Tag Archives: graphic novel

When I Last Saw My Face

rorschach

Rorschach test card – no image credit available

Victor sighed in relief as he put on his face and looked in the mirror. Tucking it into the collar of his black turtleneck, he donned the dark brown fedora to complete the transformation. Dark brown trench coat, gray slacks, brown kid gloves, and Victor Montoya no longer existed. There was only his real identity and his real face. Rorschach opened the hidden door that led to the stairwell. Descending, he got to the tunnel and then exited the abandoned power substation to walk the night again.

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He’s out there. I’ve been hunting him for weeks now. The fifth little girl disappeared just days ago. With any luck, I might find her still alive, not that luck and I have ever had much of a relationship.

His name is Reggie Manx. Yeah, like the cat, except I think of Manx more like a rat, one who should have stayed in the sewers instead of preying on children.

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Review of the Graphic Novel “V for Vendetta”

vI’m repurposing another review I posted sometime back on another blog.

When I wrote this review, I hadn’t yet seen the film V for Vendetta (2005) starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving but I just finished Alan Moore’s and David Lloyd’s graphic novel (originally a ten-issue comic book series) and thought, given the wide use of the Guy Fawkes mask by “hacktavist” group Anonymous and some protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement (which is worn in both the comic book and film versions of the story by the main character), that it was high time to look at the source material for these modern, real-life responses to what we think of as oppression in our world.

The original comic book series was developed and published in 1985 by writer Alan Moore, a self-proclaimed anarchist, and artist David Lloyd. Essentially it is one in a long series of dystopian dramas set in the near future (the late 1990s in the comic book series), this time in England. A nuclear war has destroyed much of the developed nations of the world but left England untouched, at least directly. In response to the war, a totalitarian government has come to power, styled after the Nazis, and has seized total control of the country. Much like Orwell’s 1984, omnipresent government surveillance observes the public, while a propaganda campaign continually feeds the citizens the usual “the government is on your side” messages, underscored by threats for thinking otherwise. Headed by “the Leader” who uses organizations called “Nose,” “Ear,” and “Mouth” as detection and communication conduits, and an information system called “Fate,” every aspect of an individual’s life is monitored and controlled.

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