Vertigo Quarterly: Black #1

It’s interesting that the color that comes loaded with the most meaning isn’t really a color at all. That’s only the first of many paradoxes about black. In theory, it’s the result of all the colors coming together at once, yet our instincts tell us that it’s an absence, something that reveals itself only when everything else disappears.

It’s fitting that the first two features out of the gate take each opposing view on the nature of black. Francisco Francavilla, true to his artistic self, unleashes the full horror of blackness in “The Dying of the Light”. While his blackness has a hint of sentience, in the feature’s outer space setting, it feels more like an unstoppable force of nature, a reminder that black is the universe at default, only briefly and narrowly interrupted by the rest of existence. The calamity that befalls the astronauts lasts only a few pages, but it’s that very suddenness that makes the disappearance of everything they knew—the stars, the moon, the Earth, their ship, themselves—all the more terrifying.

Gene Luen Yang chooses to take the more scientific view of black in “Super BlackOut,” a view that he tries to turn motivational, equating black being every color to also encompassing “[e]very possibility.” It’s an optimistic view; it may be the only view that helps you cope with blackness; but it also seems like a rather glib remark to make to someone in the throes of grief, as the spirit of Jaikon does to his despairing girlfriend. Jaikon’s eponymously named app also conflates one’s desire to make things disappear to turning them black, which isn’t the same thing at all, as Amanda’s attempted erasure of an odious blind date proves.

Ultimately, most people subscribe to black as something ominous, if not outright menacing. Both Jeff Lemire’s Sweet Tooth prequel and Steven T. Seagle’s “Fade” are more in line with the traditional view of black. In the former, blackness descends when Gus, who used to love star-gazing, betrays an innocent and afterward sees only a sky devoid of any kind of light at all. Given that his dad describes stars as “God’s light…watching over you,” it’s a sign of Gus’ lonely future. “Fade” offers an even bleaker vision, in which nature, history, love, and life all start and end in darkness

Thank God the rest of the issue offers more creative shades to black, just when you’re about to succumb to depression. “Night of the Black Stant,” by David Baille, is sci-fi pulp with a feminist spin, featuring a young warrior woman’s quest to end male oppression forever. A women studies class could have a field day with the story: how the all-female Ikaru’s rite of initiation is imposed by the Black Stant, revealed to be men in mechanized suits; how only those Ikaru who manage to recognize the Stant as their true enemies are chosen as the Stant’s childbearers; how the only way to break free of the cycle is to slay all the Stant, even at the cost of the Ikaru’s continued existence.

Other than as an epithet for the Stant, black doesn’t play much of a thematic role in the story, just as in “Black Heaven.” As befitting the author of the mind-boggling Bodies, Si Spencer offers next to no explanation as to the ritual the featured couple undergo together, one you deduce tests the sincerity of their love. Like “Night of the Black Stant,” there’s a lot of meaning packed into Spencer’s tale, but unlike its companion, the message of “Black Heaven” is more difficult to parse and perhaps more rewarding as a result. Only by letting go of their peers’ standards does our couple find a love that seemingly defies the judgment of heaven, but also leaves them the sole survivors of the ritual.

A couple stories take a more free association approach to black, definitely tying themselves to the theme but at radically different angles. Mary HK Choi’s “American Gothic” seems to be literally about just that—being (or trying to be) American Gothic—and winds up being a coming-of-age tale about defying stereotype by conformance. “Black Death in America” is a nonfiction standout in a league of fictional features, but besides genre, Tom King simply delivers an exceptionally effective lesson about the costs of war as exacerbated by racism. The contrast between Henry Johnson’s incredible act of valor and the degrading life he endures after is constant, drilling its injustice and tragedy with every passing year in every passing page.

And then there’s Fabio Moon’s final chapter to his little saga of a man closing up shop in in the big city to embark on a new venture. It’s sentimental, but brief and quite as disconnected from this issue as previous chapters were in their respective quarterlies.

There is not enough time nor space to go into detail about the superb art offered in this issue, but I will say that Vertigo has once again excelled in getting a nice mix of practiced veterans (Francavilla and Lemire) and original newcomers. The range of artistic style is especially admirable, from Ana Galvañ’s designer cartoons that make even the macabre seem cute; to Teddy H. Kristiansen’s dreamy watercolor vignettes; to the dramatic details in John Paul Leon’s charcoal renderings.

Some Musings:

– “…Because she’s your lobster!” I know that Friends reference. You can’t get that one past me, Choi.