Becase we all need some anarchy in our lives.

[domino_blue.insanejournal.com]

Hello I was going to post the very excellent future comic Spider-man 2099 but because it's written by a certain author who I still love despite the fallout of the last community, I decided to post this Grant Morrison classic Kill your Boyfriend.

First Let's meet our Narrator

Quite the meek thing wouldn't you say?



After having a tiff with her Parents she decides to go out one night when she run's into the local bad boy.




After boozing around for a while they decide to go to her boyfriend's house.





And that is the beginning of an delightful adventure where our two protagonist find love, understanding, and acceptance. Also if you tell I'm lying through my teeth before this sentence you win a cookie. This is a great Graphic novel that is very funny, that, while you can find some symbolism in it you can turn your mind off and read just because it's just so fun. The graphic novel is out there somewhere and it only cost 5 bucks so go get it if you want to find out what happens next.

Comments

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

It kinda feels like it's building up to a moral of "hey, don't be a dick for no reason and kill people," which is one of those morals that doesn't really need to be a moral? Plus, I liked Heathers the first time I saw it. it was less obnoxious.

[psycheluna.insanejournal.com]

Hahaha. Oh that isn't the moral of the story AT ALL.

[jlbarnett.insanejournal.com]

I've never understood why people feel the need to tell these stories.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

You probably know people like this, although you may not be close enough to them to know it.

Some are born into such circumstances, where their entire lives are bound to follow a predetermined pattern from the moment of birth: stultifying quasi-education followed by an unsatisfying career and then an equally unsatisfying marriage. They don't have the talent or money or imagination to break that cycle, but they're aware the cycle exists and that they're caught within it. They have no way out.

Kill Your Boyfriend works as escapist fiction, of a girl who breaks that cycle by embracing anarchy; as a deconstruction of that kind of story, owing to how self-aware she is; as a morality play, since it does not end well on any level, and since the girl learns nothing from it; or as simple cultural satire, where the adults are so intellectually and emotionally diminished by their own lives that they're almost unable to react to anything that happens. It's nihilistic, yeah, but it's got a purpose.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Because they're funny.

[merseybeatler.insanejournal.com]

Lemme guess. He's *NOT* her imaginary second personality?

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

The twist is more random than that.

[stig.insanejournal.com]

Imagine bad-boy without any hair, and a Scottish accent.

[(Anonymous)]

King Mob! ;)

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

The script in this comic is really weird, it's like reading the lyrics to Park Life, only mean.

When I read scans from it before I was a bit baffled and dismissive, because I had no idea where the hell the story could go or why I'd want to follow it. I mean, I was sympathetic/nostalgically empathetic to her until she said "I expect i'll marry him or someone just like him". Because bloody hell, you HAVE A CHOICE you really do.

I just don't get why she feels like she has no possible future other than the bleak one she keeps talking about. So I don't believe in it. Why? Why? Why? maybe if you STOPPED being so darn passive..

Stig's point about it showing how people with oppressive lives can't find any way but violence made me see more of a use for the book and is interesting and involving, but still. WHY does she feel so blank about her life?

AUHH I want to SHAKE HER!

So you have made me emote, at least, Grant! I want to bury that dude's head in the ground though. What a dick.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

I do like the art though.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

The point could be made here that she has stopped being passive. The problem is that she lacks the imagination to take an active role, which may go back to the fact that all she knows in life are people who seemingly accept the passivity. She has no role models outside of unattainable fantasy that indicate to her that there's a better way... until one comes along who also happens to be a criminal sociopath.

It's a very small-town sort of mentality that only makes sense if you've spent any time in a small town. Your friends are growing up to make your parents' mistakes, your parents are grooming you to be just like them, and anything you read or see about life in other places might as well be a dispatch from Mars. It takes a great deal of intelligence in that situation to be aware that better options exist, and a great deal of willpower to actively pursue those options. Ennis calls it the "peculiar gravity of the small town" at one point in Preacher.

[v_various.insanejournal.com]

"maybe if you STOPPED being so darn passive.."

Gah, I know! That bit about "you're smothering her" at the end, what the hell? A person can only smother you (not literally) if you LET them, what, dumping him would have been so hard? And she still isn't really doing things for herself, it's her new bff that says that and shoots him.

This whole thing just made me mad. I hate people like that, I know people like that. I just want to slap them 50% of the times they open their mouths.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

ALL teens feel that way. You may want to shake them, but they do.

[mugiwara.insanejournal.com]

A bored girl who choose the drunk psychopath over the douche boyfriend. Jean, Scott and Logan are everywhere.

[thanekos.insanejournal.com]

... so when does the truck that says General Overnight Delivery on the side run them all over?

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I have always loved this book. I understand Morrison was heavily influenced by NATURAL BORN KILLERS when he wrote this. I'd suggest this is far, far better. And the gleeful ABSOLUTE LACK of a moral--you could only really do this in the early 90s. Sigh.

I've also found that, if you want to get a girl you're dating to read comics? Show her this.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Sociopath falls for another sociopath. Bonnie and Clyde. How original Mr. Morrison.

[khamelea.insanejournal.com]

That's because Morrison wanted you to think it was unoriginal!

[psycheluna.insanejournal.com]

1) In his liner notes Morrison talks about being inspired by The Bacchae, which, for me at least, puts this book in perspective.

2) I find it really funny that people are trying to call this a morality tale... or assume it must be a morality tale from these pages. Huh.


For some reason I always wanted to turn this into a stage show, and I'm not sure why.

[domino_blue.insanejournal.com]

All I wanted was for people to check out the book not spark a debate about how realistic the story is and how teens really act.

[menagerie.insanejournal.com]

The Bacchae thing makes a great deal of sense. Personally I've always loved this peace, in part because of the absolutely perfect way it captures both a certain aspect of British life (not that we Americans are much better about the passivity), teen angst, and sheer absurdity. The art was some of my favorite, and I laughed for about five minutes at the Invisibles reference.

[parsimonia.insanejournal.com]

How many pages is this comic?

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

It was a sixty-page TPB.

[woogledesigns.insanejournal.com]

After reading this I thought the best moral to derive from the story was:
"Don't act like the characters in 'Kill Your Boyfriend' Not because they are murderers but because they are a bunch of twats".

It IS easier to change your life and/or make a mark on the world by doing something destructive rather than something creative. And it takes hard work to break out of a cycle of mediocrity. But if you don't put that effort in and instead resort to fucking up everything in your path you are a shit.

Because that destructive option is so much easier it has a certain tempting quality, and it's part of the gamut of human experience to fall for that temptation. Part of the thrill of KYB is that it tells the story of that kind of experience in a medium so used to telling us about heroes and eventual triumphs.