Broken Frontier

Illustrator Steven Perkins unleashes his first one-man OGN and tells the full, surreal story of the fly-headed guy on its cover. It’s beautiful – but does it work?

Sarcophaga is an ex-underwear model cum award-winning actor cum eccentric celebrity millionaire in a world filled and obsessed with such idols; though he does maintain one truly unique factor – he’s part fly (as in the bug, not the hip quotient). That’s right: Sarcophaga’s head is a human-sized, wide-shaped, bulbous-eyed fly’s head, though from the neck down he’s pure languid (human) male sexiness. And what’s more, this fly-man is lucky enough to secrete sex pheromones just like a normal fly – pheromones that work their musky magic on any human female that wanders within too close of a proximity! Armed with his mutant libido glands, Sarcophaga tells the story of his greatest, most pre-destined achievement; he tells the tale of what he feels he was born to do; he tells the tale of his ultimate revenge, and how this revenge saved the world.

What revenge? Against who? Why? How? All good questions and regardless of the extremely experimental appearance and approach of the book, the story is surprisingly straight-forward, and answers all natural queries (though you unnatural bleeders will have to look elsewhere). Writer/illustrator Steven Perkins proves to be an adept storyteller as well as an artistic auteur. He knows, creatively, what it is he’s attempting to accomplish with Pacify, and due to this, the unique qualities of the book honestly work; they mesh with the straight-forward, first-person narrative structure of Sarcophaga’s tale.

What’s more, there’s a good deal of moral depth to these fictional memoirs, too. Perkins uses Sarcophaga’s station as a cultural role-model to sneak in some weighty, under-handed criticisms of our society and its capitalist media manipulations. Not the grandiose political spins which are so heavily on our conscience of late, but the ubiquitous exploitation of everyday commercial influence – advertisements, news, entertainment – all the unnatural aspects of media that are now near synonymous with our idiomatic representation of any culture. Perkins’ writing is wry, and reaches honest comical heights with its objectivity of human behavioral traits (traits that are tainted by sensationalist methods of education). This brings a good, solid justification for using a man with a fly’s head – Sarcophaga is a man with a fly’s head and all he manages to become (up to the point where our story begins) is an underwear model. Had he reached new heights? Had he left any memorable or lasting mark upon the world? Not when trapped within the confines of acceptable, guiding mediums such as the fashion industry and Hollywood, no, he didn’t and he couldn’t. Not until the beginning of this tale. Not until he abandoned it all for something more….

The premise of our media as the enemy of individuality is a muddy one to deal with, and the philosophy runs across some flaws. Generally, a reader is either already agreed on the dangers of cultural micro-management by the monies-that-be or they simply feel the work is overblown and overstated on the subject. Either way, it’s not a topic that can be broached with any hope of honestly broadening previously closed minds. Also, if one does agree with the theory that obtaining a world-view based solely on commercial mediums is an evil of any advanced culture, then wouldn’t it be hypocritical to send such a message through a medium such as comics? Manipulate the masses (educate the masses) for the good of the masses? All abusive dissemination of information perhaps begins with this very same intent.

The concept of Pacify isn’t one that could possibly have sounded like a workable idea to anyone outside of the creator himself (imagine the pitch: so, a guy with a fly’s head seeks revenge against the hidden powers-that-be, the men behind the curtain of culture and capitalism, and it’ll all be done as a biography of him as a mutant underwear model! This is solid gold, I tell you!) Unique, yes. But a good idea? Astoundingly, it really does come across as a brilliant piece of speculative, graphic fiction. The story is gripping (as if Sarcophaga’s pheromones were spinning right off the page and into the reader’s breath), the characters are explored thoroughly and – while occasionally they come across as one-note parodies – eventually they each get their fifteen minutes of spotlight fame and emerge as empathetic, fleshed out creations that bolster the book where it needs it most.

And while Pacify is indeed a feat of significant literature (and that is quite a recommendation for the piece in and of itself) it’s most dazzling achievement rests within yet another aspect: its art. Perkins is a superior Ashley Wood; a far more solid and atmospheric Ben Templesmith; he’s a crystal clear and more daring Bill Sienkiewicz; a grander Kent Williams and more dynamic Michael Gaydos. I honestly don’t have a fair enough comparison for the full spectrum of pearl-polished skill displayed within Pacify. I’ll let the sample pictures speak for themselves, and for a treat go see more at www.stevenperkinsart.com There are other artists who approach the solidity and opalescence of Perkins’ pages, but none that have bothered to paint anything as dimensionally rich in total scope.

Pacify is an absolute gem of a completed work, and while I recently claimed The Nightmarist by Duncan Rouleau as OGN of the year, I have to give a sincerely equal positioning to Perkins’ little masterpiece. It’s a coffee table art book (and what guest could not comment on that cover if they saw it?) that just happens to tell a sequential, epic tale of revenge and serves as a sage, cautionary fable for our hot-topic obsessed times, a caution that we could well use to be reminded of, regardless of how savvy we think we may be to the capitalist mores of emotional and monetary indenture. As Catherine Seipp of National Review Online recently wrote in defense of writing articles for Penthouse – "To proper feminists who ask how I can work for a magazine that exploits women, my answer is always, go write for a women's magazine before you talk to me about exploited women."

And for the full Lowdown, don’t forget to check out Broken Frontier’s interview with Steve Perkins right here!