Weird Romance: Cathy & Alex

Cathy's relationship with men can be described as being desperate, while also being unsatisfied seekers of perfection only to attract disasters, and being the inspiration for missing Newspaper Comic Collection titles.

And in the rare occasions where there were acceptable men, they were either too good for her, leading the lead character to back off out of fear that there might be something wrong with someone who'd want her as a companion, or snapped up by her friends later.

Early on, there was a kind accepting boyfriend, Emerson, who had all the qualities Cathy wanted in a man, but just not in his kind of man.  And he was quickly forgotten.

For the most part, her definitive man was Irving, an irrepressible clueless jerk who was somehow endearing despite his faults.  He would be the backdrop against all the other awful men Cathy would go out with, serving as a barometer gauge of awfulness.

But there was one instance where Cathy found a potential soul mate that would wind up being one of her longest lasting relationships over the course of a year.  It all started innocuously enough in January 31st of 1994 when she signed up for gym membership.

Cathy is described as being a lot of things, (overeater, overdoer, workaholic, shopaholic) but a Cougar isn't normally one of them.

The following isn't Alex-related, but I decided to include it for continuity's sake in showing Cathy's reaction later.

I don't have a date for this Sunday, but this seems like the appropriate place to put it.

To further present the divide between Cathy and Alex, Alex decided to go on a camping trip.

If there's one complaint about Alex, it's that compared to Irving, there wasn't as much argumentative drama.  Alex was simply too easygoing, and his childish immaturity was more a core character than a fault.  If anything, he seemed simply too good for Cathy.

Assault on Irving was something that was deserved, but the same level of violence aimed towards Alex lacked that same sense of reciprocity.  It seemed somehow... mean.

Then in an attempt to impress everyone involved, Cathy decided to undertake the laborous task of preparing Thanksgiving dinner all by herself.

Of course, when anybody ventures out into new territory, they have a tendency to fall back on the old patterns they're most familiar with.

Cathy's relationship with Alex while fraught, was still healthier than with Irving, and was said so in a Newspaper article I managed to find, back when going through physical microfiche archives was still possible.

At the beginning of February, we were treated to a teaser of what we could expect: the usual itinerary of anxiety of an approaching Valentine's Day and all the implied pressure it carries.

And then on February 14, 1995, a year after Cathy met Alex, without any fanfare foreshadowing or buildup, we were suddenly faced with this:

This isn't the last that Cathy and Alex would see each other, but this post is running long enough already, easily outpacing my Epic BC posts.  Maybe I'll post a followup sometime next year.

License Re-request: Epileptic 2

David B.'s seminal comic biography about his epileptic brother is one of the most seminal comic works ever seen, easily outpacing the likes of Persepolis and Maus.  His drawings have a grandiose dreamlike essence with a strong Mayan influence, giving a monstrous symbolic representation of the disease that took over his brother's life.  Paul Gravett writes more eloquently about the masterpiece than I ever could.

Yet people may be largely ignorant of the fact that there was a followup after the 6-volume epic ended.

I only knew about this because there were samples made available in the pamphlets during Free Comic Book Day in 2006.  However, I only flipped through the pages of the Fantagraphics sample (inappropriately titled Funny Book #2), since I wanted to make sure I'd get my money's worth, and didn't want to get something that would take up valuable space. 

I'm guessing hardly anybody saw these pages, either from being largely unimpressed by the interior, or the subject material not being to their taste.  Don't worry if you're missing anything - you're seeing the best that the issue has to offer.  And it was freely available back then, so I have no compuctions in sharing it again now.

This seminal footnote was from Babel, and was only a scant 32 pages, with the promise of more to come.  So far, only 2 of the 3 issues have been translated.  As such, there's too little material to justify collecting everything in one comprehensive book.  It doesn't even qualify as an add-on for the already oversized tour de force tome that is Epileptic.  Not to mention that some of the material retreads stuff that was already covered before, retelling it in a different manner, making the addition somewhat redundant.

BTW, there seems to be a translation error here, where the text says "my brother ran into one of Professor T.'s assistants", when it clearly shows his parents instead.  The latter seems more likely - Jean-Christophe hardly talks to anyone outside his dwindling circle he’s not intimately familiar with.

That would've been the end of it, but there was another preview in 2008 in another FCBD book, not in Funny Book, but I.G.N.A.T.Z. instead.

There's been a smattering of David B.'s other works translated into English, such as, Black Paths, Incidents in the Night, and The Littlest Pirate King, but none of these titles have really gripped my interest the same way that Epileptic does.  The only title that does is his adaption, Hâsib & the Queen of Serpents: a Tale of a Thousand and One Nights.

There were occasional forays in history and David B.'s dreams within the pages of Epileptic, but these segues however tangentially related still felt like part of the narrative.  When I read his other works, these elements don't mesh as seamlessly.  It's probably a mixture of history, violence and dream logic thrown together that works better for an adaptation than his other stories.

One fair criticism of Epileptic is that David B.'s sister makes her presence known, and then is completely neglected for the remainder of half the book.  A fault mentioned by his sibling.

I'm not entirely sure how a collection of just three(!) issues could be bound together.  It's something like how Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers was an expanded extra package never intended to be part of the narrative, just a special promotion for those who heavily invested in the property.  I don't really have a suggestion in the matter.  I just wanted to bring it up.

I greatly identify with the story, despite not being epileptic myself, seeing it as a cautionary tale for what could’ve been me.  If my parents hadn’t fought as long and hard as they did to overcome my deafness (and my Aspergers), I could’ve very well ended up like Jean-Christophe.

Despite all of David B.’s parent’s attempts to circumvent a cure for his brother’s condition, they never stopped trying, constantly moving from one to the next, never finding solace from any, as none worked for very long.  At a certain point, Jean-Christophe just gave up fighting, and became utterly dependent on his disease.  I still need help with basic living, but I can still contribute to family and society in my own special way.