Less concerned with who’s first up against the wall than with how to decorate it

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Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

3 Comments

  1. Douglas Muir
    October 20, 2021 @ 12:14 pm

    Madness as a potentially superior form of cognition is a recurring theme in the War. I do hope you’ll get to Moore’s weird conversation-by-fax with Dave Sim at some point; I think it sheds some interesting light on this and related topics.

    That said, exploring this concept without coming across as exploitative, dismissive, deeply naive, or just going for cheap thrills is really really hard. And I don’t think Milligan got close with Shade.

    I remember when this first came out! I read the first issue and… it left me completely flat. Shade emerging in the body of a serial killer at the moment of execution… was that ever justified? Because at the time, it made my eyes roll good and hard. And while Kathy isn’t a Fridge Girl, most of the first issue is spent on the awful things that happen to this unfortunate young woman. It’s not quite Mark Millar, but there was sadistic undercurrent to it that was off-putting.

    I skimmed the series from time to time, and I remember thinking that it felt like a kind of odd anthology — a collection of scattered ideas, some worked out better than others, rather than a coherent story with characters and an ongoing plot. But, tbf, it was 30 years ago and I was skimming, so maybe I missed something.

    Anyway, pray carry on.

    Doug M.

    Reply

    • Camestros Felapton
      October 22, 2021 @ 5:18 am

      Unpacking Dave Sim, even briefly, sounds like a huge project in itself.

      Shade was an unfortunate comic habit that led me to buying X-Men comics by virtue of liking Chris Bachalo’s art

      Reply

      • (Not that) Jack
        October 24, 2021 @ 10:39 pm

        The list of comics I wound up reading because of Chris Bachalo’s art is very long, and does include some very blah X-books, so I feel this.

        Reply

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