A Dear John letter to The Goon
Dear Eric,
By the time you read this letter, I’ll be gone. Yes, I’ve dropped you from my pull list. No longer will a copy of The Goon await me at the comic book store every few months when an issue comes out. If this seems sudden, it’s not. This has been coming for a while, a year or more. Now’s just finally the time for me to go my separate way.
I know what you’re thinking, it’s Satan’s Sodomy Baby, isn’t it? Well, yes, my decision came after reading the issue in question, but, no, that’s not all there is. Let me explain. It’s not me, it’s you. See, you’ve set yourself up nicely with this latest issue that, after the “battle with censorship” in the form of prudish southerners, you have an automatic dismissal of any and all criticism. Didn’t like the latest issue of The Goon? Must be a no-fun tight-ass. Didn’t laugh at that comic book? Shut up, you’re censoring me. Well, here’s the thing: I’m not a prude, and I still think this issue (and the last several preceding it) are crap.
To be honest, I had hopes for Satan’s Sodomy Baby. I’d been waiting these last months for you to come around, to return to those halcyon days (remember how happy we were?). And I chuckled a little at the warning on the cover, the lengthy label of people who were going to be offended, “Unless you have a sense of humor.” But here’s the thing: it’s not funny. I don’t say this because I can’t take someone poking fun at religion, or southerners, or sodomy. I say this because I love humor, and I hate to see its name taken in vain.
There is no humor in this issue, just as there hasn’t been much humor at all in The Goon of late. There are visual gags (a redneck is reading a book called “Oral Sex With The Retarded: The Dos and Don’ts” and a redneck having a devil explode from his ass) and ridiculous lines (accusations of turpentine sniffing and Frankie saying, “Hillbillies… always with the butt sex”). Butt there is no subtlety, no well crafted jokes, or even crafted ones. Instead, there is a demon baby lugging around a huge penis that shoots fire. The most complex gag is a priest who’s an obvious pedophile, and the only complexity arises from his repeated appearance. This is a book meant to be funny through sheer offensiveness, but, sadly, it manages neither.
Yes, we’ll always have that interview we did a couple years ago. But it only hurts to look back on that now, after all that’s happened. What was it? Did you spend too much time with your stupid friend Dwight, who seems to think a high quality laugh is a picture of him, nearly naked, stretched across the middle of a funnybook? Did you just have too much success too soon? Have you been too busy drawing covers for Marvel?
Don’t bother answering. Now, it’s just better we say goodbye.
Yeah! Suck an egg, Powell!
JCVD, I have to agree with you on this, I usually buy The Goon in trade, but I haven’t picked up the last two. I picked up this issue since they said it wouldn’t be collected, and I was vastly underwhelmed. I don’t see it as censorship to force Powell to be funny instead of just gross. But we are seeing this in a lot of creators in comics, as soon as they achieve a place where they don’t think they need Editors, they start making crappier comics (I’m looking at you Millar!).