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July 19, 2006

Paul Pope's Thirsty Water

REVIEW
Paul Pope's "Heavy Liquid"
DC COMICS

Heavy Liquid is Paul Pope's 2001 collection of the Vertigo Comics serial. Counting at 240 pages, it is a long story which reminds me of both Pope's 100% collection, and the more recent Batman Year 100 series. All three of these tales seem to exist in the same universe of paranoia and governmental malfeasance.

HEAVY LIQUID

Besides being the title, heavy liquid is also the name of some sort of metallic drug that protagonist "S" has been both using and is trying to sell off to an eccentric and wealthy art collector who wants to have it sculpted into something for his private collection. An extremely rare substance, the material is also sought by a criminal gang from whom Luis, a friend of "S" (Luis is now deceased) had stolen it; thus "S" is running for his life with the stuff in tow.

Pope's artwork conveys the tale readily with the written text. The city is a dark mass of inky lines and blobs, detailed with rapid brush-strokes that announce in every panel that Pope wants the reader to feel the place, not admire any architecturally perfect rendering of a city. The people are drawn similarly, with a Jack Kirbyesque pizzazz to the violence, and a lot of humor, however dark the storyline.

Set into the future, Pope projects a tense world that has heavy-handed governmental control, annoying (and sometimes deadly) violation of individuality, and the cynical and depressed atmosphere of a people without direction, obsessed with themselves and neglectful of all others.

At times the tale seems like a parable about drug-addiction, with "S" giving a travelogue of the tired ways people try to keep themselves amused and interested in a life that is crowded with stimulation and simulation, hence this monologue as "S" wonders through a rainy Paris where he is seeking his ex-lover Rodan (who left "S" because of his obsession with the 'blackmilk' made from heavy liquid):

"...life was replaced with a simulation."

"People going to see the Mona Lisa, not to look at it, but because its the Mona Lisa."

"Then they quit going to see it at all. They'd stitch it in on a screen."

"A picture of a picture on a screen."

"A knowing, tired nudge and wink saying, we've seen it all, it's all been done."

"Don't try anything new. We've used up 'new'."

But it is "S" who is the most tired, and obsessed of the characters in this tale. "S" acknowledges that while all that he cared about at one time was his love for Rodan (who left him over his use - - or abuse - - of heavy liquid), now that is all "S" cares about. Though the tale seems modeled on the breakdown in life that surrounds the typical crack-addict who is destroying himself, the analogy is incomplete because there is something much more to heavy liquid in Pope's tale.

Using heavy liquid is "...like looking through 15 pieces of a broken mirror all at once" states "S", and toward the end of the book, it is clear that for "S" that is all there is for him in his life, a quasi-research project into heavy liquid coupled with the blind-addicts love for the thing that has pushed everything else out of focus.

Fleeing through Europe, "S" is simultaneously wanted by the criminals who originally had the stuff and a government agent who "S" calls 'Julie' who traps "S" aboard a train traveling into Prague.

Julie reveals that heavy liquid is from a meteor, made up of a substance not from earth, with a bizarre DNA similarity to the double-helix, which is the human molecular structure. Julie uses threats to demand that "S" cooperate in the governments efforts to capture the stuff, and "S", a former agent himself, is entirely unmoved, knowing that besides trying to get the heavy liquid, this future government also demands access to individual secrets for its own sake.

Forced into a position in which he must sell-out Rodan and other friends in order to get the "immunity" from prosecution offered by Julie, Pope draws a panel prominently featuring one of "S's" boots, and in the next panel asks:

"...who told us we gotta grind ourselves down 'til there's nothing left?"

Which reminds me of George Orwell's totalitarian novel 1984 "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

But this nightmare scenario is not true to the core of Pope's book. The threatening forces that come against "S" - - such as the somewhat comical criminals and the agent Julie - - are outfoxed by "S" at every turn. And quite unlike Orwell's 1984, Heavy Liquid ends on a point hinted at early, yet unexpected (at least for me) that is decidedly upbeat (unless one imagines it is all a psychotic phantasy brought on through the addiction of the main character.)

Pope's artwork in Heavy Liquid is a beautifully inked set of pictures of a place and time imagined in the future, where drugs are just one escape from nihilism. Pope's writing is weighted toward characterization, though these characters seem to have no past and the future for them is just as open-ended.

DC Comics has a page about the book here.