I read my last comic when I was probably 12, so to say that I’m out of the loop on recent graphic novel developments would be an understatement. I think that they’re stupid, but I say that not having read many. I thought comics never really got “out there,” that their weirdest developments involved familiar heroes in alternate universes. That’s why I was a bit shocked when I came across Forming, a super strange graphic novel published by the super strange English publishing house NOBROW and written by possible genius Jesse Moynihan.
Touted as a “Gnostic creation-myth comic of high and lavish weirdness” by Boing Boing, Forming takes creation myths from a variety of sources and jumbles them up into a nebulous superplot that makes up for what it lacks in coherency with surreal images and coarse language. As the NOBROW website puts it:
Since the dawn of human history, we as a species have sought to understand our existence through creationist fables of omnipotent deities, mythical creatures, and speculation of what—or who—may lie beyond the stars. In Forming Vol. 1, Jesse Moynihan takes these 50,000 years of socio-religious postulation and throws them in the blender to create one epic—and irreverent—battle royal between alien gods, Ancient Greek Titans, interplanetary assassin droids, and humanity itself.
It’s totally stupid, totally goony, and has opened me up to the possibility of becoming interested in graphic novels and comics again. I mean, look at the frames below. How could you not be interested?
This post may contain affiliate links.
