Blood of the Virgin

[whitecomics]

I think any of us so inclined have now finished rereading Crickets so I'm curious to collect opinions on BotV--including my own--now, before the collection comes out (the cover looks nice!)

I've reread these issues so many times, so it was interesting that I only noticed on this read that the cartooning early on, #3 in particular, is a bit sloppy occasionally. Wonky hands, weird proportions, etc. At least compared to the cartooning in later issues which is impeccable. The lesson for me is that a well-paced, well-composed, well-constructed comic--which BotV absolutely is, from the first panels--can pull you along as a reader such that you don't stumble on or even notice imperfections in individual drawings.

I thought the ending was underwhelming. Maybe I'll let others chime in before saying more, but both when I read #8 by itself and after a full reread I couldn't help but suspect it might have been a bit rushed with the collection deadline impending. 

#4 might be my favorite as an individual issue, from that incredible 20 panels/page sequence to the weird yet somehow perfect back cover.

[daisyjaberi]

blood of the virgin is one of those stories I just look at the pictures and say to myself "ill get to reading this someday". I appreciate the inspiration of the time it took to create the books, and I enjoy the renderings of people and am always blown away. I have a hard time keeping my attention to reading, and the story coming out slowly made it less likely to hold my attention and remember where it's at, so i just take in the overall feelings of the books and drawings. It took me to finally pick up Clyde Fans collection at the library to read all the stories I've collected from Palookaville (I havent finished it- about halfway through reading but it feels like a meditation on capitalism and life and I love it)

[mikesheawright]

i think the whole thing is really special, i've ready the first 5 or 6 several times and find myself thinking about it a lot afterward. i was also kind of underwhelmed by the ending but i think it's going to make a lot of sense as sort of an epilogue for a full read-through. gonna do that soon, can comment more once i've read it all the way through once.

[junkflower]

I was very surprised by the 2nd to last chapter of the story, and half-expected that the sudden left turn would be explored more. Likewise I was very surprised by the sudden ending...

I wasn't super thrilled with the ending at first but I try to think of it like- the first large junk of the story is about a solipsistic, very self-involved guy who doesn't notice much outside his dreams and career. The second to last chapter shows us how these secondary characters continue to inhabit fully realized lives outside of him, despite his blindness to them (and again he arrives into this section with only his own desires in mind).. and then the abrupt ending fits because... y'know, shit just ends- especially in the realm of creativity and idealism.

Being in my early-mid 30s, it feels very germane to the thuds and crashes of adulthood

[mikesheawright]

Love all that, I think the ending also supports the theme of all this insane stress and hard work that goes into making something that's just ultimately going to enter into a sea of other things similar to it, discovered by few and beloved by even fewer. With that in mind still not sure if there's a thesis in there, I thought at first it could be a joy is in the work not in the output sort of thing but no one seems to be having any fun in any of these roles and that's kind of boring/obvious. But I do like the idea of creating a reading experience that mimics the trajectory of working on a thing, something that ends with crickets and not a bang.

[whitecomics]

Oct 31, 2022 23:41:06 GMT junkflower said:

I wasn't super thrilled with the ending at first but I try to think of it like- the first large junk of the story is about a solipsistic, very self-involved guy who doesn't notice much outside his dreams and career. The second to last chapter shows us how these secondary characters continue to inhabit fully realized lives outside of him, despite his blindness to them (and again he arrives into this section with only his own desires in mind).. and then the abrupt ending fits because... y'know, shit just ends- especially in the realm of creativity and idealism.

Being in my early-mid 30s, it feels very germane to the thuds and crashes of adulthood

That's one of the better, more convincing readings of the end I've seen. Makes me like it more. Heh, you could even say that the ending being unsatisfying is itself a reference to the movies Seymour loves, which also often don't cohere nicely...

I suppose the ending (by which, I should say, I mean the final two scenes in Crickets 8; I liked the Val scene that opened the issue more) felt a bit to me like two separate passes at an ending, both fitting fairly neatly into established categories: first, an ending where a character monologues at length and talks about, or around, the important themes of the work. Second, an ending that again attempts to underline the themes of the work but through metaphor and compelling visuals (it's a mansion, but it's empty and run down, get it??). So it's not as if I wanted a drawn out ending, I'm fine with the abruptness, but it did feel less complex and nuanced than I expected given the strengths of the work up to that point.

[dwlynch]

About a month ago I blathered on endlessly about this in a different forum. It was a very long post and by the end of writing it my whole experience with the book was elevated. The short version is this:

Issue 8, though brief, offers the perfect conclusion. The parable about the mice and the cat not only does a good job of encapsulating what we are to make of our journey with the character but it puts a finer point on the story's larger point about life. If it were delivered with less care or artistry it would have felt like hand holding but the way Harkham put it together felt like poetry. That could perhaps be my soft spot for cinema talking because the end really did feel like the conclusion of There Will Be Blood or Killing of a Chinese Bookie or something along those lines. I think when taken in view of the larger read (and I'm guessing this will be born out when reading the full collection) the two final scenes were a perfect ending.

[griffen]

Really enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts on this so far, so thanks! Wrote this last night while my 5 month old was napping but she woke up so I didn’t end up posting it. It’s a bit all over the place and sloppy and MUCH longer than I had in mind when I started but thought I would just post it anyway…

To be honest the first time through the final installment of Blood of the Virgin I enjoyed it but also felt a bit underwhelmed. It's short, especially compared to issue #7, reads faster than the other books and I found myself speeding through it quicker than normal, wanting to finally see the conclusion of the story and probably wasn’t expecting it to be an epilogue. So like some of you have stated the end felt a bit abrupt. I kept thinking about it a lot the following days and wanted to do a full reread. I am writing this on the other side of the reread and now I really think the last part is superlative.

Gonna go through this scene by scene with some thoughts I had but will say generally the abruptness I felt initially, was gone second go round. Like Mike said it’s pretty much an epilogue and upon rereading I don’t really feel there is much more to be done with Seymour after he self destructs, loses the movie and hits rock bottom in jail in Crickets #6. There is that lovely sequence at the end where he is asked about his phone call and he cycles through all the people he knows who are asleep in the dark and then the final two panels are Ida and Junior awake in daylight (technically tomorrow where they are) and then in #7 where he shows that he made a choice to show up for his family. Same goes for Ida who after her affair with Snoopy, in the end decides to go back to LA with Seymour.

So first scene in #8 we are at the barber shop. After a flurry of jokes the barber is rattling off, he tells his final one, which is only a joke to the reader, on top of everything else Seymour’s is going bald. This is the first of many times we will get a direct reference to a scene that has happened previously, in the first part of the story. On the first page of BotV we meet Seymour and learn he is going gray at 27 and he is not at all happy about it and seems just as upset upon finding out he is losing his hair. So at the end of our journey our protagonist is older and it’s the first time we get a hint that things have not gotten better for Seymour on the other side of his journey.

The second scene in the last issue finds Seymour with Val who tells him of the success of the film and offers him a payoff for the work he did on it. This feels like the only real choice made in the last part and brings closure to the movie thread that the story is structured around. Seymour turns down the offer, his pride not allowing him to take money for a film he doesn’t consider “his.” This story is filthy with extremely stubborn men, even in the interlude. Val can’t believe it and tries to get him to swallow his pride for the sake of his family. He refuses again. At almost every turn throughout BotV multiple characters essentially tell Seymour to consider his family and he almost never does. The consequences of his choice to refuse money seems to be addressed later in the first panel with Ida where she asks "When do we get the car back?" to which he replies “Back?” this is set to them walking around aimlessly in LA at night. More on that later. As a current resident of Los Angeles, the city without a car is brutal, and this fact is alluded to a few times in the story.

The other thing introduced on the first page of the first installment of BotV is Seymour's wife Ida and child, the former is introduced by way of interrupting Seymour’s fantasy (and most likely hand off session) he is having while in the shower. After talking about his aforementioned gray hair, they argue about whose turn it is to attend to their crying child, which he wins, sending Ida off to care for the child before he leaves her alone with Junior for the rest of the day. Mentioning all of this as I feel like Seymour’s family life with Ida and child hasn’t been discussed as much, however junkflower did speak to it broadly very well, as much as his creative life or job, which is certainly a large part of what the story is about but the relationship with Ida and junior seem just as important. (I’m a new father and the infant scenes and the lack of Junior in certain other scenes hit a lot harder upon reread).

Getting back to issue #8, the third scene with Myron Finkle was the thing that stood out as a bit perplexing the first time through, but reading it again in the context of the whole story it really clicked with me. First reason being this will be the second time in the story Seymour gets a meal at Canter’s Deli and is told what his future holds, the first time coming in (yet again) the first installment of the story where Val tells him, in what appears to be the exact same booth where he and Finkle are seated, that he and Ida will get a divorce but only after having a second child. Finkle another director who has had issues with Val, if we are counting now all three of the directors (third being Oswald) we meet in the story proper have been discarded by Val in some form or another, monologues and tells us of his own Hollywood past and Seymour’s Hollywood future in roughly 10 pages composed as, the bread and butter of almost every film now a days, a shot/reverse shot  set up with the “camera” moving in tighter and tighter until the, I thought very funny, punchline of the Birthday song followed by a Finkle wink. While this reads fast I feel like on the reread this choice really stands out, not as something tossed off but as something very purposeful. Throughout the series, including the interlude, there has been masterful cartooning and craft after masterful cartooning and craft from the aforementioned 20 grid film shoot that last for 11 pages, to the silent Budapest sequence, to the whole interlude which I think is just virtuosic, all unique from other parts of the book for the most part and employed to convey the story he is trying to tell, so when at the end he drops a very simple shot/reverse shot, I feel like it’s earned and an interesting choice that to me feels very in step with the ideas being expressed of Seymour doing the job he is told and being resigned to being just another Hollywood yes man. Making the protagonist an editor really does make you question and think about all the structural choices of the story.

The fourth scene with Ida, where again Harkham starts with a style, in stark contrast with the previous scene, that he hasn’t really employed at any other time in the story, large panels with heavy blacks and lines, almost abstracting the style of his other night scenes in the story, and make the shadows and darkness take over for the rest of the book. Sure when the metaphor is said out loud it can seem obvious but so can some of the other things in the book such as Seymour going to watch a b-horror film after his has been taken away, only to get interrupted by two people who sit in front of him and start to make out (super funny too because Seymour only has to move anywhere in the theater to not be interrupted by them, as Harkham does such a good job composing the sequence as to show us there are so many empty seats) when Ida is in another country, or the rotting ceiling above the couples bed that Ida notices, asks Seymour to address with the manager, but he forgets the spot altogether, only for it to rot so bad the a piece of it falls off and the metaphor literally hits him in the face. Another thing about this ending is it’s not without it's set up in the first installment (again) when Seymour and friends at a party are asked, by Seymour’s rival Oswald, if they have “checked out that French Festival?” who continues, “Well you got to go for the Antonioni films alone.” (which is funny as this is the first hint we get of who Oswald is, being cool and arty going to the French Festival then states it worth it to see the Italian films?) to which Seymour says "Give me a break what a phony!" Well hard not to see the last sequence of the book being something straight out of an Antonioni film, specifically La Notte (where one of the characters wanders into a fenced-off, abandoned building) or L'eclisse. Figures walking around a metaphorical landscape not facing each other throughout the scene and then finally connecting? The irony of this final scene with Seymour, being told in a style that Seymour has deemed phony seemed like one last nice subtle joke at his expense. Finally the last kiss calling back to the time Ida’s face was blank with eyes open, before shutting them in a grimace during a scene where she and Seymour finally have sex, right before she leaves him. It's also hard not to think back to another night scene at Snoopy's house after a very effortlessly intimate haircut, where Ida easily kisses Snoopy with none of the reservations she gives her husband.

Finally the hard cut to the double page spread ending the story where we see the titular film within the comic literally in the B-Movie slot on a theater marquee, which harkens back to the horror movie double feature Seymour attended. The theater probably inhabited by a few interested horror fans, a couple or two making out, someone sneaking a drink from a flask, one or two people dozing off in their seats all while the Blood of a Virgin, a film that is both Seymour’s film and not Seymour’s film at all, is projected on the screen.

Also dwlynch would love to read your longer post about the ending.

[owaddled]

Nov 2, 2022 19:56:20 GMT whitecomics said:

Second, an ending that again attempts to underline the themes of the work but through metaphor and compelling visuals (it's a mansion, but it's empty and run down, get it??). So it's not as if I wanted a drawn out ending, I'm fine with the abruptness, but it did feel less complex and nuanced than I expected given the strengths of the work up to that point.

Everyone has shared some really great observations in this thread. The one tiny thing I would like to add is: it's not just any mansion, it's the mansion of Joe, from Arizona who was our star in the Blood of the Virgin: Crickets Colour Special / story from Kramers Ergot 10.

Thinking about it now, with this context, it strengthens the impact of Seymour's choice to value his family (and dignity) over money. Joe's mansion stands as an extra brutal Ozymandias-y monument. We already knew from the Colour Special that his 'victory' left him a lonely, bitter man at the end of his life. In Crickets #8 we see that even Joe's sanctuary that was filled with memories of his pre-Hollywood life ends in ruins. 

I'm still wading my way through the Comic Books are Burning In Hell podcasts about the Crickets issues, but in case someone didn't read the TCJ best of 2022 list, I thought Joe McCulloch (of course) had a great reading of the final double page splash:

"Blood of the Virgin" from Crickets, Sammy Harkham (Commonwealth Comics Co. & Secret Headquarters): On one prominent page in these final chapters of Sammy Harkham's longest study of maybe-inspired people engaging in self-destruction, a theater marquee displays modified titles for auteur 'cult' horror films by Ted V. Mikels (The Corpse Grinders) and Andy Milligan (Torture Dungeon). Harkham's protagonist, Seymour, has been trying to make a horror film throughout the "Blood of the Virgin" serial, and this marquee might be read as a diverging path for him. Mikels leaned firmly into his cult reputation and became a beaming, beloved cliché of a virile no-nonsense genre filmmaker, while Milligan, embittered, remained doggedly on the margins of society, insistent upon himself until his death from AIDS complications. Perhaps Seymour could become like either of these men. Or perhaps he will stay in the middle, between these names, and find something else that is important. Such is the empty promise at the end of the process of making things, where you are left again with just yourself.

[junkflower]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone put it together that it's Joe's mansion from the Color Special... thanks for tying that together! Seriously though, goddamn!!

[owaddled]

So no one has to dig out their single issues







A question I have for other people is, how much do you think of Crickets #8 is meant to be literal? I did once have a notion that all of #8 was a kind of dream and that Seymour actually died at the end of #7. Though to undercut my own idea, Sammy did different borders for the dream sequence in #6. 

I can imagine in a movie version that the part where they tell the story of the cat with the bell would be voice over only with some ambient music that stops once Seymour sits down next to Ida. I do like how during the part where they tell the story you never see their faces to add a feeling that it might not be literally happening.

[mikesheawright]

whoa, i did not make this connection! finishing up the castree book, crickets full re-read is next on my list. thanks for this!!!

[whitecomics]

Yeah, wow, great catch. I'd noticed the Color Special is included in the French BotV book, thought that was an interesting choice (not good or bad, just worth contemplating since it affects one's reading to consider the Color Special part of the story (I also wonder where exactly in the book it appears)). But this definitely helps tie it all together.

[griffen]

Yes, great eyes!

I didn't notice it was Joe's mansion until I went back in mid December and looked at the issues because I got some original BotV pages from Harkham, with the end of the color special and the final sequence being things I asked about (didn't get either). Very much had a "wait... a... minute..." moment.

Turns out we are neighbors and he dropped off the pages I got at my house. I said I am really interested in where the interlude is going to be in the story but he didn't respond to that. We mostly talked about all the research he did on it, he read a bunch and talked to people involved in New World Pictures, he really wanted to know if Corman was in the same offices as the group of filmmakers or they had to go see him at another location as a status thing, what kind of equipment New World used and general stories from that era. 
I asked if John Ford was an inspiration for Joe, because of his stuntman to director path, and he said no it was actually based on Raoul Walsh and his insane life. Didn't put two and two together until after he left, that Walsh played John Wilkes Booth in Birth of a Nation just like Joe.

Can't wait for the book.

[BubblesZine]

Great point for sure.

I think it'll make more sense in the collected version to a first time reader too, the color special is in the collection.