Where do I shoehorn in this line: "Who brings a gun to a knight fight?"
Don't stop groaning about my stupid pun. You're going to need to keep it up for the lyric Steven T. Seagle chose for this issue.
Hey Comic Craft? Why'd you capitalize every letter and add a period?
Using the lyric in this context makes me think some kinky knight sex is about to take place. Otherwise, Seagle's definitely using it for the stupid pun, right? Or does he expect us to stroke our chins and nod along at the idea that we should all be dressed in medieval armor raging against the injustices and evils of this world rather than silently and sheepishly trot to our graves via the heavily barricaded path set before us by old men's traditions, laws, greed, and disdain? I mean, fuck it. I'll stroke my chin over that!
This issue gets right to the action, preferring to rage than go silently into the dying of the Faux Knight. Pages 2 and 3 are a double splash of Godfrey slicing the shit out of the Faux Knight with his big ass sword. Violence simulating gay sex? Of course! I'm just interpreting through the use of the lyric about not going gently "into" that good knight. This climax has me thinking I've been lax in my interpretation of Seagle's story. Has it been an analogy about being gay this entire time and I was too fucking dense to pick up on it? It takes place in San Francisco. The knight couldn't be a more camp figure, as I've noted numerous times when pointing out he'd go practically unnoticed on the streets of The City looking like that. The people he kills are racists and homophobes (mostly because all mafia types are essentially that, right?). He hides his true self away from society, choosing to live underground in a sewer than risk the judging eyes of the status quo. Venus has been played as a sex object (Duh! Venus!) just as much as she's been shown to be an intelligent, independent woman with an addiction to terrible cock. I think those are the major requisites for being a gay person's beard! Anton is the ultra-masculine male screaming about how male and alpha he is while constantly trying to out the homosexual who just wants to be left alone? The Pope trying to destroy the knight simply for being who he is while the knight fights back against The Pope's oppression of himself and the other oppressed peoples of San Francisco? How did I miss it?!
I think I missed it because I was too busy making dick jokes and salivating over Kelley Jones' body shots of Venus.
This issue gets right to the action, preferring to rage than go silently into the dying of the Faux Knight. Pages 2 and 3 are a double splash of Godfrey slicing the shit out of the Faux Knight with his big ass sword. Violence simulating gay sex? Of course! I'm just interpreting through the use of the lyric about not going gently "into" that good knight. This climax has me thinking I've been lax in my interpretation of Seagle's story. Has it been an analogy about being gay this entire time and I was too fucking dense to pick up on it? It takes place in San Francisco. The knight couldn't be a more camp figure, as I've noted numerous times when pointing out he'd go practically unnoticed on the streets of The City looking like that. The people he kills are racists and homophobes (mostly because all mafia types are essentially that, right?). He hides his true self away from society, choosing to live underground in a sewer than risk the judging eyes of the status quo. Venus has been played as a sex object (Duh! Venus!) just as much as she's been shown to be an intelligent, independent woman with an addiction to terrible cock. I think those are the major requisites for being a gay person's beard! Anton is the ultra-masculine male screaming about how male and alpha he is while constantly trying to out the homosexual who just wants to be left alone? The Pope trying to destroy the knight simply for being who he is while the knight fights back against The Pope's oppression of himself and the other oppressed peoples of San Francisco? How did I miss it?!
I think I missed it because I was too busy making dick jokes and salivating over Kelley Jones' body shots of Venus.
The knight sure is talkative when he meets one of his own.
Usually the knight just mutters his catch phrase. But here he meets another knight and has a full blown conversation with him. It's like he lets his guard down, perhaps feeling safe to expose his true feelings and intentions around another like himself. Oh, and I forgot to mention: the Order of the Garter? Come on! How did I fucking miss the entire point of this comic book?!
While locked in Cela's cage with her and Mrs. Marjoram, Venus struggles to reach her phone which she dropped when Godfrey shoved her beautiful ass into his cage. Cela mentions that she's been with Godfrey ever since Godfrey rescued her from a dragon and Venus goes into one of her Fact Checker Daydreams that has more cock in two panels than most R. Crumb comics.
While locked in Cela's cage with her and Mrs. Marjoram, Venus struggles to reach her phone which she dropped when Godfrey shoved her beautiful ass into his cage. Cela mentions that she's been with Godfrey ever since Godfrey rescued her from a dragon and Venus goes into one of her Fact Checker Daydreams that has more cock in two panels than most R. Crumb comics.
Sometimes a cigar (and a dragon (and a pretentious twat)) isn't just a cigar, you know?
Should I be embarrassed that I never thought of dragons as phalluses until I read Beowulf in college? Man, I sure learned a lot about phalluses in college!
The Faux Knight calls The Pope while locked in a shed as Godfrey starts breaking the door down. He tells The Pope, "I would like you to send back-up before the knight kills me and my last words are your fucking address, you stupid mother fucker!" The Pope decides Andrew, the Faux Knight, has become an acceptable loss and calls the police to let them know where the knight(s) is (are). Once again, The Pope thinks cops are best used for oppressing minorities and homosexuals. The Pope is a fucking Karen!
Thanks to The Pope's tip, Detective Petronas has a chance to save his job by catching the knight before the end of his work day. That has nothing to do with all of the phalluses that Kelley Jones decided he needed to sprinkle all over this issue like Sergio Aragonés cartoons in an issue of MAD. So here are a few more, including one of San Francisco's most famous phalluses, Coit tower.
The Faux Knight calls The Pope while locked in a shed as Godfrey starts breaking the door down. He tells The Pope, "I would like you to send back-up before the knight kills me and my last words are your fucking address, you stupid mother fucker!" The Pope decides Andrew, the Faux Knight, has become an acceptable loss and calls the police to let them know where the knight(s) is (are). Once again, The Pope thinks cops are best used for oppressing minorities and homosexuals. The Pope is a fucking Karen!
Thanks to The Pope's tip, Detective Petronas has a chance to save his job by catching the knight before the end of his work day. That has nothing to do with all of the phalluses that Kelley Jones decided he needed to sprinkle all over this issue like Sergio Aragonés cartoons in an issue of MAD. So here are a few more, including one of San Francisco's most famous phalluses, Coit tower.
This is a gay heterosexual relationship where two avid women-fuckers basically suck each other off for cash.
One of the reasons we know this relationship between Chad and Anton is being portrayed as some kind of gay intimacy is because of where they've decided to meet (I mean along with their cigarette and stick shift erections).
Total hook-up spot in a car in the dark park areas surrounding Coit Tower.
Seeing the comic book in this new light in which I should have seen it before, Anton's refusal to go public with his relationship with Venus takes on another aspect of the closeted homosexual in a public facing job. He can't let the public know who he's dating. Yes, it's a woman in this case and he's trying to protect his identity as a bachelor. But gay celebrities have long been forced into one of two situations: date a beard or be seen as uncatchable by any specific "woman". Plus, he's dating a woman named Venus. Which could be an analogy in itself. He simply must hide his "love" from the public gaze.
I'm going to have to re-read these first twelve issues after this! I suppose this is strong evidence for how I've always been doing this blog wrong (and pretty much knew it) in that I should become familiar with the things I read and then only blog about them on a second reading, after fully thinking about the entirety of the story.
Back to the knight fight, one of the knights wins and you'll probably guess which one if you think about it for even a second.
I'm going to have to re-read these first twelve issues after this! I suppose this is strong evidence for how I've always been doing this blog wrong (and pretty much knew it) in that I should become familiar with the things I read and then only blog about them on a second reading, after fully thinking about the entirety of the story.
Back to the knight fight, one of the knights wins and you'll probably guess which one if you think about it for even a second.
Is this . . . a blowjob?
Oh yeah! The knight also has two phalluses on his helmet. He's basically just wearing homosexual sex on his head!
We interrupt this discussion of why The Crusades is a comic book about homosexuality based on a lot more than just its name to bring you this panel of Venus jerking off my male gaze!
We interrupt this discussion of why The Crusades is a comic book about homosexuality based on a lot more than just its name to bring you this panel of Venus jerking off my male gaze!
Oh yeah. That's some good jerking.
If you were jerking off a guy and he muttered, "Oh yeah. That's some good jerking," would you be flattered or irritated?
Maybe that panel isn't just for satisfying the male gaze and tricking Alpha Hets into reading a story about homosexuality. Maybe there's a message encoded in the blind girl not being able to see the amazing pussy from behind ass shot that the reader is being forced to also not see but know that it's right there not being looked at by a blind girl and her frigid doll.
The doll is named Mrs. Marjoram. Of course it's a prude.
Venus calls for help from Burly Beard Syd (he's both a bear and a beard. Also his name is Dys backwards which connotes all sorts of stuff if you're into reading too much into things) who arrives, grabs the key to the lock on the cage from a nearby table, hands it to her, and then runs for his life, terrified of being caught outside his little closet hovel.
Maybe that panel isn't just for satisfying the male gaze and tricking Alpha Hets into reading a story about homosexuality. Maybe there's a message encoded in the blind girl not being able to see the amazing pussy from behind ass shot that the reader is being forced to also not see but know that it's right there not being looked at by a blind girl and her frigid doll.
The doll is named Mrs. Marjoram. Of course it's a prude.
Venus calls for help from Burly Beard Syd (he's both a bear and a beard. Also his name is Dys backwards which connotes all sorts of stuff if you're into reading too much into things) who arrives, grabs the key to the lock on the cage from a nearby table, hands it to her, and then runs for his life, terrified of being caught outside his little closet hovel.
Oh! This is it! This is the place. *ahem* "Who brings a gun to a knight fight?"
Before the knight can kill all of the Russians, the Faux Knight, whose neck wasn't slit as well as it should have been (which is totally a gross thing and I once knew a guy who tried to commit suicide by slicing his own throat and then woke up in a pool of blood unable to speak after having not sliced deep enough), stabs him in the kidney. Or "penetrates him from behind," wink, wink. The knight is all, "I am undone! Evil to him whom evil does evil and ow!" He hops on his horse and flees the scene moments before the police arrive.
The knight arrives in the sewers just in time to stop Venus and Cela from escaping. In an attempt not to be killed by a medieval weapon, Venus declares Cela needs medical attention and if the knight doesn't let her take Cela, the knight will have to kill himself for being evil. The knight is all, "That checks out! Get out of here!" Venus notices he's been stabbed but he yells really loudly at her to get the fuck out and she decides maybe this adventure has come to an end for the day. She can check up on the knight later.
The issue ends differently than it would have ended and now I'm curious as to how it would have ended if some jerks hadn't flown some planes into the World Trade Center. This is another thing they took from us: a proper ending to the 2nd Crusade!
The knight arrives in the sewers just in time to stop Venus and Cela from escaping. In an attempt not to be killed by a medieval weapon, Venus declares Cela needs medical attention and if the knight doesn't let her take Cela, the knight will have to kill himself for being evil. The knight is all, "That checks out! Get out of here!" Venus notices he's been stabbed but he yells really loudly at her to get the fuck out and she decides maybe this adventure has come to an end for the day. She can check up on the knight later.
The issue ends differently than it would have ended and now I'm curious as to how it would have ended if some jerks hadn't flown some planes into the World Trade Center. This is another thing they took from us: a proper ending to the 2nd Crusade!
What are you saying? My problems don't matter because 9/11 happened?!
I'm not even sure Kelley Jones did this page! But one of the things I like about this final page is that Anton Marx is a Howard Stern insert character. And many, many people in America sat with Howard Stern on that morning as he discussed it sat not too far from the destruction. I was one of those! I'd gone into work early that morning (like 6 AM on the West Coast). I had a meeting with my manager for a small raise (she didn't yet realize I wasn't being her friend so I got the raise this day!). Then when I walked out of the meeting, a coworker said to me, "America is under attack!" I got on my Walkman radio as I began work listening to Howard Stern live as he talked about the planes hitting the World Trade Center. Usually we would get Stern live up until six in the morning when the show would revert back to the beginning. So it took me a bit to realize they'd scrapped the show for the day and were just playing Howard live, three hours or so into his show already.
Another thing I like about this final page? The ominous "To be continued." Because this is the final issue of the 2nd Crusade, it can only be read as "Will there be more attacks and how the fuck is America going to respond?"
The Crusades #12 Rating: A-. I just read The Authority which was published before and after September 2001 and I kept thinking, "Are they going to address it at all in the comic?" I don't think they did. But then I picked up this series and realized, once again, I was reading comics that were published across that time. So I thought, "Will they acknowledge it?" And they did! They pretty much had the perfect way to address it in this series with Anton Marx being a clone of a guy who actually addressed the attack live on-air. How could they not shoehorn in this final page? Aside from all that, I think maybe I finally figured out what this comic book's about? I need to re-read the first year of books again to see if I'm reading too much into it. Doesn't feel like it, though! Seems like a really spot-on analysis. Which would be a first for me!
Another thing I like about this final page? The ominous "To be continued." Because this is the final issue of the 2nd Crusade, it can only be read as "Will there be more attacks and how the fuck is America going to respond?"
The Crusades #12 Rating: A-. I just read The Authority which was published before and after September 2001 and I kept thinking, "Are they going to address it at all in the comic?" I don't think they did. But then I picked up this series and realized, once again, I was reading comics that were published across that time. So I thought, "Will they acknowledge it?" And they did! They pretty much had the perfect way to address it in this series with Anton Marx being a clone of a guy who actually addressed the attack live on-air. How could they not shoehorn in this final page? Aside from all that, I think maybe I finally figured out what this comic book's about? I need to re-read the first year of books again to see if I'm reading too much into it. Doesn't feel like it, though! Seems like a really spot-on analysis. Which would be a first for me!
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