Lazarus #3 and #4

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I was only planning to read Lazarus #3 but it ended on such a brutal cliffhanger that there was no way I could stop there. These two issues really pulled me further into the world and I can say I’m very much enjoying this.

My entire post about Lazarus #1 and #2 was about how I had to get further educated to be able to fully appreciate what made this comic – and others – so epic and special. I think education is the key to people having an appreciation versus and opinion of different kinds of art. I may have an opinion or a preference but thanks to living with an artist who is hardcore about comics, drawing, and all kinds of art, I can now have a proper appreciation that has nothing to do with “like” or “preference” and more to do with “knowledge” and “understanding”. I think if more people prioritized the latter, people wouldn’t be losing the ability to recognize and value art by embracing and prioritizing AI.

I have come to recognize the skill involved in the kind of art that Michael Lark creates. With each issue I am becoming more of a fan of the style and I think I will be able to embrace even more comics; it will open me up to reading more of what is out there.

Something I love about comics, especially with the guided reading because it gives such a cinematic feel, is how much they are like films. I grew up on films. Films were my escape after I realized that books were just not working for me due to aphantasia (which no one knew about back then), I just knew I couldn’t connect with them in the way other kids did and that kind of bummed me out. When I first got into movies, it was a real changing point for me and I almost went to school to become a filmmaker; the medium resonated with me so deeply and provided the pictures for me that I couldn’t create in my own mind.

I associated comics with reading and the few comics my older brother had were very random … a spider-man here, a hulk there, a Power Man and Iron First … my brother didn’t collect comics, I think he just bought random ones so there was no order and no meaning behind what I was thumbing through. I couldn’t really connect with them because I was looking for plots, cohesive story, and something other than random fighting. I think I never got into comics because of this “random” factor and they just never made any sense to me. I didn’t connect with them and I focused instead on movies.

Now that I am able to connect with comics and graphic novels in a way that doesn’t overwhelm me, I have come to see them as storyboards for films yet to be committed to celluloid and, in that regard, I have developed a real love for them over the past 10 years.

Part of what made these two issues so powerful for me was the juxtaposition between the brutality of the world – which is still rough for me to take in currently when I’m battling so many things in present day – and the beauty, sensitivity, and tragedy of the Lazarus … Lazarai? Lazaree? You know what I mean. There were a couple of moments where I was really taken aback – in a good way – and I found myself breathless, not with anticipation, but with just the power of both the visuals and the text.

When I first read Lazarus #1 back in 2015 I DID really think Forever was a compelling character. I was interested in who and what she was. I think I thought she was some kind of scientifically created Highlander or something. She seemed conflicted and I could related to how her family (mis)treated her and saw her not as herself but rather something they just used for their own purposes; a tool that they didn’t even appreciate having; something useful to them only as long as it did as they commanded. Believe me when I say I felt that in a deep way and I’m sure that also contributed to why I was “put off” by the comic originally as well.

I still feel those triggers even now but I have grown a lot personally in that time – writing about my childhood and my feelings has helped a great deal over these many years – and I’m more able to take in art that forces me to feel things. Those feelings are regulated by reason, logic, and an acceptance of what was unchangeable, inevitable, and also the knowledge of who I am now. I wonder if Forever will come into herself in a similar way. I wonder when she’ll rise up and take back her power and realize that she’s so much stronger than her family they way I had to.

In my Media Therapy class I talk a lot about the transference that happens when people consume media.

Art is powerful, but it is our transference with it that makes all the difference. People make connections with art that are entirely PERSONAL and many artistic experiences become a part of people’s identities. It is why people have such rabid and uncontrollable responses to art and criticisms of their favorite films or books.

Media is SUBJECTIVE and everyone’s experience with media is deeply personal for them. My connection with Forever and what I get out of Lazarus – why it’s difficult for me, how I can relate to it or not, why I am drawn to it – has a lot to do with who I as a person and my lived experiences with abuse, power, control, feelings of helplessness, being manipulated by family, and the kind of precariously restrained rage that many marginalized and oppressed people experience.

So many things in Lazarus remind me of my own childhood. I didn’t have any of the power, physical strength, or responsibilities that Forever has, but what I can relate to is the control that everyone has over her, the gaslighting, the bullying, the being treated like a “thing” or a “problem” or as something to fear because you are different from what those around you expect or want. That resonates with me so very deeply.

I won’t go as far as to say my parents considered me “waste”, but I will say that I was little other than unpaid labor that existed to be “grateful for what I had” and not to be “thankful I had a home at all” for the majority of my childhood. The line … “You are waste elevated to service and your ambition has outweighed your sense.” hit me like a rocket to my gut. The more I tried to elevate myself, better myself, further educate myself, and see things differently from my parents … the more they tried to control, belittle, manipulate, and hinder me. Thinking outside of the box they forced me into was often met with anger, abuse, bullying, and other kinds of punishments designed to heel me so I didn’t get beyond where they felt I should be … or simply beyond them.

I wanted more … I thought deeper … I was “woke” about the power imbalance and unfairness of my position as a “child” long before it made any sense for me to be (before I was 13) and it caused a lot of conflict and a lot of problems between me and pretty much every adult (i.e. every desperate power seeker or power holder).

Forever longs for connection and understanding. Forever is extremely vulnerable underneath all of that heavily manufactured and controlled power she has. She’s conditioned and groomed to accept life as it is but you can tell she wants more and isn’t happy. She does what she is told and believes what she’s been told, but there is a place in her that is questioning and maybe silently on the verge of rebellion but just doesn’t quite know how. Sometimes people just need a push and it often starts with outside influence trying to push it’s way through. I feel like Forever is getting this at the end of #4.

I have hope for Forever … something I didn’t have for myself because I learned from stoicism at a very early age that hope is a dangerous delusion; a lie we tell ourselves when we cannot face the harshness and unpredictability of reality.

I’d rather have truth than hope.
I’d rather rely on my strengths, willpower, and resilience than believe something that simply isn’t true.

But I have hope for Forever; I want to believe she will come out from the darkness where she is and forge her own path away from her “family”.

That’s a hard thing to do … but it’s absolutely essential for survival.