A study in masculine narrative: Preamble

I was wandering the aisles of the public library last week when a row of comics caught my eye. The sheer bulk of the collection suggested that the library staff had deemed it worth purchasing, or that there was a demand for it from library patrons.

I already had Washington Irving in hand, but out of curiosity I idly flipped through a random issue. The very first page showed two characters half-naked in bed together, and the dialogue indicated they had just had a one-night stand, which one party was regretting.

Now, perhaps I'm naïve, but I didn't realize comic book characters could get naked and have sex, much less in the public library.

"Shock shock horror horror shock shock horror!" — Space, "Female of the Species"

If I had been a comic strip character, there would have been a couple of thick exclamation points stretching above my head.

I flipped to the introduction. The series centered on a Hunter S. Thompson-like character who roamed a futuristic decaying city. I gathered the story involved an alien riot, and that subsequent storylines involved political corruption, journalism, and a sort of general hatred on the part of the protaganist.

It looked like there was meat on the bone, but what I really I wanted to know was how the writer got those characters in bed together.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow picked up a companion: Transmetropolitan. Strange bedfellows indeed.