Alan Moore's

Hypothetical Lizard #1

I must preface this review by saying that I love Alan Moore’s writing, that The Killing Joke is my favorite Joker story, and that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is the book that got me back into comics.

Moore is a bit of a demented fellow with a knack for the deviant and the hyper-strange. This tale is a perfect example of his prowess in these fields. The story is of a girl whose kind and loving mother sells her to the magically inclined mistress of “The House Without Clocks” so that she can have the grand life of a confused, secret-keeping whore for circus-style sorcerers. A pleasant beginning deserves a pleasant following, and naturally Moore delivers. There is a surgery wherein the young girl has the lobes of her brain separated so that she is like two people who cannot directly associate with one another. This being the ultimate fantasy of all nine year old girls, our heroine is more than pleased at her lack of verbal skill, coordination, and her new found super-power – secret keeping. This power, the mistress explains, is necessary because when wizards are doing the deed, they tend to reveal secrets and weaknesses around the time they are getting done…with the deed…Obviously, they need a working-girl who can keep quiet about their mysteries, and so the young girl has to have her brain split so that she cannot recall, or at least so that she cannot relate to others, these sensitive aspects of her clientele. Some girls get My Little Pony, and some get Care Bears, but this lucky girl gets her hair permanently removed and the right half of her face fitted with a porcelain mask. Ah, the joys of childhood!

Naturally, she makes friends easily, and the one we get to read most about is the beautiful, broad-faced girl who is really a boy with aspirations of moving from the red-light to the spotlight, and she does. The story begins and ends at the same point, which is the return of the he-she to The House Without Clocks after five years of fame and fortune. Makes you just want to be there doesn’t it?

Well, if your disgusting appetite has not yet prodding you to purchase this book, let me say that despite the above sarcasm, and the horrifyingly disturbing plot, the book is an engrossing read. As with most of these alternative types, it is in black-and-white, and the art is quite stiff and simple at times. What is of note is some of the art. Lorenzo Lorente had a lot of frames to draw in this big book, and many are very good indeed while others lack fluidity, or depth. Most of the characters are consistent in their look, with the notable exception of the boy-girl’s love interest who is Caucasian, and then changes swiftly to various other races, but this may be his own magic.

As I said before, the read is a good one. And, though I am cautious in recommending something so disturbing, I have to say that for those of you who enjoy the Da-da-esque weird for the sake of weird, this book will not disappoint. The story has me hooked, and standing on a stool staring at a curved length of rope. Buy it, read it. It can only make you stronger.