Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The End of Faust Finally Upon Us?

So. Supposedly in October and November we will be getting issues 14 and 15 of David Quinn and Tim Vigil's Faust, Love of the Damned, which will mark the end of the series after twenty five years. I've been following this book for about twenty two of those years (my buddy Jase and I found our first copies of Faust after scouring the floor of the Knoxville Comic Con when we were fourteen) and it's been twenty two years of frustration.
For those of you who don't know Faust it is not a nice comic book and the main character, John Jaspers, is no hero. The black and white book is notorious for hardcore graphic violence and hardcore graphic sex, often mixing the two in a shocking concoction that hasn't lost a bit of bite in all these years.
I got hipped to the comic through Fangoria that did an excellent article on that book and others published by the creators' indie imprint Rebel Studios (Dog, Springheel Jack, Darkstar). I'd seen nothing like Tim Vigil's art and had to have every issue, well good luck with that! Every shop I went to for years, every booth at every comic con, treated Jase and I like hell spawn crapping on their Fantastic Fours when we'd ask about Faust-and yet these men of high morals would still sell this adult title to fourteen year olds without a second thought. Once a shop owner got red faced and started yelling about how he'd never carry that trash in his shop.
You've probably noticed the numbers don't add up-fifteen issues in twenty five years with no set schedule for when an issue would come out...not to mention two other mini-series spinoffs. Issues were so hard to find, since most were purchased pre-internet. But now it's almost over and I'm relieved. Really! I've been waiting for more than two decades to see how the series ends and I'm anxiously looking forward to reading the last issue, so I can put this dark little obsession away and stop thinking about it.
Oh and there was a movie. I wish I could recommend it, but it just wimps out every step of the way, which is bizarre because the director, the great Brain Yuzna (the ReAnimator films, Return of the Living Dead 3, Progeny) has made far more extreme films, Beyond ReAnimator for example, but with Faust he just didn't take it anywhere near the level of gore (much less sex) that one would have expected. That's all I'll say about the film, I'm no critic, and people should make up their own minds.
It's hard to believe it's been twenty five years, those bloody, disturbing covers still seem so fresh.

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