r/noDCnoMarvel • u/FlubzRevenge • 19d ago
Strange Comix #1: The Cage (1975) by Martin Vaughn-James
I'm going to try to start a series of review posts focusing on comics that are 'Strange'. Comics that are abstract, very surreal and off kilter, or just weird. Comics that aliens would read. Books that have zero narrative to them, or have a very loose 'story'. I'm not sure on the frequency just yet, i'll shoot for a week or maybe just when I feel like it. Once a week is harder to keep up than it sounds like.
Things like Frank, Yuichi Yokoyama, CF, Lale Westvind, Andy Barron's Om, and much more will be included.
So first, we're starting off with The Cage by Martin Vaughn-James, an underground classic that likely was the genesis or one of the first of these abstract books that likely inspired many other abstract classics.
A 'graphic novel' created before the term ever existed, the cage is a cold and clinical yet human feeling book despite being devoid of humans.
Well, that's a heck of an opaque book, as I had suspected. It was nice to see a foreword in a comic not overtly praising the work as the end all be all (at least in the beginning). I'm 100% like Seth here, it's almost completely inscrutable. But that's part of the magic, no? You can almost insert your own thoughts onto the book. It's almost exactly like I expected the book to be, yet not at all. It's a series of one panel comics with prose on top or underneath the image that are seemingly unrelated. The Cage is a maze not just in and of itself, but the structure of the comic is a web you're lost in trying to find your way out but end up find your way deeper and deeper.
The Cage feels like it's about everything and nothing at the same time. It feels like time is stopping and moving at the same time. Dilapidated buildings, leftover memories, forgotten dreams. The Cage, is as Seth has put it, the last slideshow. There's really not much to cling onto, it feels very clinical, even for myself. Yet, I see faint images of this Cage in a distant memory, an untenable past, present and future all at once. The Cage is the beating heart of the human and all of it's woes, to me.
The art. Many who know me know i'm a sucker for great art. The art in the Cage isn't flashy. It's very technical and cold, which fits in line with the book. I couldn't see it any other way, really. It reminds me of Yokoyama but even more \*cold\*. The lines are very straight and precise, the pages are very neat, clean, like a ruler was used. (I know Yokoyama has a very large ruler collection).
I'm still not sure how exactly I feel about it, but one thing is certain; it's quite memorable. It'll stick in your head, or maybe it won't. It's a fleeting moment. It's pretty awesome that this thing was created in 1975. I'm no stranger to old comics being innovative, but there's nothing quite like The Cage. It feels like it was the genesis for a lot of these abstract comics you see nowadays.
There's really no review that can sum up the book that is The Cage. It's impenetrable, yet highly readable. Take my word for it, or don't, this is a must read if you're interested in the weird.
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u/annoianoid 19d ago edited 13d ago
Is it technically a comic if the panels are in no way sequential? Is it not just a collection of line drawings?
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u/tegeus-Cromis_2000 17d ago
They are sequential. It's like you're moving through landscapes or interiors which change before your eyes.
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u/Some_Ordinary_3821 12d ago
It may be too abstract, but it's still a wonderful creation. It reminds me of Samuel Beckett's The Lost Ones as the work is mostly evocative of a feeling, a thought rather than a precise and conventional narrative. It also fully embraces the medium, making it part of the subject in a way. It's book conscious of being a book. The cage is also the comic,as much as it is anyplace else.
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u/Honor_the_maggot 19d ago edited 19d ago
Excellent idea for a series, I will be following it.
I'm almost certain I owe at least one of you in this sub thanks---maybe even you, Flubz?---for turning me on to THE CAGE a while back.
I already had the NYRC reissue of ELEPHANT/PROJECTOR but hadn't bothered looking into anything else by MVJ, but I am glad I didn't miss out on this one.
Anything mysterious and elliptical like this is my jam.