If I'm going to hell, I'm taking Mike Sterling with me!

You only have until the end of today to have a chance to win The Coffin trade paperback! The winner will be revealed tomorrow morning!

So, I decided to give Mike Sterling's Progressive Ruin some well-deserved love today. If you don't read it, you should - he works Ralph's Comic Corner in California and apparently has nothing better to do then post excellent stuff about comics all day. Get to work, Mike!

Anyway, the reason he gets some publicity (not that he needs any) and the reason he might be going to hell is because
recently, he sent me a comic book. Not just any comic book, mind you, but one that might send me to hell. This is a comic book I have been seeking for some time, but could never find, so I asked Mike if his store had it, and lo and behold, they did. That's a fine store, Mr. Sterling, a fine store indeed.

So what did he send me? Ladies and gentlegeeks, I give you:


Faust Act 12: Love of the Damned by David Quinn and Tim Vigil!

I have a strangely disturbing love for this comic. In 15 years, 13 issues have appeared. And we call Bryan Hitch slow! Issue #13 came out earlier this year, and I actually found it locally, so I had to go back and find #12, which showed up in 2001. Quinn and Vigil actually did some Faust side-products for Avatar back in the late '90s, but they're pretty bad. The main title is still creepily brilliant.

Why am I going to hell for buying this? This is a horrific comic. It's one of the bloodiest, goriest, Satanic, and pornographic book you'll ever want to flip through. Omaha the Cat Dancer is the Pope's bedtime reading compared to this!¹ It's also a gripping story of redemption, and it features some of the most stunning artwork you'll ever see in a comic book. That cover is fine, but here's a shot of the interior:



That's one of the few pages I can show you that isn't in some way offensive, although if you look hard enough, you can see something nasty in the first panel (or at least its shadow). Vigil isn't afraid to show what happens when you slash someone with Wolverine's claws (the "hero" sports gloves with two long knives on them, in an obvious parody) and he isn't afraid to allow his characters - both male and female - to wander around naked for pages at a time. It's disturbing reading an issue of Faust, but it's also a ickily thrilling experience. These are totally visceral comics, and there's nothing really wrong with that.

I don't really recommend tracking these down, unless you're into lots of blood and sex and Satanic rituals and cursing. You can find them in trade paperback online in places, and the 13th issue is probably floating around out there. The series was originally supposed to go only 13 issues (a good Satanic number, you understand), but I haven't read #13, so I don't know if Quinn and Vigil have finished their bizarre masterpiece. I really just wanted to let all you closet Faust fans out there that you are not alone. I too am one of you! Rise up!

¹ Omaha the Cat Dancer may, in fact, be the Pope's bedtime reading. Can you say it's not?

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