Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye

Review- Seaguy: The Slaves Of Mickey Eye #1

T: Ok- this is going to be a conversational review of Grant Morrison’s "Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye #1(Vertigo)" (participants: Julian and T)

T: 5 years ago, Grant Morrison released the 3 issue miniseries Seaguy, to middling sales and middling reviews. That it took half a decade (and a purported bit of blackmail regarding DC's ‘52’) to release the second arc of Morrison's planned trilogy is a testament to the challenges he faced. While some of the criticisms of Seaguy were well founded, both of us in this conversation are glad it's back.

T: “Seaguy: Slaves of Mickey Eye” begins with a full page splash of our hero looking into a decaying artificial world, in a verbal lament ("i feel terrible"). Seaguy is back on his boat with a new animal companion and the world, despite all that happened in the first series, has not changed all that much (except for some encroaching urban-amusement park sprawl).

Morrison quickly and summarily reintroduces his cast of characters from the first arc, even a few who had seemed to meet their ends there. Other characters are new additions, perhaps most prominently Prof. Silvan Niltoid, the man with the rainbow coming out of his head. Seaguy's trials take him to the "Nod Cholmondley Home For the Bewildered" where we see, as in the first series, that this is a world which does not know how to deal with madness, and is indeed quite phobic of it.

In the end Seaguy finds the next chapter of his story just beginning- the preceding pages having been a sort of slumbering dream from which he may just be waking up. Oh, and now there are four of him.

Julian: Of course, this being Morrison we are invited to question our conception of just who is mad.

T: Right. One of the most notable differences between this series and the last is that Cameron's Stewarts art style has changed dramatically, from a more fully, softly, rendered world to a more heavy, cartoonish one. And of note here is the fact that it felt like such a seamless transition. It wasn’t until i compared pages side by side that I realized just how big a change he'd made. Good stuff.

Julian: The transition was much more abrupt than I first imagined, I agree. I think the first correction that I need to make, though, is that I'm not just glad that Seaguy is back. I think ecstatic would be more appropriate. After his ultimately disappointing run on Batman and Final Crisis, it is a joy to see Morrison return to form with a competent artist.

T: It is funny, because in its initial run Morrison had called Seaguy his antidote to all the dark-gritty-somber heroes out there. So after all the damage he did during Final Crisis and the rest, its almost as if Morrison needed self-therapy or something. And this sunshiny spirit also seems evident in his Batman & Robin run.

Julian: I thought he got that out of his system with The Invisibles. But yeah, I do think there's an element of that in Seaguy.

T: Well, he's having fun here, and his ideograms and references aren't nearly as entrenched as those in Seven Soldiers or any of the other major-universe work he's done. He's got a blank canvas here.

Julian: Certainly, and that really is when he's at his best. Still though, I think this is a very menacing story. I think in some ways, Cameron Stewart's more cartoonish art is almost more unnerving than it is evocative of, say, childhood nostalgia, and that has as much to do with Morrison's writing as it does with Stewart's considerable skills.

T: Oh it is- I’m only referring to the way the hero reacts to the world he inhabits. I know this is supposed to be the "teenage/young adult leg" of the journey to adulthood, and I suppose I’m thinking back to the first series which gave the 'childhood' perspective. However, it does still seem that Morrison has cast Seaguy as a hero with a heart. A guy who'll overcome the odds even if it’s only through delusional means…

…Y’know what i just noticed? for all the marked stylistic differences between the first series and the current one, there's one character whose model hasn’t really changed: Death, though he does seem a bit more bleached in the bones now.

Julian: Death's role in the series has been something I've gone back and forth on. At some times he seems very connected to Mickey Eye; I mean, his eyes for one thing, and the phrase "When you live, when you die... here comes Mickey Eye!" both seem to indicate a connection to me. At other times, I'm not so sure.

T: I think what I get from the first series is that death isn't the real villain here. As Death states during his pseudo-chess match with Seaguy: "the rules seem so arbitrary!" Death is more befuddled than anything. And as Seaguy mentions to his sidekick Chubby, Death is "color blind and can’t tell black from white", but these are two different issues of course, as black should be easily discernible from white, even to the colorblind. Note that Seaguy plays with death and does not complain- and he wins. Chubby threatens death and is immediately threatened in return

Julian: Those are very good points.

T: And in this new issue we see unequivocally that Death is just as subject to the militant force of Mickey Eye as any other character. I think what's going on in Seaguy's world is a bit of the "things far worse than death" angle. And I think a lot of it is a result of the substance XOO and it's widespread use in the world.

Julian: I was just going to say we should talk about XOO.

T: This is one thing that felt like a bit of the letdown. The end of the first series seemed to indicate dwindling supplies of XOO, possibly gone for good- and that indicated a real, if hollow, change in the world. but now it seems to be in full production once again. XOO, to me, is Morrison once again cribbing from Philip K Dick. This is his UBIK, and it’s an edible variety. It represents a fascistic world’s lust for the new, and how this lust overpowers and replaces the actual qualities of the things it is supposed to represent. Everything will always be new, nothing will ever die, but we will never remember anything but a hallucinatory present.

Julian: But I don't think its ever referred to as XOO in this issue. It's 1/2 an Animal on a Stick now.

T: Good point, but it still seemed like the actual substance/life form itself had been liberated in the first arc. Of course, it’s also the bubble gum the professor refers to as one half of what Mickey Eye created the world out of (the other element being Flame)

Julian: Oh definitely. "Am-Dek-Gum. GIDT". I think the change in name reinforces this idea of fascistic lust for the new. A constant hollow change in window dressing overshadowing the underlying issues. XOO is always a subjugated agent of control, constantly being renamed but never really replaced.

T: do you want to talk about that moment you noticed?

Julian: Yeah, all right. The moment that really struck the deepest chord with me in this issue was the scene where Seaguy asks Death where Chubby is, and Death replies that "he's right behind you". Seaguy just looks utterly disappointed and replies asking "You really think I'm gonna fall for that?". But of course Chubby is right behind him, suddenly for an instant; and for some reason there seemed an implication to me that if Seaguy did turn around Chubby wouldn't be there anymore.

T: I like when comics can do that: give multiple readings. Right. I mean I thought that too- it was an odd expression. Within a page I figured it was just him being xoo-addled and depressed, but I like that it was 'there', a prescience. I didn't go so far to think about Chubby not being there if he'd turned around, that's really cool.

Julian: I think it's not just that moment, but a very prevailing theme throughout the entire issue. With Chubby, always in the background, and partially obscured. Never in the line of sight of Seaguy, yet always plain as day for the reader. A lot of Seaguy is asking epistemological questions of the variety that fuel the most paranoid and the most fantastic of conspiracy theories. I think that Chubby's role in this issue exemplifies that.

T: The world being replaced, again and again, just outside of your peripheral vision. And yes- regarding conspiracies, I think one thing I noted while rereading the first series was the way that comics, and other mediums, attempt to pin down the ineffable as a tangible series of events. Specifically when chubby looks into the sewer and sees the Mickey Eye agents stuffing people into sacks in the sewer, this is a moment we've seen in a variety of forms in variety of different stories; comics, movies, theatre, books. These things never really happen in our lives, but they stand, I think , for those moments of clarity, when we see through the veils with which we're accustomed.

Julian: Also a nice a reference to the underground tunnels at Disney World. In fact, I think that might be the best metaphor for Seaguy. It's growing up and realizing that Disney World is a facade for brick buildings and fast food chains. Only taken one step further, because here, Disney World is reality. And knowing Walt Disney and his company, the allegory isn't entirely unwarranted.

T: Another metaphor is the role XOO plays as a subjugated party to the proceedings, but not one without its own defenses. Note the two catastrophic counterattacks on the XOO freighters, and the failure of even Seaguy and Chubby to maintain a rapport with the bit of xoo they'd been helping escape; "it’s not the xoo we knew".

Julian: I want to go back to what you said about putting the ineffable in concrete terms. Because I was just reminded of the revelation of Chubby, and the scientists pulling a hear no/see no/speak no evil. With the one of them crying out to himself "There's nothing there! If there was you could prove it!" In the midst of Bedlam. As a side, would you say it's reaching to say that Nod Cholmondley is a play on Noam Chomsky?

T: The one thing I know about it is how to pronounce it. Years ago I was researching names for a story I was writing, and I know that its pronounced "chumley". The anecdote goes: An English gentleman meeting the Earl of Cholmondeley one day coming out of his own house, and not being acquainted with him, asked him if Lord Chol-mond-e-ley (pronouncing each syllable distinctly) was at home. "No," replied the peer, without hesitation, "nor any of his pe-o-ple." Chumley,chums? Nod chums? Sleeping chums? The big sleep? This*is* where chubby finally reapears.

Julian: That's an interesting thought. May be a bit of a stretch.

T: But I like Noam Chomskey too, and that's probably got more legs. Has Morrison ever referenced him before?

Julian: I don't know that he has. It just struck me that psychology plays a major role in this series; and Chomsky is the epitome of a functionalist. Then again, that might be giving Morrison too much credit.

T: I kind of hope you're right.

Julian: Arkham Asylum was supposed to be about psychology, but I never saw anything in there to make me think Morrison knew jack of what he was talking about.

T: yeh....sigh.

Julian: To be fair, though. Morrison has matured since that book, and Seaguy is definitely evidence of this. Morrison has said that he wants this to be his Watchmen, and given that we both really just scratched the surface of what there is to talk about this series, it is going to be a joy to really get deeper into this book in the coming months; and that's really a special thing for a monthly comic even if it's a limited series.