"Polyglot & Spleen" #1
© N/A
Authors: Marc Moorash, Heather Stanley
Publisher: Seraphemera Books
Price: $3.99
"Polygot & Spleen" #1
By: Kurt AmackerReview Date: Friday, February 02, 2007
Polygot & Spleen presents a character modeled after Marc Moorash, the writer, as he travels a fluid, ever-changing dream journey through a Gothic fairy tale. The book opens with Polygot’s arrival at a castle for a Solstice Festival. He returns to a kingdom he willfully left to avoid scandal many years before, but returns only at the behest of the king. He glimpses a comely young maiden wearing a bat necklace – Spleen, modeled after artist Heather Stanley. He watches her wander into a garden maze. He follows, but enters a dream world with settings ranging from the contemporary – a birthday party – to the historical – London, during the Jack the Ripper murders, all in pursuit of the mysterious woman wearing a bat. By the end, the dreamscape proves more real than the reader might initially have guessed.
Polygot & Spleen undertakes an unenviable task. Moorash and Stanley seek to convey the mood of the Goth scene. In fact, they want to tell the reader what it feels like to be Goth (if you were interested). But, it hardly stands as a testament to the glories of Bauhaus and Tim Burton. It doesn’t wallow in self-pitying tirades about heckling endured at school, either. It feels more like romantic poetry than a teenage journal entry – an attempt to convey the aesthetic mood that drives people to the scene. In that regard, Ploygot & Spleen stands as an unapologetic, poetic celebration of the Goth aesthetic. In fact, Moorash writes the entire narrative in verse. For the most part, his poetry vividly illustrates Stanley’s stark, appealingly simple black and white art. Occasionally, his wordplay stumbles or wanders too far down a path before recovering. Those few missteps stand as the book’s only real flaw. However, I admire his ambition in conveying a mature outlook on the Gothic – one welcome in the face of so many dark comics featuring corseted girls named Little Mopey or whatever.
I refuse to climb on a high horse and say that if you only read superhero comics, you “just won’t get this,” or anything pretentious like that. However, Polygot & Spleen provides anything but a straight narrative. It wanders and lingers and indulges in the fanciful and the strange. It almost reminds me of David Lynch’s film Eraserhead, but much more pleasant and without the annoying baby. It won’t suit everyone, but those of darker tastes will enjoy it.
Polygot & Spleen #1 is available from Seraphemera Books’ website.
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