[Trade Winds] Vaistron tpb

Posted by Graig on May 30, 2008

(SLG Publishing)

Here in North America, we pretend ourselves to be a refined culture. We snobbishly poo-poo foul, “blue” humor and those that enjoy it, saying it’s cheap and easy because it is crude, offensive and “low-brow” (I know the wife and I spend our days chiding my stepson for his obsession with discussing bodily functions). But, in recent years, the edge of gross-out or offensive humor has been pushed to the teetering point where it’s threatening to topple over into art. Comedians like Sarah Silverman have been straddling that edge for some time, waiting for the audience to catch up and push it over. TV shows like South Park and Curb Your Enthusiasm (and the bulk of the Adult Swim lineup) are all about finding the line in the sand and stepping past it. Ever since the “hair gel” scene in There’s Something About Mary cinema has been flirting with more and more extreme (and extremity-based) humor, even spilling over into art-house cinema with fare like the Aristocrats. What it comes down to is the boundaries are broadened and it’s harder (and, actually, disappointing) to shock just for shock’s sake these days, it takes a real talent to make the shocking funny and the funny shocking.

Vaistron is, yes, extreme, and there are moments that are visually or verbally toying with bad taste, but what could have been a simple sight-gag gross-out is actually a farcical and highly enjoyable sci-fi romp in the vein of Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill’s Marshal Law. The story is set in the futuristic metropolis of Vaistron, which resembles visually the cities in, say, The Fifth Element or Blade Runner, which is to say highly industrialized, with towering skyscrapers and abundance of flying cars. The city itself is a hole, a pit of degradation, perversion, and idiocy. The future has not been kind.

The protagonist of the story is Gabriela Bukowsky, a “road killer” (the book’s colloquialism for a highway robber or bandit) who’s having a rough go. Her last haul got brought down by the Cripo (police) and she escaped with nothing but her life and what was left of her ride. Looking for a get rich quick scheme she decides to kidnap for ransom the current girlfriend of the city’s most prominent billionaire playboy. Of course, nothing goes right for Gabby as her subject is of less value than she thought, and her victim decides to turn the tables on her, setting a swarm of bounty hunters upon her while also indirectly forcing the police to inanely impose martial law on the city. Gabby’s got more than her fair share of tough-guy moments (she’d give Sin City’s Marv a run for his money), she’s one hell of a tough customer (literally) with a no-nonsense attitude and the biggest brass balls you’d ever find on a lady. A childhood trauma made her the way she is, but, in the context of the cesspool that is Vaistron, there’s really nothing all that wrong with her.

The opening scene, which is later revealed to be Gabby’s origin, is more than a little distasteful, which the book takes a while to recover from, but the spirit and tone, which is equal parts wild, absurd and hilarious, reaches equilibrium by the midway through the second chapter (I went from grossed-out to engrossed [sorry] over the span of the first 40 pages). The dynamic between Gabby and her porn obsessed droid, Rekoton intones a much deeper relationship than initially perceived and once introduced to their mad scientist doctor friend (a regular Dr. Strangelove), the rationale for their personalities are made abundantly clear. But as enjoyable the snide quips of the main characters are, it’s the surrounding environment of Vaistron that make the book even more fun. The religious Freeminder cult, the buffoonish Mayor and Cripo, the cannibalistic denizens of the the streets, and the bounty hunters (chief amongst them the clueless superhero-physiqued, unkillable bounty hunter named “The Rob”) all serve to bolster this bizarre world. And upon reading the Naked Gun-esque sequence featuring Grand Imperial Dragon of the Order of Baracus at the beginning of the third chapter I felt like parts of this book were written with me in mind (seeing a billboard for Kompressor in the background also filled me with glee).

Oh for sure it’s a bleak future environment if you’re really to think about it, but the rough-and-tumble ride which Gabby barely survives only increases in entertainment as it progresses, and will serve as more than enough distraction from any kind of serious thought. Written by Andrew Dabb, Vaistron is morbid, gross, twisted, outrageous, hysterical and exciting. It’s not something everyone will enjoy, but the fusion of Heavy Metal-style European sci-fi and the more bent Japanese and Korean anime (memories of the similarly extreme sci-fi action-comedy Aachi and Ssipak came flooding back while reading this) is something not routinely seen from North American comics.

If there’s a stumbling point for some, it might not be the content but Quebec artist Boussourrir’s line. It’s not the most pristine looking, but believe me he gets every iota of Dabb’s script across (and more, adding in a plethora of visual gags on billboards and in backgrounds that only a dementedly savvy mind could come up with). He’s got a highly stylized, cartoonish sensibility which isn’t the most attractive, reminding me highly of (again) Kevin O’Neill, but I think it works very well for this type of in-your-face action-comedy. When you’re setting is unseemly, and your characters filthy, and the situations somewhat repulsive, a clean, realistic art style is the last thing you want. Though there’s plenty of nudity and grotesquenesses, none of it is alluring or beyond cartoonishly repulsive thanks to Boussourir’s art, it’s just cringe-inducing funny.

Is Vaistron a tough sell? For a mass audience, probably. Fans of grindhouse cinema will no doubt be familiar with the rhythm of the book, which is so sharp in its presentation/exploitation of trash culture that it swings right around the “bad” territory and well into “good” again. Were it more European in look/feel, it might be seen as more refined, or were it more manga in visuals and/or dimensions, it might attract a larger swarm from bulge-eyed crowd. But like our continent, it really fits smack in between the the two comic cultures. It’s a product of a North American pop-culture as influenced by others, and I think the people that find their way to this book through honest reviews and recommendations will heartily enjoy it.

4 out of 5 Vikings