By Comix
Kids are weird. They smell weird, they say weird shit, and, if Christmas movies are to be believed, they have the power to make wishes come true through the magic of innocence. But nothing is weirder than a kid’s imaginary friend, who could be anything from a rainbow goldfish to a talking rock named Dickbarf. Oddly enough, that is exactly the premise for the Image comic mini-series, Happy, about a down on his luck ex-cop and a magical blue unicorn who end up becoming the bestest of friends. Throw in a ridiculous amount of blood, drugs, and swears and you got yourself a tale of redemption worth flying under the banner of Brutal as Hell. Though the series has been over for a few months, it’s still worth a read if just to see how a premise so ridiculous could work.
The comic starts with a pair of mobsters heading towards a hired hit, ready to fuck shit up. Unfortunately for them, someone beat them to the punch as they walk into a hail of bullets from the most depressing looking cop-turned-hitman this side of The Godfather. While one of the poor schlubs begs for his life, he gives the hitman, Nick Sax, a password to a fortune as a bribe to not kill him. Sax guns him down anyway and soon enough, the entire mob is on his ass for the password. On top of that, he also starts seeing a floating blue unicorn named Happy, who is determined to get his help to save a poor, kidnapped girl. Suddenly his life becomes a race against time, both for him to get out of the city, and for Happy to convince Sax that not only is he real, but he desperately needs his help to find the girl before Christmas hits at midnight.
Happy is a very interesting read. It’s very much a mix between a warm-hearted fairy tale and a super crazy mob story filled with sex and murder. It’s interesting because you would think that with two such opposite genres it would turn into a super goofy read, like an 80’s cop comedy, but it stays legit. You definitely get the warm, fuzzy, Christmas feeling that makes you want to toss presents at peasants, but it doesn’t leak into the part of the story that supposed to be brutal and pretty damn grim. It’s a very well done combination of opposites that shows that with a good idea and a good execution, you can literally write anything. The humans were sad, lonely, perverted, and trigger happy, while the unicorn became the mayor of goodwill and sunshine, reminding everyone that even in our darkest times, even while the mob is threatening to rape your mother, sometimes, all you need is a little faith.
By the way, speaking of a good execution, we can thank the amazing team of Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson for this piece of must-read literature. Oh, got your attention, did I? If not, let me lay some knowledge on you. Grant Morrison is considered, along with Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, and others, to be one of the forerunners of the British writer invasion (or “Brit Wave”) during the late 80s-early 90s. He is responsible for bringing to life a then unknown character named Animal Man, along with an amazing run on Doom Patrol and Justice League of America that stapled him as the go-to man for experimental story writing. He even once wrote a comic called Bible John: A Forensic Meditation that he claimed he wrote with the help of an Ouija board. The artist, Darick Robertson is most popularly for pencilling the gonzo-esque, journalistic journeys of Spider Jerusalem, the protagonist of Transmetropolitan with Warren Ellis, and drawing The Boys with Garth “The Menace” Ennis. With these two at the helm of Happy, it’s no wonder that it managed to come off as good as it did.
Happy is now available everywhere fine comics are sold; single issues as well as the collected graphic novel. If you’re new to the works of these fine gentlemen, I suggest picking up The Boys for some sweet Robertson action and, really, anything by Morrison is just fine. Whichever you grab, make sure you start at the beginning though, as both of them tend to work on stories that require a solid dedication from the beginning to end. Really though, once you pick up any of their works, you wouldn’t want it any other way.