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Stopped by the Comic Book Shoppe. Flipped through a couple of horror comics (migod, there are so many more than there used to be, back when I started reading...); one the first issue of something called Bump from Fangoria--clearly I have been not paying much attention to comics lately, since Fangoria putting out comics came as a complete surprise--and one the fourth issue of Secret from Dark Horse.
Bump opens with a dramatic rescue--Evil Degenerate Hillbilly[1] has kidnapped Lovely Young Lady and is about to start removing essential body parts with scissors. Sheriff and deputies bust in, shooting EDH's complicit mother. LYL proves herself refreshingly effective and stabs EDH with scissors, and the cops follow up with bullets, pretty much guaranteeing EDH is going to die in agony without immediate medical attention. LYL (who is also the Sheriff's daughter) is taken away by paramedics, physically unhurt but mentally traumatized. The Sheriff and deputy discover the corpses of ten women (mutilated and slightly crafted) and the Sheriff--using the argument that so many women died horribly and that EDH is a horrible person--convinces his deputy and the coroner that rather than getting EDH medical attention and a trial, they should brick the bastard up with the bricks conveniently lying in the back yard, let him die in agony, and say he got away (or something--the exact question of how they will explain where he went is not much touched upon, but okay. Sins of the fathers is a workable theme, and if an entire PTA can burn down a child molester's home and have him die horribly inside it and get away without legal repercussions[2], then a couple of cops in a rural location can certainly manage to not find a body).
Years pass. Horrible monster-actions begin to take effect, the now-old Sheriff catches glimpses of EDH, and I put it back on the shelf thinking I *might* give it another look--the cover suggests the crafted victims might be rising from the grave, which could be interesting in a "Never done right by" kind of way[3]. Looked at The Secret.
This is the fourth issue (of four issues, I think), involving a bunch of protagonists out in a rural location, trying to get into a house to rescue a woman who's been kidnapped. They lure the large and hooded antagonist out with a clever trick, and break in to find a filthy and cluttered home, filled with junk, pornography, pictures of unwilling kidnap victims, and a padlocked trapdoor to the basement. There are no stairs, so Tommy (head protagonist) instructs his sidekick to go get the ladder they spotted earlier and jumps down. His search uncovers several women chained to cell walls, including the one he was here to rescue, all of whom have been (understandably) really seriously traumatized by what they've gone through.
(This summary has less capitalized words. I think it's due to the grimmer art style.)
Meantime, the cowled man has returned and is picking off protagonists. He drags them out to a nearby field, and is about to drop them down a hole when the sole female protagonist shows up, and she and Tommy beat the antagonist down with a shovel. The cowled man is shoved down the hole, and the cover is slammed into place (not sure exactly what was up with that; perhaps it was an old underground shelter?). Then Tommy--using the argument that their friends are dead and that the cowled man is a horrible person--convinces whats-her-name to lie to the police; to say they didn't find him, don't know where he went, that he ran off. Comic ends with Tommy finishing his statement to the police (who are sure he's lying about that last), getting into his car, and getting a very upset phone call from the antagonist.
Hmh. Okay, in both cases (aside from a starring victim who is physically unhurt but emotionally shattered), you have a dehumanized antagonist (besides their actions, EDH has a kind of "slobbering hulk" aesthetic, and the cowled man's face is never seen) who explicitly fails to be integrated with society on even a surface level[4], beaten down in a desperate last battle.
And then due process is deliberately dodged because the antagonists were bad men who'd caused pain, so they were forgotten/unknown and left to rot horribly, and as a result the protagonists are isolated with their secret when the monsters come back taking it all personal-like. If they'd done the right thing instead of getting vicious and vengeful and deliberately trying to cause horrible agonizing pain to the antagonists, they'd probably be okay (hell, the antagonists would probably be properly dead). But because they didn't...
Interesting.
It's putting me oddly in mind of Fred Clark's post here, on how One Does Not Do Such Things even if They Do--not because they are a good person or a fragile flower or any such reason, but because One Is Not Bad. Dammit.
---
[1] Ah, bless you, decade of the oughts. How *would* we properly express concern about strange savage degenerate outsider cultures without your movies?
[2] Yayyyy! Freddy!
[3] Oh, hell. That's a decent idea, actually--I can see it in Deadlands. Yank that setup, have dead victims as well as the killer's body hidden away, and have the victims rising from where they were left angry because just retribution was never exacted. Sure, the Sheriff's daughter was protected, and justice was done for *her*--but what about the unnamed, unburied, unavenged others? How are *they* going to rest easy?
Reminds me of the suggestion that a proper fair and legal trial, followed by a sanctioned hanging, might be enough to put down a Harrowed. Social ritual, justice acknowledged, secrets brought to light, memoriam. All that good stuff.
[4] This is notable only because they are human to start with. Freddy Kruegar or Pinhead may be expected to not participate in normal human society. Slasher movies often have a villain who is superficially human--it's the buddy or the cop or the rejected girl or the boyfriend who can function in society, and breaks out the butcher knives on the sly. What I'm talking about is different: the idea of someone who *obviously* doesn't meet society's norms, who clashes with the existing culture--a barbaric archetype.
Bump opens with a dramatic rescue--Evil Degenerate Hillbilly[1] has kidnapped Lovely Young Lady and is about to start removing essential body parts with scissors. Sheriff and deputies bust in, shooting EDH's complicit mother. LYL proves herself refreshingly effective and stabs EDH with scissors, and the cops follow up with bullets, pretty much guaranteeing EDH is going to die in agony without immediate medical attention. LYL (who is also the Sheriff's daughter) is taken away by paramedics, physically unhurt but mentally traumatized. The Sheriff and deputy discover the corpses of ten women (mutilated and slightly crafted) and the Sheriff--using the argument that so many women died horribly and that EDH is a horrible person--convinces his deputy and the coroner that rather than getting EDH medical attention and a trial, they should brick the bastard up with the bricks conveniently lying in the back yard, let him die in agony, and say he got away (or something--the exact question of how they will explain where he went is not much touched upon, but okay. Sins of the fathers is a workable theme, and if an entire PTA can burn down a child molester's home and have him die horribly inside it and get away without legal repercussions[2], then a couple of cops in a rural location can certainly manage to not find a body).
Years pass. Horrible monster-actions begin to take effect, the now-old Sheriff catches glimpses of EDH, and I put it back on the shelf thinking I *might* give it another look--the cover suggests the crafted victims might be rising from the grave, which could be interesting in a "Never done right by" kind of way[3]. Looked at The Secret.
This is the fourth issue (of four issues, I think), involving a bunch of protagonists out in a rural location, trying to get into a house to rescue a woman who's been kidnapped. They lure the large and hooded antagonist out with a clever trick, and break in to find a filthy and cluttered home, filled with junk, pornography, pictures of unwilling kidnap victims, and a padlocked trapdoor to the basement. There are no stairs, so Tommy (head protagonist) instructs his sidekick to go get the ladder they spotted earlier and jumps down. His search uncovers several women chained to cell walls, including the one he was here to rescue, all of whom have been (understandably) really seriously traumatized by what they've gone through.
(This summary has less capitalized words. I think it's due to the grimmer art style.)
Meantime, the cowled man has returned and is picking off protagonists. He drags them out to a nearby field, and is about to drop them down a hole when the sole female protagonist shows up, and she and Tommy beat the antagonist down with a shovel. The cowled man is shoved down the hole, and the cover is slammed into place (not sure exactly what was up with that; perhaps it was an old underground shelter?). Then Tommy--using the argument that their friends are dead and that the cowled man is a horrible person--convinces whats-her-name to lie to the police; to say they didn't find him, don't know where he went, that he ran off. Comic ends with Tommy finishing his statement to the police (who are sure he's lying about that last), getting into his car, and getting a very upset phone call from the antagonist.
Hmh. Okay, in both cases (aside from a starring victim who is physically unhurt but emotionally shattered), you have a dehumanized antagonist (besides their actions, EDH has a kind of "slobbering hulk" aesthetic, and the cowled man's face is never seen) who explicitly fails to be integrated with society on even a surface level[4], beaten down in a desperate last battle.
And then due process is deliberately dodged because the antagonists were bad men who'd caused pain, so they were forgotten/unknown and left to rot horribly, and as a result the protagonists are isolated with their secret when the monsters come back taking it all personal-like. If they'd done the right thing instead of getting vicious and vengeful and deliberately trying to cause horrible agonizing pain to the antagonists, they'd probably be okay (hell, the antagonists would probably be properly dead). But because they didn't...
Interesting.
It's putting me oddly in mind of Fred Clark's post here, on how One Does Not Do Such Things even if They Do--not because they are a good person or a fragile flower or any such reason, but because One Is Not Bad. Dammit.
---
[1] Ah, bless you, decade of the oughts. How *would* we properly express concern about strange savage degenerate outsider cultures without your movies?
[2] Yayyyy! Freddy!
[3] Oh, hell. That's a decent idea, actually--I can see it in Deadlands. Yank that setup, have dead victims as well as the killer's body hidden away, and have the victims rising from where they were left angry because just retribution was never exacted. Sure, the Sheriff's daughter was protected, and justice was done for *her*--but what about the unnamed, unburied, unavenged others? How are *they* going to rest easy?
Reminds me of the suggestion that a proper fair and legal trial, followed by a sanctioned hanging, might be enough to put down a Harrowed. Social ritual, justice acknowledged, secrets brought to light, memoriam. All that good stuff.
[4] This is notable only because they are human to start with. Freddy Kruegar or Pinhead may be expected to not participate in normal human society. Slasher movies often have a villain who is superficially human--it's the buddy or the cop or the rejected girl or the boyfriend who can function in society, and breaks out the butcher knives on the sly. What I'm talking about is different: the idea of someone who *obviously* doesn't meet society's norms, who clashes with the existing culture--a barbaric archetype.
no subject
Or is Carcer not enough of a pure outsider? I think the book makes out to be like that, unlike that guy who was running the Unmentionables.
no subject
It's the difference between Carcer (or Hannibal Lecter) and Leatherface. The former could successfully pass for normal; they're the slasher villain, the one that looks normal until you get too close. The latter...
...totally not so much.
Like Frankenstein's Monster, without all the fine and noble feelings.