Too cool to live, too hip to read?

So I’ve decided to reread Kid Eternity. Both the Grant Morrison miniseries and the follow-up Vertigo series by Ann Nocenti and Sean Phillips.

The Morrison miniseries holds up pretty well. The first half of the first issue (I have a feeling it was originally intended to be a six issue miniseries, because each issue has two chapters, split exactly evenly. Did DC lack faith in the mini?) was kind of a confused jumble. Things don’t start shaping up until the second half of the first issue. But as a whole, the series comes together and is still well worth reading. And Duncan Fegredo’s art is beautiful, though sometimes a little too dark for its own good.

I have good memories of the ongoing series from when it was originally released. One of the first wave of original ongoing Vertigo titles, along with the Black Orchid series, if memory serves.

My reread was not pleasant. The art is still very good. I like Sean Phillips style, though at some points it seems rushed. But Ann Nocenti's writing… The first issue's story is interesting, though it could have served a little better as an introduction. The series was released two years after the miniseries and that mini never exactly set the world on fire. Still, the storyline was interesting. There were lots of likeable bits and characters, gossipy clergy and philosophical hobos.

But oh goodness, friends and neighbors. There was this all-pervading layer of hipness laid over the top that wasn’t just cheesy, it distracted from the book. I could practically feel Ann’s elbow in my ribs, pointing out how 'edgy' and with it the book was. The characters are so hip they become unrealistic in their actions. And they aren’t as likeable as they should be. I was rooting for Dog’s painful death within a page of his introduction.

Honestly, the series was terrible. It rambles on with no clear goal,. That doesn't have be bad. I enjoy a good day in the surreal life series, like Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man became. But Kid Eternity reads like Ann pulled a bunch of philosophical quotes and then used William Burroughs cut-up technique to write the comic. None of the posturing felt natural to the story that was (in theory) being told. Instead it was so intrusive, it wrecked the series. Threads are started, meander and never go anywhere. Characters just disappear (Dog was maddening, but he then vanishes without explanation). The series noodles on like this for the first eight or nine issues (what would be over half of the series run).

Somewhere around issue 10, the series finds it's feet. There is actually a coherent tale being told. There are still philosophical discussions, but they don't overwhelm. But by then, the writing was on the wall. I wonder how the series would have fared had Ann written it this way from the beginning.