30 Days of Fatale: Unhealthy Obsessions.
While almost every scene in Fatale #2 involved betrayal, Fatale #6 appears to focus on unhealthy obsessions -- I mean, besides spending an entire month writing daily essays about a single comic book series. The issue kicks off the second arc, "The Devil's Business," and it was released on June 27th, along with a five-page preview and the trade paperback collection of the first arc, "Book One: Death Chases Me."
The most obvious obsessions are about Josephine, perhaps not entirely because of her curse. The issue spends just two-thirds of a page on Alan Marshal; as Jo recounts in her journal, he was a recovering alcoholic whom Jo used to help Hank in his writing career, and he ended up losing his self-control, his job, and ultimately his life.
The obsession that the series spends the most time examining is that of Nicolas Lash. At this point in the present-day narrative, he had spent a year searching for Josephine after their one nearly deadly encounter. We don't learn much about his life outside of this obsession -- his career, his friends, or his interests -- and I believe the only flashback on his life will be in issue #8, where we see his nearly forgotten first encounter with Jo when he was about six years old.
The clearest hint at the life he's abandoning is on the first page of this issue: the poignant scene of voicemail messages heard but never answered.
Josephine has her own obsession, at least at this point in her life, in the flashback set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1978: she is trying to run from life itself. Where she had earlier found a temporary kind of safety as Walt Booker's kept woman, she is now seeking safety isolating herself from all men, becoming "the wrong Hollywood cliche" of a recluse.
And I notice that not every unhealthy obsession in this issue involves Jo's supernatural powers. The story in the 1970's begins with the struggling actor Miles trying to score some cocaine so he can get into a party of A-listers, where he would "stumble" on his one good movie being played on the late show and thereby revive his languishing career.
His plan was pathetic, and his night would have probably ended badly even if it hadn't taken a turn for the bloody and bizarre.
Fatale doesn't lecture, but all four cases of obsession's bitter fruit warns the reader about where his appetites and ambitions might lead.
The most obvious obsessions are about Josephine, perhaps not entirely because of her curse. The issue spends just two-thirds of a page on Alan Marshal; as Jo recounts in her journal, he was a recovering alcoholic whom Jo used to help Hank in his writing career, and he ended up losing his self-control, his job, and ultimately his life.
The obsession that the series spends the most time examining is that of Nicolas Lash. At this point in the present-day narrative, he had spent a year searching for Josephine after their one nearly deadly encounter. We don't learn much about his life outside of this obsession -- his career, his friends, or his interests -- and I believe the only flashback on his life will be in issue #8, where we see his nearly forgotten first encounter with Jo when he was about six years old.
The clearest hint at the life he's abandoning is on the first page of this issue: the poignant scene of voicemail messages heard but never answered.
Josephine has her own obsession, at least at this point in her life, in the flashback set in Los Angeles in the summer of 1978: she is trying to run from life itself. Where she had earlier found a temporary kind of safety as Walt Booker's kept woman, she is now seeking safety isolating herself from all men, becoming "the wrong Hollywood cliche" of a recluse.
And I notice that not every unhealthy obsession in this issue involves Jo's supernatural powers. The story in the 1970's begins with the struggling actor Miles trying to score some cocaine so he can get into a party of A-listers, where he would "stumble" on his one good movie being played on the late show and thereby revive his languishing career.
His plan was pathetic, and his night would have probably ended badly even if it hadn't taken a turn for the bloody and bizarre.
Fatale doesn't lecture, but all four cases of obsession's bitter fruit warns the reader about where his appetites and ambitions might lead.
Labels: Fatale, thirty days
posted by Bubba at 10:10 PM
2 Comments:
You keep reminding me just how good this book is and how sad I am that it's ending. really going to miss Jo.
It's a nice touch to read the complete series again which reminds me... I didn't like Criminal. ... I know I'm the only one! Now I think I'll read it again.
I'm looking forward to The Fade Out and hope Fatale is released as a hardback oversized collected edition one day.
I Love your blog, it's superb!
Thanks, Andy: that's very much appreciated!
If you like Fatale, you should definitely give Criminal another shot. If you jumped ship prior to "Bad Night" and "The Last of the Innocent," you missed out on some very twisted crime stories.
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