Like so many other people I have been a fan of Garth Ennis for as many years as I have been familiar with his writing. I was first introduced to his creative style in the Preacher series, thanks to my buddy Darcy for this, and have tried to read as much of his work as I could. I have to take a minute here to mention at least one other set, the War Story comics are really, really great, probably the best WWII comics I have ever read, and this is coming from a guy who grew up reading Sgt Rock and GI Combat, see this blog for more on those. Anyhoo, as much as I love the writing of this man, I gotta say, sometimes I just have to wonder where the ideas come from.
I was quite excited to find out that Ennis had taken over writing for The Punisher several years ago and have had very little cause to regret it, but it has brought to light at least one key concept in Ennis' writing style that I find, to say the least, vaguely disturbing. Now religion has always been a pretty obvious literary tool, and used quite effectively in stories like Preacher, and I have no problem with graphic language, I mean I am an adult and regularly use worse language than I read in his stories, and as for the blatant sex, well hell son, bring it on, cause I like boobies; what I do find vaguely troubling is the anal rape.
Let me clarify here, in the first 50 issues of The Punisher, Volume 5, there are no less than 3 direct, blatant references to men raping men, and in at least one case, gang raping. On top of this are references to past acts of sodomy and assorted man-on-man perversions that are probably best left unspoken. In Preacher there was a fair bit of that too, but I kind of chocked it up to a part of the ludicrous storyline, there were simply no other means to sufficiently communicate the absurd brutality of some of the characters (how else do you sufficiently depict Jody and T.C). Having read subsequent stories and finding more of these references I find myself wondering about this dude.
Now I'm not a blushing virgin who can't bear to hear this kind of stuff. I not only enjoy the adult nature of the comics I celebrate the brutal violence that so thoroughly depicts the lifestyle of these characters he builds. I mean sure I paused for a second when I read the line about raping a corpse in the Saint of Killers origin story, but that's some pretty nasty stuff man. Also, I did find the term Doom cock very amusing, even considering the story behind it. I guess my point is why is the anal rape so repetitive?
I'm not going to rant on here because when you get right down to it I firmly think that Garth Ennis is one of, if not the, finest writers to ever pen a story in a comic book. His collection in Ancient History has one of the finest stories I have ever read, along with the entire Preacher series and the way he has handled the Punisher has been nothing short of genius. I guess when you get right down to it he uses things like anal rape to get to the root of everyone's comfort zone and drill a hole in it (pun intended). Chances are when you use the themes of religion, at least in the way he does, sex, including rape, murder, and torture you're pretty much guaranteed to strike a tender spot with every human being who comes into contact with it, and I do believe that's exactly what he's intending.
But I mean still, anal rape? WTF dude?
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