In this issue, Kid Eternity fucks a Rastafarian hippo.
This comic book, more than any other comic book, taught me that I don't have to keep buying every issue of a comic book just because it's under the Vertigo imprint. This comic book took me by the hand, led me out of the misty forest of Vertigo's obfuscating nonsense, pushed me out into the bright clarity of presumed reality and said, "Stop coming around here to get your butthole molested, you skanky little perv." After blinking the sunlight out of my eyes for a bit, I gasped and thought, "Sometimes art is art with tits and sometimes art is just tits distracting from nonsense. And it's up to me and G.I. Joe to tell the difference."
This is where I'd post an image of tits to distract you from my nonsense but this isn't a porn site, you skanky little perv.
This issue begins, like all Ann Nocenti issues, with me shaking my head and contemplating self-harm. Also tits and nonsense. So much nonsense. Like more nonsense than a shaking stick could shake another stick at. Usually I appreciate comic books with dense dialogue and a thick, rich story. But the first page has a dialogue between two of the Pope's demon children that's 160 words long. I'm not sure Ann Nocenti completely understands how comic books work. The second page's dialogue contains 199 words (and five tits).
I have a new theory about Ann Nocenti's writing: she was paid by the word and the only way to keep the editor from cutting down her word count was to make the dialogue incomprehensible so the editor didn't know which words to cut.
I'm not counting the amount of words on the third page but I'm pretty sure it's even more than page two.
Page three sort of introduces two new characters (as if this comic book needs any more subplots). I think they're brothers but all we, as readers, are allowed to see are hands and books. One book is The Book of Sin in which the brothers invoke temptation against Kid Eternity. This sends the Pope's devil children to ruin his plans with their vaginas. The other book is The Book of Reflection in which Kid Eternity's own narcissism is used against him. I guess nobody wants the modern Buddha Christ Child to be born? But aren't they all wasting their time? Didn't we discover the magical child was fished out of a garbage can in the dirty alley where the homeless guys constantly discuss the value of women?
This is where I'd post an image of tits to distract you from my nonsense but this isn't a porn site, you skanky little perv.
This issue begins, like all Ann Nocenti issues, with me shaking my head and contemplating self-harm. Also tits and nonsense. So much nonsense. Like more nonsense than a shaking stick could shake another stick at. Usually I appreciate comic books with dense dialogue and a thick, rich story. But the first page has a dialogue between two of the Pope's demon children that's 160 words long. I'm not sure Ann Nocenti completely understands how comic books work. The second page's dialogue contains 199 words (and five tits).
I have a new theory about Ann Nocenti's writing: she was paid by the word and the only way to keep the editor from cutting down her word count was to make the dialogue incomprehensible so the editor didn't know which words to cut.
I'm not counting the amount of words on the third page but I'm pretty sure it's even more than page two.
Page three sort of introduces two new characters (as if this comic book needs any more subplots). I think they're brothers but all we, as readers, are allowed to see are hands and books. One book is The Book of Sin in which the brothers invoke temptation against Kid Eternity. This sends the Pope's devil children to ruin his plans with their vaginas. The other book is The Book of Reflection in which Kid Eternity's own narcissism is used against him. I guess nobody wants the modern Buddha Christ Child to be born? But aren't they all wasting their time? Didn't we discover the magical child was fished out of a garbage can in the dirty alley where the homeless guys constantly discuss the value of women?
This newscast, awash in speculation and false premises, is still more informative than the talking head opinion pieces and non-expert debates that form the bulk of most 24 hour news stations. And look at all those words! This was just two-thirds of one page!
Meanwhile, the FBI agents are still lying around in bed. How they ended up in bed after being shot by Ares' hate arrows isn't information that was deemed necessary for the readers to understand the story. Which is fine because I think Nocenti just wrote them out of the comic book in a scene where the Fates are stitching a quilt and one is all, "What are we doing with these two?" and another one is all, "Forget them! They're lost to entropy! We have so many more stories to knit!" And she's write because I don't think I could even remember all of the character and story arcs from just the first two issues! Let's make a list!
1. The homeless guys philosophizing in the alley.
2. Kid Eternity and his search for the Christ Buddha.
3. Madame Blavatsky's search for snacks and causing time to rewind.
4. The FBI agents looking to help Kid Eternity but somehow winding up in bed not fucking.
5. Hemlock the feminist who could be the Christ Buddha's mother but has become the mother of a computer virus.
6. Dog the gross dude who wants to fuck Hemlock.
7. Keep, Kid Eternity's keeper, who probably isn't exactly into helping Kid Eternity.
8. Beelzebub deciding to go to Earth to be more like Lucifer.
9. Judas, just hanging out with Beelzebub.
10. Jesus getting drunk in a bar.
11. The Malocchio, or Pope's demon children, trying to stop the birth of the Christ Buddha.
12. The Christ Buddha who was found in a trash can but then taken away by some woman who might have been its mother.
13. Cupid, summoned by Kid Eternity to make the FBI agents do it but who arrived late because he was in a coma and shot them with hate arrows anyway so he just decided to get drunk with the homeless guys.
14. Zeus and the other Greek Gods who woke back up when Cupid was summoned.
15. The Catholic church who seem to be Kid Eternity's main atagonist.
16. Freud and Jung, brought in to show how much Ann Nocenti knows about the founders of psychology.
That's all I can remember! I'm sure I've forgotten some story bits and characters. This issue wasted no time introducing even more! Now we have the brothers reading metaphysical books, the Fates, and a transgender sex worker.
1. The homeless guys philosophizing in the alley.
2. Kid Eternity and his search for the Christ Buddha.
3. Madame Blavatsky's search for snacks and causing time to rewind.
4. The FBI agents looking to help Kid Eternity but somehow winding up in bed not fucking.
5. Hemlock the feminist who could be the Christ Buddha's mother but has become the mother of a computer virus.
6. Dog the gross dude who wants to fuck Hemlock.
7. Keep, Kid Eternity's keeper, who probably isn't exactly into helping Kid Eternity.
8. Beelzebub deciding to go to Earth to be more like Lucifer.
9. Judas, just hanging out with Beelzebub.
10. Jesus getting drunk in a bar.
11. The Malocchio, or Pope's demon children, trying to stop the birth of the Christ Buddha.
12. The Christ Buddha who was found in a trash can but then taken away by some woman who might have been its mother.
13. Cupid, summoned by Kid Eternity to make the FBI agents do it but who arrived late because he was in a coma and shot them with hate arrows anyway so he just decided to get drunk with the homeless guys.
14. Zeus and the other Greek Gods who woke back up when Cupid was summoned.
15. The Catholic church who seem to be Kid Eternity's main atagonist.
16. Freud and Jung, brought in to show how much Ann Nocenti knows about the founders of psychology.
That's all I can remember! I'm sure I've forgotten some story bits and characters. This issue wasted no time introducing even more! Now we have the brothers reading metaphysical books, the Fates, and a transgender sex worker.
Is the point that they won't date women because they're afraid to talk to them? I just thought women didn't want to date them because they're filthy itinerants with no ambition.
Oh! It turns out the "brothers" reading the books about all the other characters are Jesus and Beelzebub! Thank goodness I don't have to remember any new characters! Hopefully the transgender sex worker turns out to be Madame Blavatsky. Double oh! I just realized the transgender sex worker is one of the Malocchio! Whew! I think I'm shaking off the Ann Nocenti Dome of Confusion! I'm beginning to follow and understand her plot!
I mean, really, it's not so hard. Kid Eternity wants to inspire mankind and thinks a new Buddha Christ child is the way to do it. Everybody else wants to stop him because mankind sucks ass. Now add a bunch more words and about thirty random Wikipedia entries to my summation and you'll get Nocenti's version of the plot.
I mean, really, it's not so hard. Kid Eternity wants to inspire mankind and thinks a new Buddha Christ child is the way to do it. Everybody else wants to stop him because mankind sucks ass. Now add a bunch more words and about thirty random Wikipedia entries to my summation and you'll get Nocenti's version of the plot.
This is a great example of Nocenti's profound nonsense. Sorry but the tits were in the previous panel on the previous page.
I'm worried that I'm going to completely burn out on reading old comics because after this excruciating three issue run of Kid Eternity, I've got about six issues of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. Not that I'm comparing the quality of the two comic books! It's just that I don't understand this comic book but that in no way makes me feel stupid. But when I don't understand The Invisibles, I'm going to feel like a huge idiot.
This issue, which is the final issue in my head canon, ends with Fetish, the Malocchio transgender sex worker, fucking Kid Eternity until he falls in love with her and then leaving him. His heart is broken and now he's ready to be fucked by the other Malocchio. Plus Jesus and Beelzebub are playing some kind of game with Kid Eternity and a mad girl named Christabel who can draw reality. So that's another character and piece of the plot that I never would have kept straight if I'd kept reading this comic book.
Kid Eternity #3 Rating: C-. It's really fucking falling apart at this point. Yes, the basic premise is pretty easy to understand. But it's tiresome trying to keep it all straight when every single one of Nocenti's characters speaks in never ending analogies. So if love is like sailing, you don't just get, "Bright skies and still seas until the storm clouds gather and toss the ship." No, you get "Love is sailing in bright skies on a calm sea with freshly waxed decks and clean billowing sails, a pleasant breeze that stopped over in Manhattan to waft the fresh smell of baking garlic and Margherita pizza into your upraised nostrils as you watch two seagulls playfully dance in the sky until the next instant stormy seas, black skies, flailing ropes, ripped sails, riggings down, the decks awash, and death is licking the back of your neck." That whole last part where the stormy seas start is actually a direct quote. I embellished the first half!
This issue, which is the final issue in my head canon, ends with Fetish, the Malocchio transgender sex worker, fucking Kid Eternity until he falls in love with her and then leaving him. His heart is broken and now he's ready to be fucked by the other Malocchio. Plus Jesus and Beelzebub are playing some kind of game with Kid Eternity and a mad girl named Christabel who can draw reality. So that's another character and piece of the plot that I never would have kept straight if I'd kept reading this comic book.
Kid Eternity #3 Rating: C-. It's really fucking falling apart at this point. Yes, the basic premise is pretty easy to understand. But it's tiresome trying to keep it all straight when every single one of Nocenti's characters speaks in never ending analogies. So if love is like sailing, you don't just get, "Bright skies and still seas until the storm clouds gather and toss the ship." No, you get "Love is sailing in bright skies on a calm sea with freshly waxed decks and clean billowing sails, a pleasant breeze that stopped over in Manhattan to waft the fresh smell of baking garlic and Margherita pizza into your upraised nostrils as you watch two seagulls playfully dance in the sky until the next instant stormy seas, black skies, flailing ropes, ripped sails, riggings down, the decks awash, and death is licking the back of your neck." That whole last part where the stormy seas start is actually a direct quote. I embellished the first half!
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