Klarion #4

Even upside down, his pants won't stay up!

Everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't I? May I now present to you Famous Comic Strips With Ann Nocenti Dialogue! Umm, not that everybody is doing that! But you know, for years, people have been doing things like Nietzsche Family Circus and This Charming Charlie and, in a somewhat different manner but in a way exactly like the other two, Garfield Minus Garfield. For what it's worth, I think Garfield Minus Garfield catches the absurd condition of the existentialist life better than the other two. The Smiths mixed with The Peanuts is too spot on because Charlie Brown already was Morissey. And you can stick anything underneath a Family Circus cartoon and it'll improve it. As Seth Bullock points out in Go, Family Circus just sits there at the bottom of the page waiting to suck.

Okay, that's enough of that! This is why those "take one creation and mash it with another creation but never add anything new to the thing" things never work for me. Because you read the first one and think, "Oh, I get it," and then you don't need to see hundreds of variations on the same idea. I got it! Ha ha! That was funny pairing Nietzsche with the Family Circus. But you know what would be funnier? If I could do it again and again and again!

Plus, I don't think I could read anymore fucking Lockhorn strips. Here is a synopsis of every Lockhorn strip every: one spouse judges the other. Reader thinks, "Holy fucking Christ, why are these two still married?!" That comic is so bad! It was making Ann Nocenti seem like that one writer who wrote really well and was loved by all the critics.

Here's the story in Klarion #4 right up until I almost opened my veins due to reading Lockhorn comic strips: Klarion ditched Zell when they were attacked by Witchhunters. He took off in Beelzebub's muscle car which can open holes in reality. Zell and her new friend, Medusa the Robot Dog, fall into the hole created by the car and everybody escapes the Witchhunters except for one of The Neapolitan Club's Robot Cockroaches.

The characters find themselves in Klarion's Pocket which is the Klarionzone which is also the Klarvoyance which is all the Klarvergence which is also the K-Pocket because Ann Nocenti can never just say one thing and leave it alone. It's always, "I found a dog. A canine. A creature that often eats its own shit." Sometimes she even gets fancy where she says one thing and then follows it up with a few more until she's talking about the thing that she really wanted to talk about which actually has nothing to do with the first thing. It's like when you take a word like "sports" and change one letter at a time forming other words until you get to a completely new word that had nothing to do with the first one but the journey somehow links them together. "Sports::sporks::storks::stores::stones!" Here, let me give you an Ann Nocenti example:

Actually, this is even worse! "Familiars" has nothing to do with "albatrosses" but by stating one and then the other, she tries to fool the reader into believing that all the aspects of "an albatross around someone's neck" are equally valid when describing a familiar.

And then Ann Nocenti does something that nobody has been up in arms about at all! Probably because nobody reads this book. And even though I don't give a shit about policing people's words because only assholes that want to be bullies but feel self-righteous in their bullying do that, I don't like Ann Nocenti's writing so I'll point it out:

Nigget? That's a combination of "nigger" and "midget"! And DC allowed that!?

See, I don't mind this because it's a story and Beelzebub is a devil character who is the Lord of Flies. He wouldn't give two, maybe three shits about what anybody thought about the words he chooses to use. But he's also a character in a teen rated comic book put out by DC Comics who probably don't want everybody up in arms about their insensitivity. I mean, you wouldn't know that from their past history but I'm sure they don't want people calling them out on it! And now a character is calling a whole race of impish creatures "niggets"? I'm offended!

No, not really. But people who are offended by this kind of thing should be offended! So start being offended already! Racism! Dwarfism! Impism!

Anyway, Beez takes Klarion to meet a guy named Swag who...you guessed it...deals in swag! Future swag! From the future! He even has smooth lines to lure in the potential customers!

*KRRRRRAAAAACKKKK!* "Ugh! Ugh! What dat?!" "Dat God bowling! Ugh!" "Ugh! Ugh! What bowling?!" "Not know! God work mysterious ways! Ugh!"

This is probably one of the things I love most about Ann Nocenti's writing. She wants to include the idea of "god-of-the-gaps" where people shout "God!" to answer any question that can't be answered by the current limits of science. If we extrapolate, we should realize that the things we don't know now, we will most probably know in the future. This pushes God further and further out of the equation until there is simply no need for him. But in Ann Nocenti's typical fashion, her methods of introducing topics like this are ham-handed at best. It's like she's taken hours to prepare us a sumptuous meal and when she gets ready to serve it to us, she loads it up in a trebuchet and flings it into our faces.

Swag pressures Klarion into drinking a mysterious glass of alcohol and rape drugs as he answers Klarion's refusal of "I don't drink" with "Hard to do business with a man that don't drink. Oh, but you're just a kid." And after noting that he's giving the drink to a minor, he continues to pressure the minor into drinking. Which is what Klarion does because why not?! Sitting between two creepy grown ass men in a bar inside his Klarvection Oven isn't that weird!

And then big old fucking chubby Zell walks in! Seriously. This character was designed to be chubby. This is DC's idea of chubby. God, we're all so fucking fat!

Oh! I bet Teekl comes flying out of the rafters of Klarion's Klarvent to scratch the shit out of Medusa the Robot Dog that talks like an adorable child! And Teekl will be all, "Take it, bitch!" And Medusa the Robot Dog will be all, "Oh no, please do not do that to me because I would like to be your friend because your butt smells delicious."

Meanwhile, Piper and Noah fly around checking out the Buddybots that have become ubiquitous in New York City.

America has been trying to solve the "old folks die alone and lonely" problem for years!

The conversation between Piper and Noah just reads like Nocenti writing out a list of pros and cons for the Buddybots to be used in this scene. And then instead of deciding where each character stands on the issue, she just throws the pros and cons in dialogue boxes. Also, her pros and cons eventually break down until she forgets what she was writing about and begins listing the pros and cons of living with dogs. And then when she's written enough, she probably scribbles out, "And then they go to bed. End Scene."

Then there's a powerful one page scene where a Pink Elephant Buddybot stops a man from drinking himself to death. It's the most powerful anti-Buddybot piece I've ever read. Unless it was an anti-drinking piece? I don't know! Anyway, Samuel Beckett would have been proud to have written that one page!

Instead of going to bed, Noah and Piper (with help from Agent Lush Moody, Noah's daughter and Witchhunter) head into Klarion's Klarionzone (which just sounds like an eighties arcade) to save them from Beez and Swag.

"Oh Contessa! I love this feeling of revulsion you give me! If only I could be even more revolted by you!"

Maybe Ann Nocenti is a robot that looks and acts nearly like a human and makes everybody at Marvel and DC Comics unbearably uncomfortable. Then one day she heard some people talking about her and heard the term "uncanny valley." So she approached them and asked about it, so they lied to her and told her it was the awesome feeling she gives them whenever she's in the room and they're totally not even remotely disgusted by her ever!

Back in the Klarverse, Swag gives Klarion some free Buddybots from the future so that all of Klarion's friends will get hooked on them! Now Klarion just has to make some friends in the next two issues! But then Piper and Noah arrive to save everybody! I hope they don't forget to grab Teekl on the way out.

Ann Nocenti's synopsis of gender relations. Nails it! 'nuff said!

Apparently the only thing that can save Klarion is true love! But since Klarion made one mistake by ditching Zell, he's already ruined his chances for true love because women never forgive men ever! For anything! For centuries!

Klarion thinks up the only four possible ways the future can go and decides that eating a Future Buddybot is the best choice of his four possible futures. Then the last page might possibly show what happened after Klarion ate a Future Buddybot which summoned Teekl to be his new Buddybot? Maybe? But then Teekl's natural form looks like a Medusa which is just confusing since Zell's Buddybot is named Medusa. Perhaps the Medusa is Zell's Buddybot's natural form or something? I don't know. The last page doesn't really make any sense. Klarion threatens to kill Zell's dog and Zell says, "Whatever the fuck is happening on this last page, please don't!" Or something.

Please read the fucking definition before next issue, Ann.

Klarion #4 Rating: -2 Ranking. I've been way too kind on this title. It's just...and this should come as no surprise to anybody that's read any of Ann Nocenti's DC Comics work...awful. Pure shit. Garbage. Not the magical fairy fantasy that other comic book reviewing sites are saying it is. Lying to your face and making you think there is some kind of mad genius behind it all. There isn't. My favorite part was how awful the art got near the end of the book, as if the artist just finally said, "Fuck it! I can't do this anymore!" and walked off the job.