Jon Macy’s adaptation of the early gay pornographic work Teleny into the graphic tome (seriously, I could kill a cat with its heft) Teleny and Camille seethes. It churns. It tugs. It traps all things beautifully gay and all things terribly gay then challenges the reader to not look away. I’m sure many will see this novel only for the love story, but what Jon has given us is a vision of how much and how little we gay folk have changed in the 100-plus years since Oscar Wilde (allegedly) and his band of lavender men wrote the original novel in round-robin. It’s a FAR superior execution of the idea behind Francis Ford Copolla’s Dracula: Victorian context, modern subtext. (I have to thank my brother for this succinct metaphor.)
The story is a simple one: boy (Camille) meets boy (Teleny), and they begin a secret yet intense love affair that knocks Camille out of his perennially heterosexual life and into the clandestine London homosexual world. But there’s so much more than that. Even in 2010, the gay world is somewhat invisible, almost like a Wonderland that isn’t seen until someone falls down the rabbit hole. Yeah, people are aware of Teh Gays, but they have no idea how subversively ubiquitous we are until it’s pointed out to them. A dear, dear friend of mine knew me for years before I mentioned the local bathhouse in Austin, TX to her, and when I did, I thought she was going to have a stroke. What she couldn’t get over was that it’s located right next to a major shopping mall on a major street. She’d seen it a million times, but never knew what it was for. So it goes with Camille. After becoming involved with Teleny, the scales fall from his eyes and he stumbles upon homosexuality everywhere. But when you look into the gay, the gay looks into you. Camille is no longer able to hide his nature (though he does try at times).
I won’t be the only person to say this (though I hope I’m the first): Jon’s art is the sensual motifs of Aubrey Beardsley with the grotesqueness of P. Craig Russell (though it lacks PCR’s cool detachment from said grotesqueness). I’m sure by now that everyone knows NOM’s Tour of Hate is crossing the nation, preaching the sanctity and sturdiness of a “one man, one woman” marriage and the horror that is Marriage Equality. But if one looks back over just this past year, there have been shocking abuses in these “sanctified” marriages ranging from mundane adultery to selling children in Wal-Mart parking lots. The hypocrisy rankles me, but it seems to be “OK” with Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown because straight people are perpetuating the abuse.
Stay with me. I have a point.
Teleny and Camille calls this hypocrisy out, or at least recognizes that straight people don’t get a free pass by virtue of where they insert their genitals. In his youth, Camille visited a brothel with friends before they all left for college. The night ended… let’s say, “poorly” for one sad prostitute. Yet there is no condemnation between Camille and his friends for being in the brothel in the first place (to say nothing of the dead whore). As an adult, Camille accidentally wanders into a cruisy section of a park, calling it a “modern Sodom and Gomorrah”. Yet, what is the difference in these locales and the behaviors except the attitudes which accept or reject them? Wilde and company were making a point then that we’re still trying to make today. Consciously or unconsciously, Jon does some editorializing in these scenes. Most of his pages are not made of composed art inside panels in a certain disposition, but rather the pages themselves are full compositions, whole art. However, in these scenes (and one or two others), the pages break apart in a sense. Panel dominate the landscape, and Jon’s lines change from fluid and expressive to harsh and… like barbed wire in 3-D. Grotesque. They fit the scenes perfectly, but they jar the eye.
And don’t even get me started on how much I think Jon hates poodles.
Where the story and the art meet is in the sex. The sex in Teleny and Camille is more than just hardcore porn. Yeah yeah yeah there are engorged penes and money shots that could blind a treeful of squirrels, but it’s not gratuitous and definitely not there for a cheap thrill or (even worse) page filler. The sex has meaning and purpose and emotion behind it. Some of the emotions are lovely and expansive; others are more bothersome, but still need to be there.
One thing I must thank Jon personally for is his ending. THANK YOU, JON!! Your indictment against the trend in gay literature that “even the one’s written by the gays” require a tragic ending because “it’s like we’re too damaged to even dare imagine being happy” is difficult to refute. So many stories dwell on death for obvious reasons, but even pre-AIDS gay media fall to either Boys Beware or Cruising-type idioms. It’s refreshing to have a gay love story with a happy… well, at least an ending without murder, death, or disfigurement (I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if your ending is a happy one). E. M. Forster is no doubt completely behind your modern addition to the text.
So. Yeah. Buy it!
…but this seems like the most fun:
Tickets available at the Weird City Theatre website. It’s about heroes, villains, monsters, God, and the End of the World (all my favorite perseverations), but, thankfully, not about sparkly vampires.
GIANTS in THOSE DAYS got a blurb in this week’s Austin Chronicle. I don’t know who wrote it, but they’re pretty comics savvy. Hope my words live up to theirs!
This was an early draft of a review I wrote of Android Karenina for Instinct Magazine:
I can say without reservation that I would rather have an anal fissure treated by a leper armed only with lemon juice and a nail gun than get involved in any literature from Russia, let alone Anna Karenina. Thank goodness Quirk Classics has taken out all the proletarian angst and replaced it with ROBOTS, which studies have shown to be 2 bajillion percent more interesting than the travails of bored upper-class housewives. In this alt.Russia, robots are inseparable companions and confidantes of the wealthy; faithful and obedient, save for Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin’s FACE implant, which threatens to destroy the peaceful monotony of everyone’s lives. Thankfully. The original novel makes the “Little House on the Prairie” series looks like a grindhouse bloodbath, so a touch of mayhem helps the boredom disappear like android exhaust in a stiff breeze. Guaranteed you will not throw yourself under a train by the end. Thank you, Quirk!
This was my final draft:
I would rather have a broken bone set by a dog armed only with a nail gun than read any piece of Russian literature, let alone Anna Karenina, the 19th century’s “Real Housewives…”, except instead of vapid whores who have everything, there is one bored betty who jumps in front of a train instead of divorcing her husband to be with her lover. Happily, Quirk Classics has taken out all the proletarian angst and replaced it with ROBOTS, which studies have shown to be 2 bajillion percent awesomer than bustles and adultery put together. Anna’s doomed affair with Count Vronsky takes a backseat to the treacherous plan by Russia’s cybernetic citizenry to usurp their fleshy creators and become Mechanical Overlords of the World! More Robotech than Tolstoy, and thank goodness for that!
They’re both WAY over my word limit (Sorry, Jeff!), but I’m curious to know which one has more “oomph!”. Thoughts? Comments? Opinions?
Tickets available at the Weird City Theatre website. It’s about heroes, villains, monsters and the End of the World, and, thankfully, not about vampires.
I am lucky enough not to have a god-botherer in my life, at least not directly. Most of the ones with whom I have a passing familiarity are much more interested in how I put my genitals to use than they are about promoting peace in the world or feeding the hungry or, you know, being Jesus-like.
