BackKilling time
When mindless violence isn't really mindless
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Violence is an integral part of comic books, even the non-violent ones. Much like in Tom And Jerry cartoons, there’s a casualness to the violence even in comics meant for children, maybe because the characters themselves aren’t any the worse for it. Indeed, comic book characters, just like toons (remember Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) are notoriously hard to kill.
The violence in comics meant for older people (and maybe young adults) is all too real and, in the really good books (you can be assured, Constant Reader, that no other kind finds mention in this column), even mindless violence isn’t really mindless.
That is evident in Jennifer Blood, an ongoing series from Dynamite written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Adriano Batista. Jennifer Blood begins like a straightforward revenge drama replete with blood and gore. It features a suburban housewife (Jen Fellows) who has an alternate life as a masked killer (Jennifer Blood) out to avenge her father’s death at the hands of her uncles. Only, the violence doesn’t stop after all the bad guys are disposed of. In the most recent issue, Blood has just murdered and butchered her husband, whom she loves. I have no idea how the series will end—the plot is unwinding so rapidly that I get the sense it is going to go off the rails soon—but am confident that Ennis will find a way true to both plot and reader.
As evident in his earlier works, Preacher, all about faith and loss of it, and TheBoys, about a group of superhero killers, Ennis knows a thing or two about violence, and the strange effect it has on people. On Blood, for instance, it seems to have a strangely hypnotic effect, convincing her that it is the easiest (and only) solution to problems ranging from her son’s busybody schoolteacher to her husband’s harmless ex-girlfriend. There are shades of John Waters’ Serial Mom (starring Kathleen Turner) to Jennifer Blood, but minus the satire. For Ennis, violence has always been a serious issue.
R. Sukumar is editor, Mint.
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