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Off the Cape: Reset

By | August 27th, 2012
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Nobody is perfect. We all screw up from time to time. Sometimes, we screw up so bad we wish we could just hit a reset button and try things over again, this time without making the same mistakes. In Peter Bagge’s “Reset,” from Dark Horse, failed comedian and alleged wife-beater Guy Krause is given a chance to do just that…well, sort of.

While attending driver’s ed. classes after being convicted of road rage, Guy is approached by Angela Minor, a research assistant looking for a volunteer for some sort of virtual reality project. She claims Guy’s ex-celebrity status makes him the perfect candidate, although we soon learn that his failed personal life might have been a bigger factor for his eligibility. (After all, who recruits volunteers from drunk-driving courses?) With his career in ruins and broke from his recent divorce, Guy is easily convinced to go along with it, for a decent paycheck. However, it’s not long before he starts to realize things aren’t what they seem.

The device involves strapping him in to a chair, attaching electrodes to various parts of his body, and placing a helmet over his head. The device is capable of transmitting accurate images, sounds, feelings, even smells and tastes. After he is hooked in to the machine, Angela and Ted the Technical Assistant begin broadcasting moments from Guy’s life, forcing him to live them all over again starting with a minor incident of embarrassment that Guy has turned in to a formative moment for his bitter personality.

He quickly learns that there is much going on behind the scenes of this project that he’s not aware of, starting with the revelation that the unnamed corporation funding the project has collected vast amounts of information on his personal life. Guy quickly gets more and more suspicious about the project, and the mystery of who is really behind it. Whoever they are, they are willing to go to great lengths to ensure he stays on-board, including sabotaging what little remains of Guy’s career. Eventually, he digs so deep in to the project that his confrontation with the shadowy organization behind it becomes inevitable.

“Reset” is very different from your standard comic book fare. Peter Bagge’s name became synonymous with the late 80’s, early 90’s alternative comics movement, which deliberately strived to separate itself from the mainstream by building off of the underground comix movement of the two decades before. There is no decompressed storytelling here; each issue is packed with story. The average page has six to eight panels, almost all with dialogue. There is no narration. The comic is always moving, but because it’s packed so full of story, you get a much more sustained reading experience. You certainly won’t finish this in fifteen minutes and forget about it.

The art is deliberately much more iconic and cartoon-like in appearance. There is a focus on emotion and symbolism rather than action and realism. In many frames, arms curve instead of bending at elbows. The story is full of stare-lines, flying sweat beads, and emotive lines emphasizing anger and shock. As any fan of Scott McCloud knows, these techniques help us to relate directly to the characters. Sure, Guy is a really well-defined character, but we end up looking for ourselves in him, and that is where this comic really works.

As I mentioned in last week’s “Soliciting Multiversity: Dark Horse’s November 2012,” Peter Bagge has the ability to write stories about awful, insensitive people like Guy and make us relate to them. We know Guy is a bitter, sarcastic jerk, but we know that sometimes we ourselves can be bitter and act like jerks. We, too, have screwed up our lives before and desperately wanted to un-screw them. Guy could be any one of us, and his struggles are relatable despite their fictional context. In the end, we cannot help rooting for Guy in spite of his failings, because in the end he’s just like one of us. This is a book that shows life with all of its warts and pimples, and yet somehow finds something beautiful in all the muck.

The comic was originally published as a four-issue miniseries, but a hardcover collection has been solicited for January 2nd. At $15.99, it’s only slightly more expensive than the single issues, but with a hard cover, it will surely hold up better as you come back to read it again and again. I strongly encourage you to pre-order a copy through your local comics store, as this book has somehow snuck in under almost everyone’s radar, and sadly I don’t think many copies will be available, so make sure you don’t miss out!


//TAGS | Off the Cape

Nathanial Perkins

Nathanial "Ned" Perkins is an aspiring writer living in New Jersey. His passions include science fiction, history, nature, and a good read. He's always on the lookout for artists to collaborate with on his own comics projects. You can follow him on Tumblr or shoot him an e-mail.

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