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Saturday, November 13, 2004
Hard Time
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
-John Lennon, Working Class Hero
So I won Ken’s contest for the first Hard Time trade and I’ve decided to talk about it here. Is that cool?
Over the course of three days I’ve now read all ten issues of the series that have been published. I can say to you that this series (which is be put on hiatus with issue 12 but is getting brought back, hopefully under the Vertigo banner) is probably one of the best comics out there and certainly one of the best being put out by a company like DC. An odd concept to begin with, a teenager named Ethan Harrow is sent to jail with a 50 years to life sentence finds out he has superpowers, it just might be touching on some real important truths about the human condition. Of course if the sales stay shitty and the title is ultimately canned will it ever matter?
Hard Time is created by Steve Gerber, written by Gerber and drawn by Brian Hurtt. Hurtt has previously been known for his work on Greg Rucka’s Queen & Country, a series I must say I am completely unfamiliar with, and here his artwork is perfectly competent. It reminds of a little of what Pia Guerra does on Y the Last Man. That is creating a clean, simple look for the book that allows the plot-heavy series to get itself across to the readers clearly. I think Hurtt really shines when the one little bit of the fantastic sneaks into the book, Ethan’s “ghost-self” emerging. The good news is that’s a part of the book that will probably come out more and more. Hurtt’s covers for the book are also some of the most striking on the stands now.
It’s Steve Gerber’s storytelling skills that are the main draw of the book. Gerber’s best known creation is Howard the Duck. While some people know the character as the star of “the worst Lucasfilm movie before those Star Wars prequels” the original comic might be the best stuff Marvel has ever published. Reading Essential Howard the Duck I was struck by the fact that a corporate-owned comic could be so philosophical, creative and personal all at the same time. It will probably stand as the greatest thing Gerber has ever done. There are more pieces of work that attest to Gerber’s talent such as his work with the Man-Thing character in Adventures into Fear and the character’s own book, the Vertigo book Neveda, the Superman mini-series The Phantom Zone (which Mike Sterling has gone over), his run on Defenders (David Welsh praised it here along with other books) and other books. Check out Gerber’s own website for a full list of everything he’s done. In fact I believe that if he didn’t give up comics for a long while and go into television, Gerber would find himself in a position where he would be mentioned in the same breath as Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. The talent and imagination is certainly there and his inferences into human nature might be superior. It’s those inferences that bring me to the great series Hard Time.
The series for me is about how societies at large tries to muffle those with gifts for the creative and/or are the type of troublemakers that ask questions of those in charge. Ethan Harrow is that type of person, or is growing up to be at least. He's smarter than most people twice his age, he isn't scared of authority figures and seems to always have the feeling that something isn't quite right. His power to create this kind of “ghost” out of his own body seems to me to be a physical realization of his desperation to not just get out of jail. It's also a realization of his deperation to get out of a world that makes things harder for any person willing to realize their own personal gifts and stand out. Ethan is at just the right age where he’s willing to question everything and realize that those in charge are not always those who have all the right ideas. The book’s setting of a jail allows Gerber to really reinforce the idea of how suffocating the world can be for a teenage too smart for his own good.
The setting also allows Gerber to come up with a diverse and interesting ensemble cast that improves the story greatly (it struck me how sad it is that it took a book to be set in a jail for there to be a mainstream book that has an interesting racially diverse cast). Many characters seem to play real well against Ethan. His elderly cellmate Curly is a glimpse into what the future might hold for Ethan if he decides to give up in the face of oppostion. The small-time drug dealer Turo is letting the atmosphere of prison corrupt him so he’ll be worse when he gets out then when he came in, another precautionary example for Ethan. Probably the most interesting foil for Ethan was the penitentiary’s Christian demagogue Gantry. To Gantry, Ethan’s powers were an affront to God. It’s probably because of my Catholic upbringing (it was a completely normal Catholic upbringing. Which is to mean it was complexly Hellish) but this really spoke to me about how the powers that be will see even the simplest deviation from the norm as a threat and will try to snuff it out as early as they see it. I really hope the book follows this theme further along as Ethan’s powers develop (right now he’s just discovered the meditating mood he has to be in to unleash them) and the lives of everyone in the book will be changed by this young boy’s abilities.
I really hope the book’s re-launching will get more people to read this book (and hey, you can still get the trade for less than ten bucks). It’s a comic that’s smart, has something to say and executes it just right. If you haven’t already I urge you to sample the book. Every issue is pretty much a good jumping on point as it’s paced not unlike a serial television show like The Sopranos or Lost with a “what happened before page” starting every issue. So go buy the comic, won’t you?
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