior Nun Areala and in terms of this particular series. There's badass fighting nuns, a soulless, then ensouled witch, a pirate captain with really weird eyes, a crew of strange skeleton creatures, and a demon who looks like he's also the north wind. Some people melted, some fought.

The art is interesting. Not the greatest, admittedly, but there's something to the depiction of the warrior nun. She's buxom, yes, and, as you can see from that picture up there, not afraid of the odd panty flash. But within the comic she's given a fairly buff musculature, and her face doesn't look like she's had make-up surgically implanted. She looks like someone who's ready to kick demon ass, and just happens to also be a relatively sexy nun.

I type the weirdest things here, sometimes.

It's wasn't the best comic I've read for the project, but it's far, far from the worst. I'm curious to see what the rest of AP's stuff is like. I know Ninja High School only in passing, and Gold Digger by name. And, apparently, they also published some naughty comics under a different imprint, so we'll check out some of those too. After that? Well, I'm thinking of re-reading Wednesday Comics, some very, very early Image comics, a bunch of undergrounds, some Charlton horror titles...a whole bunch of things. Much as I enjoyed reading The Avengers in so complete a fashion, I'm eager to have a look at some other stuff for a while. Let's set the superheroes aside for a bit.

To be continued.

(Edit: As I typed "Antarctic Press" into the label list, it didn't automatically pop up, making this the very first AP comic I've done for the project. Neat!)