Writer: Sean Lewis / Penciller: Caitlin Yarsky * / Image Comics
*Please note: there are no other credits listed in Bliss.
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22nd July 2020
The Pitch: There's a drug called Bliss wiping away memories in Feral City. A good-hearted young man, overwhelmed by a deathly sick child and distraught wife, makes a deal to become the personal hitman to three gods...
Bliss is not a happy comic. It contains no youthful superheroes, quipping their way through life and adventures. No earthbound gods battling to save humanity. Well, actually there are Gods. But they don't look down from on high. They make their judgements from the basement. Lords of the underworld. In fact, there's a distinct touch of Faust and Orpheus about the journeys undertaken in Bliss. There are deals with devils made. In one sense, you could look at Bliss as a metaphor for the apathy everyone who lives in a city must end up with. There are perils to being without compassion. One could also see it as an indictment of the American healthcare system and how debt can drive a person – or a society – to indulge in dark things. And what of the titular drug itself? Erasing memories. Is that a comment on the collective memory, gradually forgetting the crimes of the past and letting us all slip into the dark realms of fascism again? Only Sean and Caitlin know the answer.
YARSKY’S ART creates a world of scope that somehow still threatens to suffocate you
Whatever Bliss is really about, it's well constructed. Lewis' writing keeps up the mysteries of Feral City, a place that seems at once real and a fantasy. Lewis never really states which, confusing you, keeping you in a drugged state. Never knowing which way is up. There is a sense of romantic longing here, too. But it's a gateway to the misery Lewis is building. I say all this not as a detraction. The mood and feeling in the book is wonderfully dark and unforgiving. Like Feral City itself. The comic feels a lot like David Lynch's Eraserhead. Oppressive and weird. It drives the emotion out of you and you’re grateful for it. Yarsky's art lives up to the writing. She creates a world of scope that somehow still threatens to suffocate you. Her colours keep the two timelines that the story takes place in clear, separating memory of the events from their actual happening. Of all the talk of drugs in the book, it's Yarsky's colours that intoxicate the most. It’s like everything is shrouded in that fake webbing you used to buy for Halloween. The bodies of her characters contort the way a drug might contort their minds, People that appear ostensibly human seem like creatures. After closing the first issue, you get the feeling that Bliss is going to take you places. They just might not be places you want to admit you want to go to.
Buy Image comics here and support The Comic Crush.