Tomorrow



Lost. Inside tomorrow.

Enter. No exit.

Wandering the corridors that make up the days, I envision the depths that make up tomorrow. A labyrinth of details that absorb each waking moments. Details that sucked in all consciousness. I stood at the bridge and stare, hypnotized by the depths of my surroundings. This is tomorrow. This is elsewhere.

Hard Looks: Uncensored

I remembered the hours I spent looking deep into the cover. Free falling in. It is not a pretty sight. No rocket science why this is called Hard Looks. Some comics are actually bought because of the cover. I dare you to look deep. Go ahead, it won’t bite...

I had this long time back. Back when I still had spine. When I was young and stupid, blowing my salary away. When I was still angry. When I still had something to prove. When I thought I had to dissent. When I thought I had to resist. To rebel. To not conform. Truth is, I had this when I was totally absorbed in Delano 2020 Visions and Frank Quitely and Geoff Darrows. And Moebius

Free Falling Moebius style

Anyone who had read Delano 2020 Visions will know that our lives are fucked. But that that is now so old. So what's next after you wake up one day and find that your once vanilla-flavored life is fucked? Your one time marriage is fucked? Your one time career is fucked? Your one time savings is fucked? Your one time friends are more fucked than you think? What's next? What's next after fuck?

I did not know then what I did not know now. But I did what I did. I took the Hard Looks at the fucked up life. I took the Vachss second chance. And here I am typing this review. So help me god if I refuse to just lie down and die! So help me god you fucked up deity, if I am still in debts from years ago. So help me god if there's a god, if I refuse to be an emotional carcass because I messed up my life. So help me god and fuck you god if I am unable to keep my job for more than 3 years at a stretch. So go fuck yourself god if I have to be screwed each time I start to do well in a job. So help me god and damn your god shit if I still have to live in that stink hole each and every day. So help me god if this is my review of Hard Looks. Go read it yourself.

I threw out Hard Looks along with DeLano 2020 Visions in those fits of insanity years ago. Yeah, I am kicking myself. It would do real good right now to take another hard look at that damn Hard Looks.

We all live lives of quiet desperation. Maybe some of us are just more vocal and write about it. Maybe some of us are just more physical and express it. Maybe some among us just don't want to care anymore. So what? So some of us still write old fashioned reviews here and there and refuses to even twit when everyone else is going cuckoo.

To all the legalistic word pressing fakers: You know who you are. No question about it. But take a hard look at some of us and look in deep. And then look back within yourself and ask why. We are no uglier than you. Whether you are conscious of who you are, you best decide for yourself. Whether you want to take your own hard looks at your shit-moral-damning responsibility, make it clear. So I don't have to bother with Hard Looks each time I hear about you.



Infernal Dreams

Life. A picture.

The deceptiveness of the clean lines reveal a depth that intoxicates.

A book...

A key...

Trees, neatly lined and numbered...

A gate...

The sudden flight of birds...

Life. Look deep and you awoke the next moment in infernal dreams.

No exit.

I saw myself dreaming. But I could not rouse myself to wake.

I saw as in my half awakened stupor, the cause of my undoing.

There stood in the garden the deliverance of my being.

But i remain asleep in infernal dreams...

I knew I was lost. But words failed to describe my plight.

Moebius drew it for me.

Real

Sometimes we just return to where we first started.




Maybe that is reality after all.


Not as we imagined or hoped for but dreamt...


But reality in all its detail.


Moebius: Reality is Elsewhere

EPIC: Tales from elsewhere

I belong to a lost generation. I remembered books that no one has seen. I encountered comics now extinct. Such as the EPIC range of superior crafted comics.

EPIC: Only for the brave. I once held such copies in my hands, titles that I don't remember, authors that I have forgotten. I look now at my empty hands and still feel the chill of loss. I am talking about those painted comics with surreal stories that bring you to places you normally would not venture. I didn't start to collect then. Even when I started buying, the EPIC line was long gone. What was I thinking then?

I have seen stray copies of the EPIC print. The unmistakable covers with matt colors and mind-blowing intro page were hard to miss then. Now, you can't miss EPIC because you can only see a vol 2. That’s all. Nothing else. It is beyond impossible to find Vol 3, 4 or 7. Vol 1 does not exist. And no one heard of Vol. 5. And Vol.6? Sigh... Such was my loss that i passed Millar's & Colan's Dracula series. Such was my loss that I passed Moebius Airtight Garage. Such was my loss that I passed Starlin's Dreadstar. Such was my loss that I abandoned my search for EPIC.

Every once in a while the heavens opened and a stray light shines on these darkened land. Such was a day that I bought Stan Lee Silver Surfer with Moebius art. To say more would be embarrassing. It's like touching the Holy Grail and claiming to see the imprint of Christ!

Then, the epiphany of picking up McKeever's Plastic Forks. Complete! On that day I do really believe the heavens were overwhelmingly generous. I mean complete! Vol 1-5! I plead insanity and refuse to recover.

The EPIC anguish that has yet to be extinguished would be Meltdown. Not found in a comic shop. Not even in a 2nd hand bookshop. But retrieved… from a flea market, at the other end of the island. I mean what are the chances of being right there in a steaming crowd with suburban junks of all kind, being jostled and pushed and actually seeing in mint condition all 4 volumes of Meltdown? Unreal. That day will never exist for me. I deny all knowledge of such an existence! Alas that day stabs me still for I ran all the way home in Cthulu fear, holding to my chest the Kent Williams and Jon J Muth masterpiece. That was EPIC to me!

No thanks to a certain word pressing ignoramus, my EPIC remembrance will forever be tarnished by the fact that my original Epic: Meltdown was actually traded for bread!!! It is the height of humanity uselessness that acts of stupidity are nowadays rationalized by intentional side talk and avoidance after a crime has been committed.

EPIC: The imprint that will forever be remembered by the lost generation.

Infernal Dreams

Face to face with the wall of my existence.

Do I retreat?

Do I go on?

Do I fall?

My questions.

My existence.

My infernal dreams.

Lost

Face to face with my existence. Lost.

Do I enter? Do I retreat?

This is Life. This is Elsewhere.