Broken Frontier

Jones closes in on the thieves of the Hitler porn and spends a little time with a porn star, learning about life in the L.A. smut industry.

Warren Ellis is mostly responsible for keeping me interested in comics. There was a time when I read only one comic each month and it was Transmetropolitan. I was in high school and nursing a newfound penchant for curse words and belligerent cynicism. Desolation Jones reminds me of that time and I’m sure readers will see that there is more than a superficial resemblance between these two books. Desolation Jones goes one better than Transmetropolitan because the latter was science fiction. This book seems to be almost creative journalism as it shows characters talking interview-style about ‘reality’ porn; taking us into a world that does exist and presenting a startlingly engaging personal story of that world.

This is essentially what decompressed comics should do: make me not care that the plot is not advancing. When the plot does advance, it advances off-screen and still, I do not care. Ellis has spent the last two issues introducing us to tragic and affecting characters who not only draw us in and make us feel sorry or sad or happy we’re not them but allow us to view our main character, Jones, through different lenses. Jones’ care and attentiveness is juxtaposed brutally with his quick and cruel violence. There’s a scene with a searing hot spotlight and a tender part of the male anatomy that brings a tear to the eye.

Certainly, this comic would not be half as good with a different, less imaginative art team. Williams’ textured and tender character moments hook and reel the reader in then he bludgeons us with stark violence. The artwork is a window into the mental state of the characters, representing subjective not objective reality. When Jones’ mind is playing tricks on him, we feel it through the artwork. When he is dissecting an assailant’s attack, we see his thought patterns as he plans his ferocious response. Villarrubia’s colouring rounds out the page by taking turns at being highly stylized and softly painterly.

Desolation Jones #3 took me to a world I knew nothing about and scared and saddened me. It also reminded me that real people live vastly different lives than my own with dignity and verve. They don’t need my pity, perhaps they pity me…