Sorry I’ve been away for so long.
Some unavoidable stuff happened. Life altering. Perception changing. I’m not ready to tell that whole story publicly yet. I’m not sure if I ever will. But you’ll probably notice that the person writing this now is not quite the same as what I’ve been for the past while. Stranger, maybe. If that’s even possible. Nearly dying (again) will do that to you. I won’t bog this down in that, but I will use it as a launching pad.
I wanted to come back and share something that matters deeply to me. A comic that’s one of my absolute favourites, probably my most favourite Grant Morrison stories, and one that I feel encapsulates how I view joy and wonder. Especially the joy that I find in the sheer wonder of imagination. Something nice and light and uplifting to come back to, right?
As I cracked the book open again, and started reading, I realized something. The framing device for the jump off into flights of fantasy? Hypoglycemic shock. My subconscious was apparently messing with me.
My reaction, “Oh, fuck.”
“It must be great to spend all day in a world of your own.”
On its surface, Joe the Barbarian from Morrison, Sean Murphy, Dave Stewart, and Todd Klein is quite simple. It’s the story of a kid who loses track of time, doesn’t have his candy with him, and goes into hypoglycemic shock. In doing so, he begins hallucinating a fantastical world populated by his pet rat as a sword-wielding warrior and an army comprised of his toys. It’s very sweet and straightforward for a Morrison-penned tale.
Under the hood, though, it’s something deeper. It taps into that idea of wonder and imagination. Of Morrison’s running themes of the blur between reality, meta-fiction, and beyond. And of the secret world that each of us holds inside, made up of all of the little things that are core to our identities. Like stand-ins for Transformers or Batman and Superman. Or the lingering spectre of a deceased father. An idealized version of your mother. People around you cast into the roles of the fantasy, straight out of the Wizard of Oz playbook.
What’s interesting is that the story doesn’t belabour any of this or explain it. It just carries along as both a standard fantasy quest and a kid trying to get some sugary carbonated beverage and turn the breaker back on. That it doesn’t lean in to typical romance parallels or a grand understanding of the real world bully (as a kind of fish out of water bumbling hero) is restrained. It leaves the reader the opportunity to discover for themselves what many of these things possibly mean.
“I’m just trying to get to the kitchen.”
Structurally, Joe the Barbarian is precisely measured. Between Morrison’s dialogue and Sean Murphy’s meticulous pacing. The layout of Joe’s house works to both ground the reader in the reality of the architecture and to project it on to the fantasy of the Iron Kingdom. Of how a faucet left on in the real world bathroom becomes a waterfall and a deluge in the fantasy.
Murphy’s art here is gorgeous. He has a style that feels informed by Walter Simonson and John Paul Leon, a little scratchier than either. It works both for the gravity of the real world and the dark fantasy of the Iron Kingdom. It becomes very profound when the villain is revealed. The designs for the animals and action figures brought in to the fantasy world are perfect. Jack’s warrior rat design is particularly great and there’s a nice callback to WE3 in the eventual dog appearance. I’m not sure if that latter one was intentional.
Dave Stewart’s colours do a lot to set the mood. The artwork is very dark, very oppressive, but Stewart’s colours never make it feel murky. There are still spots of light in the darkness. The voices of the characters bathed in Todd Klein’s distinctive approach to lettering. The individualized word balloons for the sorcerers and the ultimate good and evil in the fantasy world carry a lot.
“You don’t have to believe any of this.”
Thematically, Joe the Barbarian by Morrison, Murphy, Stewart, and Klein occupies the same space as something like The Filth and Annihilator, but approaches it from a different angle. It isn’t just about the blurring of meta-fictional boundaries, of realities bleeding into our own, it’s a defence mechanism of a mind trying to protect itself through fable working in real time. It’s much more vulnerable and heartfelt. And one of the reasons why it spoke to me so much when it came out. It takes that childlike wonder of the inner world and gives it shape.
We carry whole worlds inside ourselves and it’s time to learn how to share them. Listen.
Classic Comic Compendium: JOE THE BARBARIAN
Joe the Barbarian
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Sean Murphy
Colourist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Todd Klein
Publisher: DC Comics – Vertigo
Release Date: February 27 – May 22 2012
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