HAPPY! #1 by Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson

 

FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK.

The word bounces of almost every panel of the opening to Grant Morrison's first book for Image Comics more than any other, and immediately, you have to start asking yourself why. It's this stylistic virtuosity that punctuates all of Morrison's work; everything he does, he does for a reason. You just have to work out what it is.

And so, in this bleak and ultra-sweary landscape, we meet ex-cop Nick Sax, who may or may not be a nice guy underneath (let's find out over the next 4 issues), a grizzled and compromised individual who winds up being wounded in a hit-gone wrong.

Don't worry, not THAT wounded.

The initial premise of the book as laid out above aligns it with other ultraviolent, ultra-explicit and you guessed it ultra-scary comics out there. But as I said above, this is Morrison, and you have to expect more. Perhaps despite the ridiculous saturation of colourful language in the first few pages, it doesn't become apparent that this is entirely satirical until we meet the book's hero... Happy.

 

Happy is a talking, flying, imaginary blue horse who is about to help Nick out of a tight spot. And that's about as far as we get in this superbly-paced first issue, which starts as one thing and ends as completely another. 

Many years ago, in 1988, when Morrison wrote Animal Man #5, he treated the world to a story which combined his fledgling superhero project with a striking metatextual twist in 'The Coyote Gospel'. 

 

 'The Coyote Gospel' is absolutely insane, but jaw-droppingly brilliant. In the story, Crafty, a cartoon character not-so-loosely based on Wile E Coyote, assures the peace of his plane of existence with his creator (writer) by being sent to the world of comic books. Animal Man Buddy Baker is absent for most of the issue, with the story instead focusing on Crafty being perpetually hunted by a truck driver in a violent and disturbing manner which amplifies the sadistic chase of the cartoon world to a palpable, tragic and very engaging level. 

Crafty and Happy draw inevitable parallels and comparisons, both being out of place in their narrative. Crafty's true form is a Looney Tunes character pulled into the world of a more realistic anatomy, and Happy, too, is a cutesy creation appearing in the most gritty of situations.

But perhaps we could posit that while the two stories may have similar preoccupations, they are products of different times and have different points to make. Crafty's creator is sadistic, joyful in the horror that he forces the coyote to experience in order to ensure the safety of his world. Happy, however, has a writer who is turning the microscope the other way, and wants to dissect the reader's psyche instead. Is ultraviolence what you really want, or do you want a cute fucking blue horse? Does violence and swearing really make you Happy?

We'll learn more as the story progresses, but Morrison recently described Happy as "Sin City meets It's A Wonderful Life" and having read the first issue it seems a likely trajectory that our blue friend will show us that we need something lighter than the world Sax comes from...