Tag Archives: Top 10

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (Special Mention) (3) Bill Watterson – Calvin & Hobbes

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Cover of Calvin and Hobbes, the first collection of comic strips published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in 1987 (fair use)

 

 

(3) BILL WATTERSON –

CALVIN & HOBBES (1985-1995)

 

Goddamn I love that tiger!

 

“One of the most (maybe the most) beloved newspaper comics of all time, that influenced, changed and thrilled an entire generation, all drawn and written by one man — Bill Watterson…Watterson reminded us that newspaper comics don’t have to be bland, crude drawings, funny animals can have deeper personalities and insights in life, and that it was still possible for a strip to successfully explore philosophical themes without feeling tacked on. And yes, comics about children can still be great”.

Also (as noted by TV Tropes) – unpredictable panel layouts, surreal nature, childhood fantasy elements, lush art, adventure, vivid characterization, satire, classic cartoon slapstick and a gently comedic look at the hard truths of life.

Calvin is a precocious 6-year-old, who lives in rich world of imagination – personified (or is that tiger-ified) by Hobbes, his (imaginary – or is he?) best friend, a “walking, talking tiger” to Calvin and an inanimate plush toy to everyone else (and intriguingly of different appearance from his animate appearance to Calvin).

Amusingly, Calvin and Hobbes were named for the sixteenth century theologian John Calvin and sixteenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes respectively – pointing to the philosophical themes of the comic.

Arguably Calvin embodies the child in every adult, while Hobbes represents the adult in every child – particularly with the latter tending to act as the voice of reason and conscience to Calvin. Hobbes also has a thing for “babes”.

The fantasy – or reality – of Hobbes’ dual nature is one of the most appealing parts of the strip, as is the fantasy or reality of the titular duo’s many adventures and misadventures, but perhaps also (ironically) of least consequence – “Watterson has described the matter as being a non-question: This is not a strip about a young reality warper going on magical adventures with a stuffed animal that comes to life when no one else is looking, nor is it as simple as a boy with a stuffed tiger and an overactive imagination. This is a strip about the world seen through Calvin’s eyes. To Calvin, Hobbes is a real tiger, a cardboard box is a cloning device, a wagon driven off a ramp can fly to Mars, and mutant snowmen can stage a rebellion against their creator. And that is all that matters”.

I’m prompted to think of the play Harvey and its film adaptation as a spiritual predecessor, with its protagonist’s six-foot rabbit ‘imaginary friend’ Harvey playing the role of Hobbes:

“I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it. I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whoever I’m with”.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 SF Books (Special Mention) (3) Warhammer 40K

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Cover of the Warhammer Space Marine video game released in 2011 (fair use)

 

 

(3) WARHAMMER 40K (1987 – PRESENT)

Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned.
Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.
There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

Warhammer 40,000 – usually known as Warhammer 40K – is the closest SF equivalent to Dungeons and Dragons, in terms of a game encapsulating its genre. It doesn’t have quite the same breadth of encyclopedic treatment of genre themes and tropes as Dungeons and Dragons, given that it is confined to its space opera setting. But what a setting!

“Warhammer 40,000 is your Standard Sci Fi Setting injected with a cocktail of every drug known to man and genuine lunar dust, stuck in a blender with Alien, Mechwarrior, Starship Troopers, Star Wars, and teeny, tiny sprinkles of Judge Dredd and 2000AD, embellished with spikes and prayer scrolls, bathed in blood and turned up to Eleventy Zillion (and then set on fire). Twice. With 8ft chainsaws.”

Although I’m surprised that quotation doesn’t reference Dune along with Star Wars – as well as Nemesis from 2000 AD, with that storyline’s Termight Empire led by the supremely xenophobic Torquemada. Not to mention the obvious influences of H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkien – but they’re obvious influences on almost everything in fantasy or SF. Also apparently Paradise Lost according to the game’s creator.

Warhammer 40K drew heavily on its publisher’s previous fantasy game Warhammer – hence the name – but has long since diverted from and totally eclipsed its fantasy predecessor. Whereas the fantasy game had a smattering of optional SF elements – primarily advanced technological weaponry as artefacts or relics left behind by a long-gone race of spacefarers – the SF game went further in the opposite direction, space opera fantasy in the style of Star Wars or SF with substantial fantasy elements.

“It adapts a number of tropes from fantasy fiction, such as magic, supernatural beings, daemonic possession, and fantasy races such as orcs and elves; ‘psykers’ fill the role of wizards in the setting”.

Its setting and plot is far too complex for a single entry – indeed, it could easily be its own top ten (or several top ten lists, given the volume of game material) – but stands out for the grim darkness of its tagline, which has evolved into a meme, as has much else in the game.

As its title indicates, it is about 40,000 years or so in the future. Humanity has a galactic empire (yay!) but that empire sucks (boo!), although the galaxy beyond that empire sucks even more – factions and forces against which the Imperium of Man is desperately trying to hold the line, against overwhelming odds in the long run.

That’s pretty much it. Oh sure – there’s the basic plot summary from Wikipedia:

“The setting of Warhammer 40,000 is violent and pessimistic. It depicts a future where human scientific and social progress have ceased, and human civilisation is in a state of total war with hostile alien races and occult forces. It is a setting where the supernatural exists, is powerful, and is usually untrustworthy if not outright malevolent. There are effectively no benevolent gods or spirits in the cosmos, only daemons and evil gods, and the cults dedicated to them are proliferating. In the long run, the Imperium of Man cannot hope to defeat its enemies, so the heroes of the Imperium are not fighting for a brighter future but raging against the dying of the light.”

Or the evocative summation from TV Tropes – “the most basic summation of the game’s plot is that our galaxy has been twisted into an unfathomable horror where an eternal, impossibly vast conflict occurs between several absurdly powerful genocidal, xenocidal, and (in at least one case) omnicidal factions, with every single weapon, ideology, and creative piece of nastiness imaginable cranked to an outlandish extreme… and even it has a Hell”

Perhaps the most interesting aspects of the game are its factions – foremost among the Imperium of Man as the default human protagonist faction. As previously mentioned, it sucks – an absurdly dysfunctional, paranoid, fascist theocratic state under the God-Emperor of Mankind, who now resembles some bizarre combination of mummified Egyptian pharaoh and Aztec god sustained by thousands of daily sacrifices.

The imperial cult holds sway throughout the empire – enforced by “a futuristic Inquisition” that ruthlessly hunts down anyone with even the slightest taint of the heretic, the mutant, or the alien, even going as far as destroying entire planets, just to be sure.

Science and technology have stagnated – “partly because they are treated with fear, ignorance and magical superstition” and partly because of “the Adeptus Mechanicus, the secretive, deranged machine cult that maintains the Imperium’s technological base. The latter have a point though, as technology is a portal for daemonic corruption – and The Warp, a corrupted parallel dimension connected to the material universe that provides the Imperium’s lifeblood as its only means of faster-than-light Travel, is incredibly dangerous.”

And then you have the forces of the Imperium holding the line – “the Space Marines (capricious, fanatical, genetically engineered Knight Templar Super Soldiers) and the Sisters of Battle (equally fanatical, pyromaniacal battle nuns) serve as the Imperium’s special forces, while the Imperial Guard, its at least trillions-strong regular army, takes disregard for human life to new and interesting extremes”.

For all its obvious dystopian dysfunction, the game publishers have to keep reminding fans that the Imperium’s “fascist totalitarianism is bad” – partly because they tend to be the point of view faction in game material, partly because they are indeed often awesome and cool in humanity’s last stand desperately holding the line, and partly because all other major factions are as bad, if not far worse.

You have the Aeldari or space elves, the Tyranids who consume everything else into themselves, the Necrons seeking to wipe out all organic life, the Orks modelled on fantasy orcs – and looming hungrily behind them all, the daemonic forces of Chaos.

Not bad for a game that primarily consists of miniatures or models, albeit with rulebooks – hence the special mention here.

Like many others, I don’t play the game – which seems to involve substantial expenditure of time and money in the ever-proliferating miniatures that are the basic components of gameplay – but enjoy the lore, of which there is an incredible volume beyond the game, not least in published tie-in books and comics.

RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT GOD-EMPEROR TIER?)

Top Tens – Fantasy & SF: Top 10 SF Books (Special Mention: Classic) (3) Robert Heinlein – Starship Troopers & Stranger in a Strange Land

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Iconic scene from the 1997 Starship Troopers film and probably the most commonly used (fair use)

 

 

(3) ROBERT HEINLEIN –

STARSHIP TROOPERS & STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1959 & 1961)

 

Along with Asimov and Clarke, Robert Heinlein is one of the ‘Big Three’ of science fiction – the one also dubbed the ‘dean of science fiction writers’ – and arguably the one best known from cinematic adaptation of his work.

Sure, there’s the film of “2001: A Space Odyssey” for Clarke but people tend to associate that more with its director Kubrick and the film is, well, a little too ‘arty’ to have left its mark beyond its two or three iconic scenes (while few have seen or know about the sequel). Sure, there’s also the film of “I, Robot” for Asimov but that film was only nominally an adaptation of Asimov’s robot anthology, and the film is, well, a little too crap to have left any mark.

Neither compared to the popular and memetic impact of the film (and franchise) adapted from Heinlein’s most famous work, Starship Troopers – even if that adaptation had its satirical tongue in its cheek and was as cheesy as hell to boot. There’s just something about a Bug War that appeals to us – and something about peak Denise Richards that appeals to me.

Wikipedia notes that Heinlein’s “plots often presented provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores” and “his work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre and on modern culture more generally”, notwithstanding its controversial aspects. In the case of Starship Troopers, that controversial aspect was its militarism – its apparent endorsement of a future universally militarized society, justified by humanity locked in an evolutionary struggle for very survival against an alien species, the Arachnids or Bugs.

Starship Troopers was a foundational work of military SF – in particular, it “helped mold the space marine and mecha archetypes”.

Ironically, Heinlein swung his provocative pendulum in the opposite direction just two years later with his Martian hippy cult in “Stranger in a Strange Land”, arguably his other best known work and which also won the Hugo Award for Best Novel like “Starship Troopers” before it.

I am not as much a fan of “Stranger in a Strange Land” as I am of “Starship Troopers” and not just because of the Martian hippies in the former – it’s the escalation of the trademark social commentary to a self-insert authorial mouthpiece and archetypal Heinleinian character Jubal Harshaw. Also, Stranger lacks the cultural impact of Troopers, not least because of the lack of comparable adaptation – with the most significant impact being the name of Twitter’s AI Grok being taken from the novel’s Martian word grok.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

Top Tens – Heroes & Villains: Top 10 Villains of Mythology (Special Mention) (3) Tarot – Death & The Devil

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Collage of Death (left) and The Devil (right) from the most iconic modern Tarot deck, the Rider-Waite Tarot deck designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman-Smith (first published by William Rider & Son in 1909, hence the name) – public domain image

 

 

(3) TAROT – DEATH & THE DEVIL

 

The Tarot may have its mystique and even its mythos, but does it have villains?

O yes – hence this special mention, drawn from the archetypal characters of individual cards, particularly those of the more iconic Major Arcana or “trumps” of the Tarot.

But are there enough ‘villainous’ cards of the Tarot for their own top ten?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, in that all or almost all cards of the Tarot have their dark inversions or negative connotations and are therefore capable of being villainous cards in that respect. Setting that aside, twelve cards of the Major Arcana – from the Hermit as ninth card through to Judgement as the twentieth card – are ‘underworld’ cards, depicting figures of the mythic narrative of the Fool’s descent into the underworld or hero’s journey, and are hence potentially ‘villainous’ cards.

And no, because when you come down to it, there are only three unequivocally ‘villainous’ cards that are also the infamous trinity of cards one flinches at in readings as ‘bad’ – Death, the Devil, and the Tower Struck by Lightning.

Unequivocally ‘villainous’ that is, in the sense that they are not also at the same time among my heroes or girls of the Tarot – only as ‘villains’, even if they can have positive interpretations. Aptly enough for a card midway through the Tarot, the Death card has interpretations of a new beginning after an end, rebirth or transformation – famously in that episode of The Simpsons with Lisa’s future foretold by a Tarot reading, although it added its own ominous card of The Happy Squirrel.

Of this trinity, I rank Death and the Devil in this special mention, given that the Tower Struck by Lightning does not feature a distinctive figure as such but instead evokes an impersonal force of destruction. Death of course features the personification of death, while the Devil is the literal personification of evil. The visual design of the latter card in the Rider Waite Tarot deck sees the latter and raises it even higher in evil stakes, as a dark inversion of the card of The Lovers, including the two figures of the Lovers themselves, now demonic figures chained to the Devil’s altar – and of the backdrop of Hell now substituted for the Garden of Eden.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (DEVIL TIER)

Top Tens – Heroes & Villains: Top 10 Heroes of Mythology (Special Mention) (3) Tarot – Fool & Hanged Man

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Collage of The Fool (left) and The Hanged Man (right) from the most iconic modern Tarot deck, the Rider-Waite Tarot deck designed by A.E. Waite and Illustrated by Pamela Colman-Smith (first published by William Rider & Son in 1909, hence the name) – public domain image

 

 

(3) TAROT – FOOL & HANGED MAN

 

The Tarot may have its mystique and even its mythos, but does it have heroes?

O yes – hence this special mention, drawn from the archetypal characters of individual cards, particularly those of the more iconic Major Arcana or “trumps” of the Tarot. Indeed, there are enough ‘heroic’ cards of the Tarot for their own top ten and a few special mentions beyond that.

However, as the title of this special mention entry indicates, two cards stand out above all others as heroes of the Tarot – the Fool and the Hanged Man.

At first glance, both might seem unusual choices. There are cards that might seem more conventional heroic figures by the metric of power – the Magician, the Emperor, the Hierophant, the Chariot, and the Sun.

However, it is the Fool that is the true hero of the Tarot. In its modern form, the Major Arcana has its own mythic narrative, essentially a version of the archetypal hero’s journey, with the Fool – traditionally numbered zero or just unnumbered – as its hero, similar to the figure of the holy fool. The Fool sets out on his quest, innocence in search of experience, poised to fall or fly. The rest of the Major Arcana depicts the figures he encounters, as well as ultimately his descent into and triumphant return from the underworld.

Coming in close second place is the Hanged Man, a self-sacrificial mystical inversion of the Fool, that the Fool either encounters or – in my preferred reading – becomes, in his descent into the underworld. Indeed, the image of the Hanged Man is parallel to that of the Fool. Where the Fool innocently and seemingly inadvertently is poised to step off a precipice while gazing (or perhaps dreaming) skywards, the Hanged Man is more deliberately poised to descend into the Underworld, hanging by his foot in seemingly mystical pose with head downwards.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER)

 

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Mythologies (Special Mention: Divine Comedy Rankings – Complete Rankings)

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An Italian joker card – public domain image Wikipedia “Joker (playing card)”

 

 

 

Life is the laughter of the gods – but how do my mythology special mentions rack up against my top ten mythologies when ranking them for comedy and tricksters?

 

Well, joke’s on them as it turns out – only three of my top ten mythologies make it into my top ten comedy and trickers rankings, replaced by seven special mentions, while five more special mentions score higher than other top ten mythologies.

 

SCORE:

7 SPECIAL MENTIONS – TOP 10 DIVINE COMEDY RANKINGS

(12 SPECIAL MENTIONS EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN TOP 10 MYTHOLOGIES)

 

So here’s ranking all my top ten mythologies and special mentions by their comedy and tricksters, from the laughter of the gods to serious business.

 

At the laughter end of the scale –

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT JOKER TIER?)

 

(1) DISCORDIANISM

 

What else could be in top spot for divine comedy than Discordianism, even just edging out my second top spot, as something that may just be all a big joke disguised as a religion – or a religion disguised as a joke? In either case, it scores the top spot for divine comedy.

 

(2) ZEN

 

What is the sound of one hand clapping? Yeah – I hear it all the time in reaction to my jokes.

But seriously, zen ranks above all other mythologies but one for divine comedy, with its koans and eccentricities seeming like nothing so much but a series of gags or jokes where the punchline is enlightenment.

 

When you get it,

you get

it.

 

And it’s hard to trump Zen masters as tricksters.

Ditto Tao and its wu wei – or the art of doing nothing effectively.

 

(3) PAGANISM

 

What can I say? Paganism combines all the divine comedy of its original forms but doubles down on the joke in its playful modern form or neopaganism, which seems inherently humorous in conception and nature – a latter-day LARP that does not take itself too seriously.

 

(4) CLASSICAL

(5) NORSE

 

Two of my top ten mythologies that remain in the top ten divine comedy rankings, albeit both bumped down a couple of places (literally) for more divinely comedic special mention mythology entries.

 

(6) FAIRIES

 

For once, fairy folklore ranks not only close to the Celtic mythology and Arthurian legend it overlaps but ahead of it. Indeed, fairies and Fairyland often seem to be nothing but comedy and tricks (or tricksters), albeit often absurdist or black comedy and confidence tricks.

 

(7) CELTIC (ARTHURIAN)

 

The third of three top ten mythologies to remain in the top ten for divine comedy rankings, bumped down an extra place for the comedy and tricksters of fariy folklore.

 

(8) SHAMANISM

 

Like paganism, shamanism combines the divine comedy and trickster figures of tribal mythologies or religions – I mean, Paleolithic cave art often seems a collection of d!ck jokes – but doubles down on the jokes in its modern reconstruction of neo-shamanism.

 

(9) TAROT

 

“I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died” – Steve Wright

Yeah, that’s the Tarot as the punchline of a joke in a deadpan standup comedy routine but you don’t get much more divine comedy than the Tarot – for all its vivid and occasionally violent imagery or its mystique for divination with dire portents, it originated as a game of playing cards for trumps.

Or for that matter, even with all that mystique for divination, you could say it’s focused on the Fool, a literal unnumbered wildcard amidst the trumps, reminiscent of the joker. And it doesn’t get much more divine comedy than a literal joker.

 

(10) MAGIC

 

You know, I’m going to rank magic in god-tier of divine comedy rankings. I’m serious and I’m joking – much like magic seems to be, that is deadly serious in purpose (often literally) but resembling nothing other than visual gags or verbal jokes in execution. The ‘laws’ of sympathetic magic proposed by Fraser often seem like nothing so much as punchlines of a cosmic joke – or cosmic con, pulling a fast one on the universe. Throw in that the arsenal of your average trickster seems to include a utility belt of cantrips, charms, or conjurations – and you have that god-tier ranking in divine comedy.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

(11) EGYPTIAN

(12) HINDU

 

Sadly, these two top ten mythologies just drop out of the top ten when it comes to divine comedy and trickster rankings.

 

(13) TANTRA

 

Given the overlap between Hinduism and tantra, I thought I’d rank it here. Besides, there’s just something inherently funny (or at least playful) about s€x magic.

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

(14) NATIVE AMERICAN (LAKOTA)

(15) AFRO-AMERICAN (VOODOO)

 

These top ten mythologies are still respectably high-tier for divine comedy and tricksters but are just outranked by other entries.

 

(16) CRYPTIDS

 

I mean, there’s just something funny about cryptids.

 

(17) UFO

 

There’s certainly something funny about UFOs – and at least some of them seem to be pranksters.

 

(18) URBAN LEGENDS

 

Urban legends often even sound like jokes, down to set-up and punchline – the latter usually the twist in the tale that is often the heart of the legend.

 

(19) CONSPIRACY THEORIES

 

Same as urban legends, only the joke is often just how wild the conspiracy theory or just how much of a tinfoil hat it requires. And they are very much trickster territory – both for theorists and the conspirators.

 

(20) MIDDLE EASTERN (BABYLO-SUMERIAN)

(21) MESO-AMERICAN (AZTEC)

 

Rounding out B-tier, these top ten mythologies rank low for divine comedy as mostly serious business, just on the cusp of my wild tier rankings.

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

And now we come to wild tier rankings – which in a reversal of my usual wild or weird tier entries, given that the subject is itself comedic, means that these entries tend to mean more serious business than they do comedy or tricks. But not always – sometimes they’re joking and they’re serious.

 

(22) BIBLICAL

 

Mostly serious business but you’ll be surprised how much comedy and tricksters are there if you look at it the right way so it tops my wild-tier rankings, albeit well below its top spot in my general, sacred space, and apocalyptic rankings.

 

(23) WITCHCRAFT

 

Witchcraft might seem too dark (and deadly serious, literally) for divine comedy but it has similar divine comedy (and tricks) to magic, just ranked lower because of the serious consequences for belief in it. Indeed, the lurid descriptions of witchcraft in European witch trials come across as parody of Christianity, albeit with black or dark comedy and working blue to boot in the lurid details. Of course, that would say more about the people running those trials, since those descriptions tended to be extracted from leading questions under torture and more reflected the projections of those conducting witch hunts or trials…

 

(24) DRAGONS

 

Dragons might seem too deadly serious for comedy but dragons are occasionally the butt of a joke – literally in the case of the Dragon of Wantley, dispatched by knightly kick in the butt. Even the Bible gets in on the joke, with Daniel killing a dragon by blowing it up.

 

(25) GIANTS

 

Like dragons, giants might seem too deadly serious for comedy but they too are often the butt of the joke – think giants or ogres in fairy tales – and also often trickster figures themselves, as in Norse mythology.

 

(26) GHOSTS

 

Like dragons or giants, ghosts would seem too deadly serious – literally – or tragic for divine comedy. And yet, even ghosts occasionally pop up as comic figures or even tricksters such as poltergeists.

 

(27) VAMPIRES

 

I’m happy ranking vampires below ghosts for divine comedy – as deadly serious as ghosts seem to be, vampires would seem more deadly and more serious, with few comic figures or tricksters among them. Still, there’s some black comedy to be had with vampires – there’s something blackly comic about the protection against vampires using grains or seeds to exploit their obsessive compulsive disorder, with vampires being compelled to count every grain or seed before they could do anything else. I like to attribute the Count from Sesame Street to this obscure vampire folklore tradition.

 

(28) LYCANTHROPES

 

They may not have obsessive compulsive disorder of vampires but even werewolves and other lycanthropes have their comedic moments, albeit mostly black comedy.

 

(29) LEGENDARY CREATURES

 

Legendary creatures might well have ranked higher, if the absurd comedy of some creatures wasn’t as esoteric or obscure.

Still it’s nice to see that there’s at least some divine comedy all the way down, right down to my next (and last) entry.

 

(30) ATLANTIS & BERMUDA TRIANGLE

 

As I said in my previous entry, it’s nice to see the divine comedy goes all the way down, even to the bottom of the ocean with Atlantis – or the Bermuda Triangle. I mean, there’s not too much comedy in what is, after all, meant to be the tragic tale of Atlantis, but there’s still some in just how silly the legend is, particularly in you throw in fantasies of submerged post-apocalyptic Atlantis. Especially in comics or popular culture – where you have the likes of Aquaman or the Man from Atlantis…

The Bermuda Triangle on the other hand is funnier if you’re not disappearing in it.

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (Special Mention) (2) Asterix

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Cover of the 1961 edition in English of Asterix the Gaul, the first volume in the series.

 

 

(2) RENE GOSCINNY & ALBERT UDERZO –

ASTERIX (1959-1979 – I’m only counting the ones written by both Goscinny and Uderzo up to Asterix in Belgium, the twenty-fourth volume in the series)

 

“The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely… One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium…”

These Romans are crazy!

Asterix is the original source of my enduring love of comics – and my enduring fascination with the Roman Empire in classical or ancient history. It wouldn’t quite be true to say everything I know about the Roman world I learned from Asterix comics – as those comics inspired me to read more historical books on the Roman Empire and ancient history – but you could genuinely learn a lot about the Roman Empire from them.

The basic premise is stated in the above introduction to each comic, accompanied by the famous map with a magnifying glass held up to show the titular protagonist’s village. (Asterix is also where I learned about the battle of Alesia, in which Julius Caesar defeated the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix and conquered Gaul – a detail that recurs in a number of comics). This small but plucky village has withstood the vast numerical and military superiority of the Roman Empire by virtue of a magic potion that bestows superhuman strength brewed by its resident druid.

Each comic then introduced the major dramatis personae from the village – foremost among them our small but plucky titular protagonist Asterix, but also his generously proportioned fellow protagonist Obelix (who always has superhuman strength because he fell in a cauldron of magic potion as a baby), the aforementioned druid Getafix, village chieftain Vitalstatistix and ill-tuned bard Cacofonix. Oh – and Obelix’s cute dog Dogmatix. As you can tell, the names of Gauls in the comic had humorous puns or plays on the suffix “-ix” – the Romans similarly with “us” and so on with other groups within the Empire. That was indicative of the general wordplay and puns in dialogue as well as visual gags that made each comic a delight – “part of the appeal of the series is probably the variety of humor, which includes slapstick fight scenes, plenty of wordplay, thinly-veiled social commentary, and Iron Age and Roman antiquity versions of just about every European (and beyond) stereotype you can imagine.

I must admit to having a soft spot for the Romans, even though they were generally the antagonists – although perhaps not quite to the point of rooting for the Empire, as our protagonist and his village were just too damn charming. Generally the Romans weren’t cast as evil villains – indeed the hapless legionaries in the camps surrounding the village strove to serve out their time by quietly trying to avoid any contact with the Gauls – although they could also be effective antagonists in their schemes to conquer or undermine the village. And it helped that the Romans were also typically lovable idiots – indeed like almost everyone else in the comic, including the protagonist villagers themselves, except of course for Asterix, Getafix and flashes of brilliance among other characters (Gauls or otherwise). Interestingly, one character not played as an idiot – indeed, played as a worthy adversary – was Caesar himself.

I also have to admit to a soft spot – widely shared by other fans – for the cameo appearances by the recurring band of small but persistently unlucky pirates, a parody of another comic series Barbe-Rouge (Redbeard) – unlucky, that is, in persistently encountering our protagonist duo, the point that they would desperately try to avoid “the Gauls”, even sinking their own ship.

The series was also distinguished by some of the best translations in comics ever – from the original French (of course) by writer Rene Goscinny – as well as some of the best caricaturist art from artist Albert Uderzo. Goscinny sadly died in 1977 and Uderzo took over the writing as well, although not quite with the same superb quality of writing in the eyes of fans such as myself – until he too sadly passed away only in March 2020.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT BY TOUTATIS TIER!)

Top Tens – Heroes & Villains: Top 10 Villains of Mythology (Special Mention) (2) Demons & Devils

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Detail of a 16th-century painting The Last Judgement by Jacob de Backer in the National Museum in Warsaw in WIkipedia “Devil” (public domain image)

 

 

(2) DEMONS & DEVILS

 

Demons and devils – even archdemons, daemons, fallen angels or legions of hell, fiends, imps, incubi or succubi.

Demons and devils came very close to their own special mention entry for my Top 10 Mythologies, given how pervasive demons or demonic beings are in myth and folklore. Ultimately however I deferred that special mention entry to here as I was not prepared to tempt fate from the forces of hell if I ranked them anywhere else. Also, demons and devils in popular culture or imagination have largely been assimilated into those of Biblical mythology, albeit that in turn took many of its cues from Middle Eastern mythology.

Demons or devils tend to be depicted as chthonic beings but also as more villainous than the other chthonic or underworld beings of mythology in general, albeit with substantial overlap between them. While chthonic deities can be depicted as neutral or even benevolent, there is usually no such ambiguity for demons or devils – chaotic, destructive or evil to the core. Bad to the bone as it were, although there is occasionally sympathy for the devil.

Indeed, they tend to be the benchmark for evil beings, such that demonic is an adjective for evil, literally or metaphorically (or metaphysically). The wider or “most generic definition” of demon would be “any evil or injurious spirit or supernatural being” – which could be very wide indeed, including things such as vampires or even dragons.

A good or noble demon is something of an oxymoron – even relying on one to not lie or cheat on a deal is fraught with peril. At best, a demon might be depicted as capable of redemption, in which case it becomes something else or is no longer a demon, but almost universally they are depicted as irredeemably evil in nature. Even when they purport to do something good, it turns out to be for the greater evil.

The archetypes of demons or devils – essentially synonymous, albeit occasionally distinguished in such things as Dungeons and Dragons where demons are chaotic evil and devils are lawful evil – are those from the Bible or Biblical mythology. The latter can get convoluted, on occasion distinguishing demons native to Hell or other eldritch beings as opposed to damned souls or fallen angels from Heaven, although they all tend to be conflated under the label of demon or devil. Also, as noted before, the demons and devils of the Bible or Biblical mythology in turn are influence by those of Middle Eastern mythologies, notably Mesopotamian and Persian.

However, there are similar beings or eldritch abominations in other mythologies that are translated as demons or devils – Buddhist and Shinto mythology are particularly notable in this respect. The televised version of Su Wukong or Monkey is forever etched into my mind with his declaration of demonic opponents – “Ah, DE-MON!”.

One reason that they are so pervasive in mythology or folklore is that they often stand in for the chaotic or destructive forces of nature – or humanity. There is a large overlap between demons or devils and other supernatural beings – with witches, fairies, dragons, ghosts and vampires perhaps as foremost for similar elements, tropes or types.

Devils are perhaps at their worst doing their deals (or Faustian pacts) for souls, while demons are at their worst corrupting or possessing good or innocent beings – demonic possession is arguably the most villainous weapon in their arsenal and comes in various forms, such that it could be the subject of its own top ten, particularly as it extends to animals or objects other than humans, ending up much like fairies or ghosts with various demon or demonic animals or objects.

For that matter, demons or devils in myth or folklore could well be the subject of their own top ten list, whether for named individuals or broader classifications, including their various elements, tropes and types – not to mention the elements, tropes and types of those most important human interaction with them, demon-slayers or exorcists.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (DEVIL TIER)

Top Tens – Comics: Top 10 Comics (Special Mention: 2000 AD) (2) Alan Moore – D.R. & Quinch

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2000 AD poster art of the titular delinquent duo

 

 

(2) ALAN MOORE – D.R. & QUINCH (1983 – 1987)

 

“Even had I suspected then the truly horrifying suffering and amazing loss of life that would be caused by our well-meaning enterprise… I’d have done it anyway. Only more so.”

 

One of my hot takes in comics is that I find Alan Moore’s work overrated. I’m not saying I don’t like it. But for me, his finest work was his series D.R. & Quinch, when he started as a writer for 2000 AD and before taking himself too seriously. After all, how seriously can you take yourself when you pronounce the Roman snake god Glycon as your deity? (In Moore’s case, very).

You see, Alan Moore used to be fun – and never more so in this semi-regular but sadly brief series about the eponymous alien adolescent delinquent duo. It started with a one-off comic “D.R. & Quinch Have Fun on Earth” as part of the recurring Future Shock and Time Twister stories, in which the duo steal a time machine to wreak havoc on an insignificant planet in the cosmic boondocks no one cares about (i.e. Earth) as a prank on their college dean. However, they proved so popular they got five longer stories – “D.R. and Quinch Go Straight”, “D.R. and Quinch Go Girl Crazy”, “D.R. and Quinch Get Drafted”, “D.R. and Quinch Go to Hollywood” and “D.R. and Quinch Go Back to Nature”.

You know you’re in for a wild ride when your protagonist’s initials stand for diminished responsibility.

TV Tropes sums it up best:

In what can best be described as “Rule of Funny meets For the Evulz,” D.R. & Quinch tells the totally amazing story of one Waldo “D.R.” Dobbs (the “D.R.” stands for “Diminished Responsibility”), a skinny, lanky, teenage delinquent who boasts a genius IQ, enjoys acts of extreme violence and destruction, and looks like a cross between a gremlin and a skrull with a pompadour, and Dobbs’ best friend Ernest Erroll Quinch, a large, purple-skinned brute who is much, much quieter than Dobbs as he prefers writing to talking. Together, these two deeply sociopathic, evilly affable, omnicidal maniacs do as they please, and what pleases them usually involves death and destruction on a tremendous scale; it helps that, in their part of the Milky Way, nuclear warheads are as easily obtainable as a handgun in the Deep South.

 

“S’right”

 

RATING:

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

Top Tens – Heroes & Villains: Top 10 Heroes of Mythology (Special Mention) (2) Pan & Abraxas

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Collage of public domain images – “Sweet, piercing sweet was the music of Pan’s pipe” in captioned illustration of Pan by Walter Crane (Wikipedia “Pan”) on left and trace of an image of Abraxas stone or gem “The Gnostics and their remains” by Charles W. King, 1887 (Wikipedia banner image for gnosticism) on right

 

 

(2) PAN & ABRAXAS

 

Io Pan! Io Pan Pan!

Iao Abraxas!

Pan, the original horny god with the groin of a goat or as Bill Hicks styled him, randy Pan the Goat Boy. God of nature, mountains, shepherds and s€xuality – also the source of our word panic, for the divine mad fear he could inspire in people, including as savior of Athens, the invading Persian army at Marathon.

As a Capricorn goat boy myself, I’ve long been a Pan fan. Ironically, the only classical Greek god reported as dead – in a historical legend by Plutarch, with a sailor during the reign of Tiberius reporting a divine proclamation from an island that “the great god Pan is dead” – but reports of his death, to paraphrase Mark Twain, were greatly exaggerated. Pan was the one god that endured more than all the others, even to the extent of embodying in horned and hooved form all classical paganism as a whole in modern romanticism and neo-paganism. Perhaps aptly enough, given the pun on Pan – as the word for “all” in Greek also being Pan.

One might call it Pan’s odyssey – from mythic Pan through medieval and early modern Pan to his romantic rebirth, Edwardian height of popularity, and ultimately contemporary Pan. There’s just too much Pan – or is that too many Pans? – out there.

Sadly, one of my favorite historical legends of how Christianity embodied Pan as its devil – may be just that, a legend dating back only to the nineteenth century (following the hypothesis of Ronald Hutton to that effect).

I still prefer the legend. In one of my story ideas, a somewhat lost and forlorn Satan muses to the protagonist (with whom he has occasional chats) of his origin from Pan (as one of his multiple-choice origin stories). The protagonist calls him out on his conflicting origin stories, to which Satan replies “Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am legion, I contain multitudes”. But then he becomes sadly wistful “I would give anything just to dance in the moonlight again, when I was not evil but only wild and free”.

Another of my mythic idiosyncrasies is that I tend see a matching figure to Pan in Abraxas, even if the latter has nowhere near the classical pagan firepower as Pan in popular culture.

One reason is something of a physical resemblance in their half-animal half-human form. Where Pan is essentially a satyr as goat from waist down and with goat horns on his head, Abraxas is similarly animal from waist down and from neck up, only more so. For the former, Abraxas has much the same animal proportions of Pan – only more eerie or eldritch as instead of the lower half of goat, as Abraxas had a serpent (or serpentine tail) for each leg, anguiped rather than satyr. For the latter, Abraxas goes hard into animal head territory – instead of dainty goat horns on a human head, Abraxas has an actual animal head, with the head of a rooster. Serpentine legs and head of a rooster – if there’s a divine figure as more overt phallic symbol, then I don’t know what it is, particularly if you use the alternative word for rooster.

As to what sort of divine figure Abraxas is, well, that’s not entirely clear – Gnostic aeon or archon, classical or Egyptian god, or magical figure?

There’s even more direct parallels with Pan in the inscriptions and images on the prolific engraved ‘Abraxas stones’ that have been located in archaeology. There’s the salutation of Iao for Abraxas, echoing that of Io for Pan – and according to Egyptologist E. Wallis Budge, Abraxas was a Pantheus or Pantheos, that is, All-God.

I particularly have a soft spot for Abraxas from two sources for my personal mythos. One is the 1970 Santana album of that name, featuring its psychedelic cover art with the gloriously naked and voluptuous black magic woman as its centerpiece. The other is Piers Anthony’s Tarot trilogy, in which Abraxas is an unlikely candidate as the one true god, boosted by his golden priestess and devotee Amaranth, one of the s€xiest fantasy or SF female characters I have read. Iao Abraxas, indeed!

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT PAN-TIER?)