Hopefully I don't have to read several non-fiction books about The Crusades to understand this comic book.
I don't remember a lot about this book. I think some modern cop begins investigating some vigilante in armor or begins working with one. I picked it up because I absolutely adored Steven T. Seagle's House of Secrets. The only comic book "art" I own was from that series and it's not original art thus the quotes. They're photocopied pages of the black and white line art that the colorist painted with water colors for the color separation stage. They're basically watercolor coloring in by the colorist, Bjarne Hansen.
This isn't my favorite but the whereabouts of the one I had hanging on my wall for years are currently unknown.
My favorite shows Rain with Traci and Ben in the convertible on their road trip from Seattle to San Francisco. At the time I read it, I was on my own road trip making the exact opposite journey in my 1971 Volkswagen bus. I bought the watercolors at Comicon in either 1997, 1999, or 2000 from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for a twenty dollar donation. So the only actual comic book art pieces I have are watercolors from colorist Bjarne Hansen and yet I never credit the colorists when I label these blog posts! I'm a fucking jerk.
The story begins with a witness to a drive-by jousting giving his report to some radio show host.
The story begins with a witness to a drive-by jousting giving his report to some radio show host.
His description was, "Imagine a horse drawn by Kelley Jones ridden by a man in armor with so many frilly details that he made Magic the Gathering cards look realistic."
The man describing the knight isn't the only one who saw it; the second witness disagrees with a lot of the details. The two witnesses are houseless guys living in Golden Gate Park. They're telling their stories to a Howard Sternesque radio show host named Anton Marx. The first witness described the knight as having a lance and glowing red eyes. The second witness says the man's eyes were normal and he carried the sword, Excalibur.
His description was, "The knight wore a suit of armor more realistic than what you'd see on a Magic the Gathering card and wielded a +5 Vorpal Sword vs. Asians."
The first story had the knight running down some punk shooting off a pistol wildly, striking but not hurting the knight, before being flung into the bay off the end of a lance. The second story had the knight killing Asian gang members in order to save a woman from being raped.
Did I scan this for the man ass, the side boob, or the severed head? It's a mystery to discover! (side boob)
The studio contains one more houseless guy. His story will probably be the most believable of all, if any of them are supposed to be truly believable. Mostly Anton's just bringing them on to sensationalize a growing urban legend about a knight serving up some old school justice on the streets of San Francisco. The third witness, however, refuses to speak. But we, the readers, get to see what he saw.
This story is true because I saw the cover and the helmet is exactly the same.
"Honi soit qui mal y pense" is the motto of the British "Order of the Garter" and translates to "Shame on anyone who thinks evil of it." The motto wasn't just a flash in the pan saying thought up by King Edward III in the 14th Century. It's plastered all over loads and loads of royal uniforms and badges and heraldries, not just in the United Kingdom but in its offshoots of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The craziest place in the list of places where the motto appears, according to the Wikipedia entry where I discovered all of this information, was on the entry gates to Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. I never really thought Michael Jackson was guilty of pedophilia until this fucking bomb dropped in my lap from a pretty obscure Wikipedia entry! I suppose I'm reading into the motto too cynically. Jackson probably just meant to say, "Shame on anybody who thinks I'm evilly diddling kids when we're just having a grand old time playing and having sleepovers!" You're right, Michael! Shame on me for thinking there was anything more, even if just briefly when I misunderstood why you would have such a strange, archaic saying on the gates to your pedophile villa. I mean suspected pedophile villa!
Anton Marx has decided the whispered legends of a knight roaming San Francisco have become popular enough to interest his audience which is why he's brought in the houseless to share stories. So far, they're the only ones who have supposedly seen the knight. But the mainstream papers have finally begun to take notice as well and the legend of the knight has knocked news stories about organized crime in the area out of the headlines. Anton probably mentions Tony Quetone and "the Pope," local crime leaders, because they're going to be important to the story soon!
During the station break, Anton deals with a shit and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
Anton Marx has decided the whispered legends of a knight roaming San Francisco have become popular enough to interest his audience which is why he's brought in the houseless to share stories. So far, they're the only ones who have supposedly seen the knight. But the mainstream papers have finally begun to take notice as well and the legend of the knight has knocked news stories about organized crime in the area out of the headlines. Anton probably mentions Tony Quetone and "the Pope," local crime leaders, because they're going to be important to the story soon!
During the station break, Anton deals with a shit and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.
I scanned this for the inclusion of two important plot elements!
Anton's ex's name is Venus and she storms off to think about the history of toilets. Being a fact checker, her mind often races with the facts of things which she's recently been in the vicinity of while highly stressed. So Anton sitting on a toilet and being a large piece of human waste gets her thinking about the history of what people did with their piss and excrement. I mention this because it feels like it'll be a regular feature in the series, Venus suddenly info-dumping on various items. One of those will probably be about 14th Century knights, crusades, and medieval weapons.
On her way home, Venus notices a Detective Addas Petronas she knows investigating a taped off gory crime scene. Of course he lets her walk all over the crime scene simply because she's curious about what happened and maybe also because they're both Greek? Maybe they've known each other since they were kids and also Detective Petronas loves Venus's plot elements.
On her way home, Venus notices a Detective Addas Petronas she knows investigating a taped off gory crime scene. Of course he lets her walk all over the crime scene simply because she's curious about what happened and maybe also because they're both Greek? Maybe they've known each other since they were kids and also Detective Petronas loves Venus's plot elements.
Jones and Moore are doing exceptional work on this series.
I'm twenty pages into this comic book and I realize I never discuss the art. I just take it for granted and scan the most obvious shots of nice boobs, asses, and peckers. But I'd like to point out that Kelley Jones has been creating panels from genius camera angles, allowing the series to feel like its in constant frenetic motion. Even that scene I just scanned, where two characters casually hang out amid a bunch of chopped up corpses, speaks volumes about the characters and their comfort level. That middle panel where Addas's gun becomes casually exposed from his jacket at the same eye level as Venus's casually exposed nipples communicates something about these characters that I'm too stupid to truly comment on. Something about their closeness and friendly intimacy (since Addas even uses that word, I think I'm on the right track!). Family friends thrown into a complex relationship with each other due to parents pressuring their kids to marry, especially within their native nationality. These two understand each other and work in professions where sharing information can help both. As opposed to Anton and Venus where the information and sharing really only flows one way: to bolster Anton's career.
Venus notices the massacre happened in an alleyway across from New Jerusalem Church School and somebody left a bloody cross smeared near the sign. It could be a clue! It could also be a cross smeared with shit by a schizophrenic, seeing as how the cross was portrayed with black ink and not red. It's San Francisco! It's hard to tell shit on the walls from blood on the walls.
I should also note that this is a Vertigo imprint so there are way more nipples and asses than I can spend time scanning in the pages of the comic. Sure, Vertigo was meant to tell "adult stories" in the sense of stories for audiences not just mature in the pants but mature in the brains. But often it screamed its maturity by showing loads of asses and tits. Sometimes it might show a pecker but I think that was super rare. Alan Moore may have been the only one to easily get away with plastering peckers in every other panel (maybe because it was super flaccid and blue?).
Venus notices the massacre happened in an alleyway across from New Jerusalem Church School and somebody left a bloody cross smeared near the sign. It could be a clue! It could also be a cross smeared with shit by a schizophrenic, seeing as how the cross was portrayed with black ink and not red. It's San Francisco! It's hard to tell shit on the walls from blood on the walls.
I should also note that this is a Vertigo imprint so there are way more nipples and asses than I can spend time scanning in the pages of the comic. Sure, Vertigo was meant to tell "adult stories" in the sense of stories for audiences not just mature in the pants but mature in the brains. But often it screamed its maturity by showing loads of asses and tits. Sometimes it might show a pecker but I think that was super rare. Alan Moore may have been the only one to easily get away with plastering peckers in every other panel (maybe because it was super flaccid and blue?).
There's also loads of racist slurs when the scene shifts to the criminals.
That's Tony Quetone with the cigar in his mouth and not the bathing suit up her ass. He's the head of a criminal organization currently battling against the guy on the phone, "The Pope." He said some racist slurs against Asians earlier which is how I learned he was Tony Quetone! I don't know the name of the woman in the bathing suit. Probably Charlotte.
The Pope called Tony to call off their turf war. A bunch of The Pope's men were slaughtered by the Knight and The Pope thinks Tony's the brains behind the killings. Tony isn't but he doesn't mind The Pope giving up on account of some random ass medieval bastard Soit Qui Mal y Pensing up the city. They're to meet each other at the New Jerusalem School to work out the new arrangement, just Tony, The Pope, and their right-hand men. I'm sure nothing sword-like or lance-y will happen at the meeting.
While the various characters go about their business in the City, Anton Marx's radio show constantly plays. By the time Venus gets back to work and the crime bosses have set their meeting, Anton Marx begins speculating on how the knight could exist in The City. Where does he keep his horse? How do neighbors not notice a bloody man in armor? Where the hell could a medieval murderer live?
The Pope called Tony to call off their turf war. A bunch of The Pope's men were slaughtered by the Knight and The Pope thinks Tony's the brains behind the killings. Tony isn't but he doesn't mind The Pope giving up on account of some random ass medieval bastard Soit Qui Mal y Pensing up the city. They're to meet each other at the New Jerusalem School to work out the new arrangement, just Tony, The Pope, and their right-hand men. I'm sure nothing sword-like or lance-y will happen at the meeting.
While the various characters go about their business in the City, Anton Marx's radio show constantly plays. By the time Venus gets back to work and the crime bosses have set their meeting, Anton Marx begins speculating on how the knight could exist in The City. Where does he keep his horse? How do neighbors not notice a bloody man in armor? Where the hell could a medieval murderer live?
I don't know. I think San Francisco might be the greatest city for a knight to hide in plain sight. He probably goes to every Pride parade.
After the show, Anton Marx meets up with, um, fellow "artists" at a nearby coffee shop to discuss things. I say "things" because I don't really know what they're there to discuss. I don't know why a lesbian erotic novel writer meets with a Howard Stern wannabe and a couple of male twins who perform live sex acts with each other on stage and an artist who doesn't want to be famous but every shocking painting he does just makes him a bigger success and a man who makes short "films" or something. Maybe they all went to college together. Maybe they all have some sort of murder/suicide pact. Maybe they were all members of a séance gone wrong which ended in them all fucking and murdering another person with a curse that they must all meet once a month or their private parts will fall off.
The meeting goes as usual, they all state the most obvious things that they've been doing which don't seem to be anything which needs a regular update. Until the guy who makes short films for the Internet rushes in with proof of the knight! Somebody caught him on film, a silhouette in a horned helmet in the dark saying, "Soit qui mal y pense." Nobody knows what that means and maybe the entry on that saying wasn't up on Wikipedia yet in 2003. So Anton, knowing somebody with incredible plot elements who can speak French, tells everybody he'll investigate!
Addas proves to be just as terrible a person as you'd expect a cop to be so Venus tells him to fuck off when they meet up later. She heads off to see Anton even though she thought she was done with him too. But on the way to his place, she stops off at the Jerusalem School because she sees a new cross made of blood and/or shit. That's when she stumbles on the meeting between The Pope and Tony Quetone, just in time to see Tony and his right-hand man gunned down by The Pope's assassins. Venus runs but they hear her and turn to shoot her. That's when she's knocked down by a horse, turns to see what happened, and witnesses her first somebody going medieval on somebody else's ass moment.
The meeting goes as usual, they all state the most obvious things that they've been doing which don't seem to be anything which needs a regular update. Until the guy who makes short films for the Internet rushes in with proof of the knight! Somebody caught him on film, a silhouette in a horned helmet in the dark saying, "Soit qui mal y pense." Nobody knows what that means and maybe the entry on that saying wasn't up on Wikipedia yet in 2003. So Anton, knowing somebody with incredible plot elements who can speak French, tells everybody he'll investigate!
Addas proves to be just as terrible a person as you'd expect a cop to be so Venus tells him to fuck off when they meet up later. She heads off to see Anton even though she thought she was done with him too. But on the way to his place, she stops off at the Jerusalem School because she sees a new cross made of blood and/or shit. That's when she stumbles on the meeting between The Pope and Tony Quetone, just in time to see Tony and his right-hand man gunned down by The Pope's assassins. Venus runs but they hear her and turn to shoot her. That's when she's knocked down by a horse, turns to see what happened, and witnesses her first somebody going medieval on somebody else's ass moment.
Venus is in shock. She seems to think you say, "Thank you for saving my life," by stuttering, "Wh...why...why?"
Venus gets to Anton's apartment but he's too excited about his French saying to listen to why she's so distraught. So she tells him the French means, roughly, "Evil to him who evil does." Sure, okay, why not?
The Crusades: Urban Decree Rating: A. So the Knight goes around saying, "Evil to him who evil does." That's what it means for this comic book, at least, even though what it really meant was something like, "Shame on the idiots who think this thing I, the king, am doing is evil. Who the fuck cares? Who are they? Nobodies, that's who! I'll conquer as much of Normandy as I want!" This knight can't just be killing people because they think something the knight is doing is evil so we'll go with Venus's translation. He's a vigilante! He's going to make people in San Francisco behave! But behave according to whose ethics and morals? That could be dangerous. Is this why this comic book was in the same short box as The Authority? They share the theme that people with the power to commit whatever violence they want can make the rules for everybody else? Boy, I hope The Order of the Garter was okay with homosexuality or this book is going to take quite the fucking turn. I mean, judging by the name, they're definitely cool with drag so it shouldn't be a problem, right?
The Crusades: Urban Decree Rating: A. So the Knight goes around saying, "Evil to him who evil does." That's what it means for this comic book, at least, even though what it really meant was something like, "Shame on the idiots who think this thing I, the king, am doing is evil. Who the fuck cares? Who are they? Nobodies, that's who! I'll conquer as much of Normandy as I want!" This knight can't just be killing people because they think something the knight is doing is evil so we'll go with Venus's translation. He's a vigilante! He's going to make people in San Francisco behave! But behave according to whose ethics and morals? That could be dangerous. Is this why this comic book was in the same short box as The Authority? They share the theme that people with the power to commit whatever violence they want can make the rules for everybody else? Boy, I hope The Order of the Garter was okay with homosexuality or this book is going to take quite the fucking turn. I mean, judging by the name, they're definitely cool with drag so it shouldn't be a problem, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment