GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #11: CROSSED

No, this is not a repeat. Last night's GF was called "Cross," not "Crossed." This time, I'm talking about the Avatar Press series created by Garth Ennis. It's an amazing, depraved book, and I'm glad it keeps getting more and more fucked up. Except . . .


I think I'm getting tired of it. I love the concept, and there are a few writers that I really enjoy on the series. However, I think that more and more, this series is about outdoing whoever wrote the previous arc instead of actually telling a great story. I appreciate people trying to up the ante on fucked up things, but there has to be something more to that going on.


Garth Ennis is obviously my favorite CROSSED writer. David Lapham and Si Spurrier are tied for a close second. The others? Eh, it's hard to separate them. Sometimes they tell great stories, and others, they're just trying to play the gross-out game. I love gross-out games, but like I said, there has to be something more to it. You can't just do it for its own sake.


The new guy is doing it for its own sake. He's showing Crossed children eating their younger siblings and begging regular human beings to fuck them. I'm not against depictions of that, although I would never, personally, do that. I think it's too easy to fuck with a reader by resorting to violence with kids, so I avoid it unless I have a very good reason. I am, however, against it for its own sake.


Don't get me wrong. I'm not on a moral crusade. I'm not telling you to boycott the book. That's silly. I just think that CROSSED shouldn't be doing this kind of thing. I'd much rather prefer stories where actual characters are suffering through real plots, that's all. You can be as fucked up as you want, just so long as there's something actually going on. If I wanted fucked up shit happening just 'cause, and women characters who exist only to show their tits, I'll read something else. Porn, in the case of the latter. Porn is really good at that. The former? I don't tend to think about it.