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sharplittleteethIt all started with Death.
Neil Gaiman was writing The Sandman. In issue 8, we were introduced to the Sandman's sister, Death. She had black hair, black clothes, black Eye-of-Horus eyeliner, and a big silver ankh.
In other words, she looked like a goth chick. A sexy goth chick. And the fans loved her.
With good reason. She was a cool character. But what made her really cool was not her boots or her Egyptian accessories. It was her personality. Because where a lesser writer might have made her spooky or dark or ghoulish, Gaiman made her cheerful, friendly and kind. She was the archetypal perky goth.
She may have been the anthropomorhic personification of mortality, but she felt like the real goth girls I actually hung out with.
Sandman wrapped up. Vertigo spun off a new series called The Dreaming. I think the original idea was that it would have a rotating roster of writers. But eventually, it settled on just one: Caitlin Kiernan.
Kiernan was a friend of Poppy Z. Brite. She was a goth. And she was the first to convince me that goths shouldn't be allowed to write goths.
Case in point: she introduced a character who was a goth, cross-dressing serial killer.
A goth. Cross-dressing. Serial killer.
Kieran went on to write a miniseries called The Girl Who Would Be Death. The title character was this beautiful, bisexual, blonde goth-bitch who owned the coolest goth club in New Orleans. There was even a cameo from the cross-dressing serial killer.
At least the artwork was really nice.
And now Vertigo are at it again. They have new series out, called The Witching. This comic features another blonde, beautiful, bisexual goth girl. It also features a second goth chick, this one a cybergrrl with a rock star boyfriend.
Uh-huh.
I have no idea of the The Witching writer is a goth. But I do know this: black eyeliner and some tribal tattoos do not a rounded and interesting character make. I happen to know several goths, and they have these things called "personalites". They are not just walking cliches in nice boots.
I'm giving The Witching one more issue to show some spark of life. And if it fails, then I'm just giving them away.
Neil Gaiman was writing The Sandman. In issue 8, we were introduced to the Sandman's sister, Death. She had black hair, black clothes, black Eye-of-Horus eyeliner, and a big silver ankh.
In other words, she looked like a goth chick. A sexy goth chick. And the fans loved her.
With good reason. She was a cool character. But what made her really cool was not her boots or her Egyptian accessories. It was her personality. Because where a lesser writer might have made her spooky or dark or ghoulish, Gaiman made her cheerful, friendly and kind. She was the archetypal perky goth.
She may have been the anthropomorhic personification of mortality, but she felt like the real goth girls I actually hung out with.
Sandman wrapped up. Vertigo spun off a new series called The Dreaming. I think the original idea was that it would have a rotating roster of writers. But eventually, it settled on just one: Caitlin Kiernan.
Kiernan was a friend of Poppy Z. Brite. She was a goth. And she was the first to convince me that goths shouldn't be allowed to write goths.
Case in point: she introduced a character who was a goth, cross-dressing serial killer.
A goth. Cross-dressing. Serial killer.
Kieran went on to write a miniseries called The Girl Who Would Be Death. The title character was this beautiful, bisexual, blonde goth-bitch who owned the coolest goth club in New Orleans. There was even a cameo from the cross-dressing serial killer.
At least the artwork was really nice.
And now Vertigo are at it again. They have new series out, called The Witching. This comic features another blonde, beautiful, bisexual goth girl. It also features a second goth chick, this one a cybergrrl with a rock star boyfriend.
Uh-huh.
I have no idea of the The Witching writer is a goth. But I do know this: black eyeliner and some tribal tattoos do not a rounded and interesting character make. I happen to know several goths, and they have these things called "personalites". They are not just walking cliches in nice boots.
I'm giving The Witching one more issue to show some spark of life. And if it fails, then I'm just giving them away.
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a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 06:52 pm (UTC)http://www.thexaxis.com/misc/witching1.htm
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 06:55 pm (UTC)I think Gloom Cookie's gone off the rails, too. Sadly. :-(
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 07:11 pm (UTC)I wasn't really a big fan of gloom cookie from the start, but I've only read the first 2 collected volumes.
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 07:12 pm (UTC)It's up to issue 20 now, and has its third or 4th artist. *le sigh*
It's a tad... off. I hope it picks up again.
I like Autumn. More of her, please.
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 07:28 pm (UTC)Autumn is ace, Tommy Kovic has a LJ you can tell him it's cool ;]
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 08:04 pm (UTC):-)
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 07:47 pm (UTC)No, not really.
But the first issue has a nice cover.
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 08:05 pm (UTC)I liked Serenity Rose, too. Cutesy gawth chick.
Re: a review of issue one
Date: 2004-08-24 08:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-24 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-24 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-24 08:11 pm (UTC)(you put my films in?)
well said.
Date: 2004-08-24 09:06 pm (UTC)> allowed to write goths.
i'm nodding in agreement right now. poppy b and a few others really put me off the idea of goths writing about them and their own.. which is not to say that it couldn't be done well - i guess it just requires a writer of decent caliber, rather than someone who just wants to pen trashy shock/sleaze yarns.
i find it sad that people who ostensibly identify with goth culture can't find words to portray it with a bit more subtlty, dignity, humanity and insight.. at any rate, great post. -rZ0
Re: well said.
Date: 2004-08-24 09:36 pm (UTC)Re: well said.
Date: 2004-08-25 06:48 am (UTC)Re: well said.
Date: 2004-08-25 04:18 pm (UTC)Re: well said.
Date: 2004-08-29 06:51 pm (UTC)Ill be dissapointed if his story isnt that now :P
that's a good start, but..
Date: 2004-08-27 12:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 04:10 pm (UTC)i did like the way Storm Constantine handled it in 'Stalking Tender Prey' where, with maybe one exception, the fact that some of the characters were or hung out with goths was almost not worth mentioning.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 04:55 am (UTC)Ever so slightly off-topic, but one of the things that always made me loath Poopy Brite (she's like Rainbow Brite, only daaarker) was that I always got the feeling she was way too much of a fan of goths. Basically, of me and my friends. Maybe she was writing 'for' us, and maybe she was trying to sort of write about us, but I always got the feeling she just really wanted to *be* us. And reading blathering fan fiction about yourself is basically about as much fun as being stuck in Gown of Thorns while some fucking awful 17-year-old tells you how Gothic she is, and how cool she thinks goths are. Like, totally.
Great post, by the way.:)
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 07:47 pm (UTC)PZB was my first experience of actually hearing the author masturbate as I read. I class her as borderline - she writes well enough to kinda get away with it. Keirnan would occasionally do something interesting, and I'd get my hopes up, only to have them dashed again.
And while I understand exactly what you're saying, and know this is not what you meant:
You're sooo goth PZB writes fanfic about you!
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 07:53 am (UTC)Hey, I'm so goth comic store guys talk about me behind my back as "That Girl Who Looks Like Death".
I hope they meant Gaiman's...
But no, Poppy would never write fanfic about me, because try as I might I will never be a slender, pale young man with milky white thighs and a taste for absinthe and touching other young men who happen to be my cloned vampiric brothers. My mouth tastes of wormwood too infrequently for Poopy's liking, and,well, I lack throbbong vampiric tackle.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-26 07:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 05:50 pm (UTC)I think the difference between Death and the other characters is that I was so completely in love with Death... no... the difference is that no matter how goth Death got, it would never overshadow the fact that she was Death and that's what - in some way - would drive the character.
These other characters - esp, PZB - are goths first and everything else second. It would be like meeting someone, asking them what they do and having the answer come back as "Oh, I'm a goth". Yeah, that's great, and? When characters near-explicitly state things about themselves it really serves to make them flat - in the same way that heaps of exposition makes a story flat. It would be like King Mob walking around talking about how fetish and S&M he is all the time. Or Spider Jerusalem telling us what a bad-ass journalist he is all the time... I think the difference is pretty clear.
Someone smart once said to me on this very topic that you need to make goth just something the characters are, not something they do. It's a small distinction, but it makes all the difference. They're artists or detectives or IT dudes or an anthropomorphic representation of Death and they just happen to be goth*. Anything else, I think, is trying too hard and that's what makes it lame.
* Artistic, PC literate, anthropomorphic gothic representation of Death P.I. is (C) and TM Beardie 2004
no subject
Date: 2004-08-25 07:49 pm (UTC)You get all the hot chicks.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-29 06:58 pm (UTC)why is goth in most comics/storys thier only persoanlity trait (cos "goth" that ain't one really)
and its the reason why I hate most goth comics, like gloom cookie.
ack boring goth works in a goth store bags out other goths yadda yadda, shallow and un interesting.
I liked spooked 'cos the chick just happens to be a goth.. it didn't have to be a goth chick , she was just drawn that way ;P
and death seems a little more rounded personality wise, plus she's perky not mopey boring bitchy stereotype,
and she's death .. that's cool :]