AN OPEN LETTER DETAILING MY OPINIONS ABOUT THE SIRIUS RUN OF POISON ELVES


Introduction

Wow, you've got to love the internet.  The day that I add new material
to my Poison Elves web site after a 10 month absence, someone notices
and sends e-mail letting me know that they noticed.  That's pretty
incredible when you think about it, really (even if he did have a web
browser that was smart enough to let him know that it had changed).
This past weekend, to celebrate the fact that Drew finished the
Sanctuary storyline, I re-read the whole shebang from start to finish
with the goal of updating my poorly neglected page and evaluating the
story as a whole.  If you read the "news" section pertaining to these
changes, you'll know that I was disappointed.  However, the reason
that I bothered to re-read them at all was that I liked the last few
issues quite a bit and have high hopes for the new direction of the
series.

Anyway, this guy that mailed me today was a bit surprised that I had
disliked the Sanctuary story arc so much, and since I claimed on the
page that I'd give an explanation of my reasons, I figured I'd do so
now (even though I really ought to be starting work on a paper that's
due in about 10 days :).  This is meant to be an open letter to Drew,
but I'm also posting it on the web because I get e-mail from people
all the time who agree or disagree with my occasional rants about a
particular issue.  I've enjoyed making lots of e-mail pen-pals from
the web page and am always glad to have someone say they like the page
or found out about the comic due to it, so I want to make it clear
what I've liked and not liked about Sanctuary (rather than carrying on
several independent conversations).  Besides, it'll probably be too
long to end up unedited in Deathreats, and criticism has never done
too well in that forum anyway.  :) If you have commentary or opinions
that you want to fire back at me, please feel free---I'm always open
to other opinions (brad@cs.washington.edu).

OK, so first of all, I want to step back a bit from what I wrote in
the news section about updating the Amrahly'nn pages to include the
entire Sanctuary story arc.  It was definitely a case of overstating a
point to make an effect.  If you've ever met Drew in person, you'll
realize that he uses the same device a ton in his Starting Notes and
responses to Deathreats writers.  And then every once in awhile you
get this teady bear introduction like the one in #39, and it doesn't
seem to fit.  Unless you've met him in person and realize what a
genuinely good guy he really is.  We've all got our facades (though I
guess I could have them backwards for him :).

Anyway: Sanctuary was not godawful *per se*.  However, it wasn't as
good as it should've been by any means either.  As I was reading
through all 39 issues this weekend, I did some quick math and realized
how much I'd spent on it.  Then I thought about whether or not I would
plop down that much money in one fell swoop ($150+), had I known what
I was getting and the answer is an easy "no."  Except that I actually
can think of one reason that I might, and that would be to support an
artist that I've enjoyed and would like to see continue to work in
comics (if I'm not being clear, Drew is such an artist).  But will I
buy Sanctuary in TPB form if it's reprinted?  Not on your life.  Not
unless it's dirt cheap (And this is from the guy who's stupid enough
to buy Martin Wagner's comics in four printings to "support" him... :)

So you could easily argue, "well if you didn't like it, why did you
keep buying it?" and I'll admit that I asked myself this same question
at several points during the story's run.  Part of the answer is
definitely that the two main occasions when I was asking this
question, Drew's Starting Note assured me that "things were about
change soon, fast," giving me hope to hold out for one more issue, to
see things one step further.  The change in issue 25 didn't seem all
that dramatic to me.  Sure, lots of old characters showed up and made
appearances, but that wasn't why I was reading the comic (more on this
later).  I don't read it for the in-jokes and the next appearance of
the Purple Marauder, but for the story.  So now we're on the brink of
"the next big change" (with issue 40) and I have to admit that it
sounds promising.  I'm hoping for the best.

But it wasn't merely Drew's baiting me on with promises of change.  It
was also re-reading the Mulehide issues and realizing how good the
series could be, and being constantly optimistic that things would
improve to the point where I thoroughly enjoyed the comic again.  It
was the hope that the comic that I'd spent so much time compiling a
concordance for and getting it all hyperlinked reasonably would be fun
and worthwhile to me again.  My fingers are still tightly crossed.


Critique

OK, so perhaps I should start diving in and giving some real criticism
here, rather than talking around the problem.  So let's start with the
obvious (and in many ways least important) criticism: Most of the
time, the editing on Poison Elves really stinks.  I realize that
Drew's admitted that his spelling's not the best, and that Sirius
isn't such a big-time operation that they have lots of money to spend
on an editor.  But, given the groundswell of popular support that
there has been on the internet, it seems like there must be some way
to catch some of the errors before they make it to print.  Most of the
people who have e-mailed me about the comic have been extremely
articulate and would be elated to proofread the comic or script before
it hits the stands.  Granted, bad editing isn't the worst thing in the
world, but it's really amazing how much a mis-spelled word can mess
with the flow of a comic and your impression of its quality.  OK, so
maybe that was a cheap shot.  And maybe it was unfair since spelling
was a problem in my beloved Mulehide issues as well.  But with the
move to the larger company came expectations of a more polished
creation, and that hasn't really been the case.

Other examples of poor editing: in issue 33, pages 6-11 seem to have
gotten scrambled into the wrong order.  It's not all that noticeable
until you hit page 10 and realize that it didn't follow at all from
page 9.  My guess is that the intended order was 6, 9, 7, 8, 10, but
I'm still not sure.  In issue 28, pages 42-44 contain some repeated
text in a way that is pretty clearly accidental and makes a so-so
monologue seem a bit silly.  Getting even nit-pickier, some of the
text portions in the Sirius run were just plain badly formatted: there
was that one issue whose text portions looked like they'd been printed
on a badly-aligned dot matrix printer, where the words were split
horizontally in half.  And another issue where text pages and comic
pages would be interleaved---a fine technique, artistically---except
that the text was broken mid-sentence from one page to the one that
continued it three pages later.  A little bit jarring to say the
least.

OK, like I say, cheap shots, and certainly not ones that destroy the
comic for me, but definitely things that seem like they could be fixed
easily.  By having *anyone* read through the comic before it hits the
press, for example.  I mean, wouldn't *you* take this job for a nickel
a page?


Mulehide vs. Sanctuary in a nutshell

To explain why I didn't like Sanctuary so much, I think I need to
explain why I liked the Mulehide issues.  In the Mulehide issues, I
was presented with a vast world full of unexplored territory.  With a
new spin on a well-worn mythology.  With history, culture, races (and
racism), magic, and creatures that were clearly creative and exciting
and inventive.  And on top of this, there were elven and human
characters that were interesting and lively and distinct.  In the
Mulehide Issues, I was exposed to a demonic possession, a first and
best and unrequited love, a psychopath who dressed up in peoples'
bodies, hallucinatory drug withdrawals, the most over-the-top
"superhero" ever, surreal dream sequences, a clever doppelganger and a
naive paladin, lovesick siamese twins, the genie that everyone
deserves to get, a wizards' duel to rival "the Sword in the Stone's",
monsters, mythology, and a creator with a seemingly limitless
imagination.  Drew cited the Sandman as an inspiration, and the
influence of Cerebus seemed very present as well.

By way of contrast, here's what I got from Sanctuary: a thieves' and
assassins' guild (this, at least, was a cool idea), a deep
relationship, a vice squad with a vendetta, intra-guild jealousy and
rivalries, an inter-guild war, a serial killer, a "friends-thrust-
against-each-other-through-a-misunderstanding" plot device, and
Lusiphur as a woman.  The guy who mailed me today said that he didn't
understand why I was so bitter---that the two phases of the comic
(Mulehide and Sirius) seemed pretty similar to him.  I dunno, is it
just me?  They seem completely different to me.  I guess I would
summarize it as: the Mulehide issues were like putting into print and
pictures the kinds of stories I would imagine when playing dungeons
and dragons as a kid -- full of mystery and intrigue and magic and
monsters and characters that I wouldn't have dreamed of myself.
Whereas Sanctuary seemed to be a long, bad episode of Miami Vice.

I think Drew's intentions were great: tell a longer, more involved,
more complex story.  Go beyond the 1-2 issue quick, sharp tales.  But
frankly, I don't believe he had the chops to pull it off (yet).  I
remember when the guy in Deathreats complained that the pace was bad,
that not much seemed to be happening, and Drew responded with, "how
can you say that?"  and listed several key plot points.  But my
reaction was still, "yeah, seems like not much of interest is
happening..."


Characters

OK, so I'm clearly not into plots involving cops and robbers and gangs
(though actually I am -- Stray Bullets, Sin City, and Goldfish being
three favorites) and maybe I just miss my fairies.  Maybe it's *my*
problem.  But you know, it's more than just not being into the plot.
The characters really got weaker in Sanctuary as well.  In the
Mulehide issues, almost every issue introduced new characters that
were interesting and diverse.  When Drew did that great issue 18 that
told what everyone was doing and where they were, it was like "Wow!
Look at what a world he's built!"  In fact, there may even be a letter
from me in issue 19 or 20 saying this (I can't remember whether it got
published or not).  I was seriously impressed at that point.  Now
let's see what new characters I would include in that list from
Sanctuary if I were to have Drew write a similar issue (not worrying
about those that are dead).  Cassandra, certainly.  I didn't like her
as much as most people did (more on that later), but still, she was
pretty decent.  Vido would definitely be in there, like him or not.
None of the Blood Guard, that's for sure.  The Blood Guard was like
this list of names that, other than Daniels and Jace, you could never
really connect with any faces.  Until they were hunted down one by one
by Lusiphur in his anguish.  Then it was like, "Bob shoots
crossbows---BANG!; Joe objectifies women--BANG!; Frank was the serial
killer, surprise!---BANG!"  This is characterization?  Sure we'd seen
the *names* before, but I wouldn't say that anybody (Daniels included)
took on a life of his own.  We're told that Daniels was a family man
and Vido's close friend, but only after he was killed.  How about
building up some of this warm fuzziness so that we could feel it too?
How about showing us Bob's crossbow skills, Joe's womanizing?  Did
anybody remember that "Frank" even existed when it was revealed that
he was the killer?  (I didn't, and I'm the one who was reading all the
issues in a single day compiling the concordance...).  Can anyone even
remember his real name?  (I can't, and I typed it in the day before
yesterday).  Ahem...  Mr. Moto would be in the list.  Scuzz and Scum?
(Who?  Oh yeah, the street guys who smelled bad.  Great
characterization, huh?)  Nah...  Talon and Morachi?  Can you tell
which is which?  (OK, Morachi is the slightly-more-open-to-Lusiphur
one and Talon is the slightly-more-against-Lusiphur one).  Any of
Sanctuary's thieves and assassins?  No way.  

To me, Sanctuary was basically just one long parade of supporting
characters played by actors who couldn't bring any life to the roles.
It's like Drew tried to create complexity of plot by having a large
number of characters.  And to his credit, you do see some of the same
names pop up throughout the series, but not in any way that make them
anything more than a recurring name.  

Even worse, though (to me) was the use (abuse!) of some of the
characters that were introduced in Mulehide.  Friedrich and Balinarch
made two appearances, neither of which served any real purpose other
than to reinforce in our minds that Balinarch is the one that always
says "Hrar!"  I wouldn't even call them comic relief, though I guess
the fact that they thought they were being hunted down when it was
really Luse and Jace was a *bit* wry.  OK... barely.

I have to say that as much as I like the Purple Marauder, he appeared
way too frequently in Sanctuary, without really adding any value.  His
appearance used to be completely unexpected, catching you by surprise
and adding a new bit of info to his character (the phallic sword
interpretation; the fact that spitting is his secret weapon).  But
lately, it's gotten to the point (for me) of figuring "well, a few
more issues have gone by.  No doubt it's time for him to show up and
yell some loud predictable things again."  The character has become a
self-parody.  No value added when he appears anymore.  Too bad, he was
great for awhile there.

In contrast, let me say that Drew's continued to do a great job with
Parintachin.  We always seem to learn a bit more about him (and more
importantly, a bit more about Lusiphur) whenever he's on-stage.  More
about that later, though-- I'm saving the positive feedback for last
(if you can hold out that long).

To my mind, Widowmaker was completely misused in Sanctuary.  He's
supposed to be this incredibly tough foe --- huge, inconquerable.
Luse barely got away last time, and only by drawing on some incredibly
deep power.  In Sanctuary, he shows up for a bit, represents a bit of
a threat in a mindless fight scene, gets put to sleep and sent off to
the basement.  Thanks for the cameo, E'jja---I sure hope you brought
sales up.  I feel similarly about Hyena and Tenth.  They sortof pop
into the comic, try to stir things up a bit, don't seem nearly as
powerful or interesting as they used to, and then disappear again.
Weird.

To some extent, this seems like damage control to me.  The story was
going awry, it was getting out of hand, (does anyone know if?) sales
were dropping.  Must do something to spice it up!  Throw in some old
characters that're familiar, that'll get the fans cheering!  That'll
make people smile in recognition.  Well yeah, only if you do something
interesting with them.  I'll admit, I perked up when they came
on-stage, but then they just...sortof...sat there.  So yeah, the
characters, both old and new, just didn't deliver for me in this
storyline.


The Relationship

Let's talk about Cassy.  From the letters Drew got, everyone loved
her.  I agree that her death was sad and regretful and even choked me
up a bit---I hate unexpected goodbyes (and it seemed to me, that her
death was out of character, but I'll ignore that for now).  But
frankly, I was glad to see Lusiphur out of that relationship.  I'm
happy for my friends when they're in love, but I don't like to sit
around and watch them talk with their significant others, and have
deep "I understand you and accept you as you are" types of
conversations, and hang around talking about nothing important on
their beds.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that they do all of those
things, but I'm generally more glad that I'm not around to watch it.
This is how I felt about Cassy and Luse's relationship.  Sure it's
great that they're in love and probing beyond his surface gruffness,
but do I have to watch?  She was pretty wicked with a sword, though,
huh?  OK, enough.  Let's respect the recently departed.


The Social Issues

One other trend that I hated in the Sanctuary storyline was the little
social commentary/moral lessons that were worked seamlessly (yeah,
right!) into the plot.  Issue 17: Drew understands art and the role of
the artist in society, in a thinly veiled allegory told from
Lusiphur's point of view; Issue 28: Drew understands professional
strippers, and their thought processes, and how badly men treat them;
Issue 29: Drew understands serial killers, and how they're badly
messed up and say weird things and how they get caught up in these
internal morality plays; Issue 36: Drew understands how women get
mistreated by men, and how society expects them to play this role that
men take for granted.  OK, don't get me wrong.  These are all
important issues and good things to know about and think about.  In
fact, I'd go so far as to say that Drew has good insight on how
certain sections of society tick that's lacking in the minds of lots
of mainstream Americans.  However, this insight is not why I read
Poison Elves, it's why I read socially provocative papers like the
Stranger and Ms. magazine.  My preference would be to keep the
editorializing in the Starting Note and the fantasy in the comic.  I
still haven't made it through that serial killer's monologue without
my eyes glazing over; I eventually end up scanning desperately for the
next time Lusiphur interrupts him, in hopes that he'll cut him off.
And he never does quite quickly enough.


Plot Holes

And how the hell did Lusiphur know that he was the serial killer in
the first place?  Or the (wrong!) number of prostitutes he killed?  Or
who he was?  Or where he was?  Or that there even was a serial killer
in the first place?  And furthrmore, why did he care?  You're going to
tell me that he'd shoot innocent people in a bar for no good reason
(now that was pretty messed up as well) and then listen to this guy
ramble on for an hour or two about how screwed up he was?  Please:
just put us all out of his misery Luse: a bullet to the temple, quick!

Again, I'd have to chalk that one up to damage control: "Must do
something to resolve this plotline!  Aha: here's one way to kill two
birds with one stone!"  Still, it's too bad that it had to be so
shabby.  Re-read issues 27-29 in succession and tell me that Luse's
apprehension and interaction with the serial killer isn't a plot twist
so far-fetched it's gasping for air.

Want some more gaping holes?  What happened to Morachi's wife who was
alluded to be (1) far away, and (2) visiting soon?  Foreshadowing is
great, but not when it never actually leads to anything.  For that
matter, why set up an elaborate plot around magicians secretly meeting
to try and lure Luse to go to an address---and then not have him not
go?  For that matter, how did Cassy get caught in a trap so similar to
the one meant for Lusiphur?  Yet obviously different than the one
meant for Lusiphur, given that Tenth and Hyena are still discussing it
after his death.  Maybe I missed something obvious there, but it
apparently wasn't obvious enough for me.  And what was with Hyena's
hair changing color all the time?  I have to say, though: I'm not
interested in knowing the answers to these questions.  Don't feel like
you have to write a "Morachi's wife comes to find that Sanctuary's in
ruins and that the address travelled back in time into Cassy's hands"
story to tie it all up.  Put me back with Luse and Jace and Cercie in
the mountains anyday...


The Good Stuff

OK, so let's see.  I didn't like the editing, plot, characters,
relationship, moral lessons, plot holes.  Seems pretty bleak, huh?
Well, not completely.  Let me tell you some of the things that I
really liked in Sanctuary:

1) The Art -- I still really like Drew's artwork, even though I'd be
embarrassed to show most of his women to any of my female friends.  I
do wish that it was more varied though -- less head shots and more
interesting surroundings.  I guess this is part of telling a
city-based, conversationally-oriented story.  I guess I just feel that
his artwork doesn't get to breathe as much when it's just showing
who's saying what to whom.

2) The Covers -- though occasionally dull (another shot of another
elf, yawn), these are generally really good and nicely colored.
Drew's always had great coloring skills, and many of the covers are
nice portraits.  Drew, if you've made it this far, the occasional
pictures on the back cover are greatly appreciated as well (or pinups
in the back pages).  Oh, and since I'm talking to you directly now,
thanks for returning to a non-computer-generated lettering (and most
recently your own?  Or someone whose lettering looks like yours?  It
feels much better now).

3) Three Days with Mr. Moto -- this is still one of the few comics
that has ever made me laugh out loud in spite of myself.  Not a
chuckle, but a full-on couldn't-stop-myself giggle.  One thing that
this issue had that seems to be missing from lots of others is a
variation in pace: some pages stood alone, some flowed from one to the
next.  The whole issue was funny, had good characters, and was just
perfect.

4) Sex and Violence -- I guess people either loved or hated this.  I
thought it was a great experiment and turned out really well.  I wish
more issues had taken different approaches to storytelling like this
one did.  Terrific and imaginitive drawings (I'm talking about the
violence here, not the sex :)

5) Most any meeting with Parintachin -- I worried on re-reading these
in one day, that I'd feel that Parintachin was overused; that he'd pop
up too often, as I felt the Purple Marauder did.  In fact, I don't
think that was the case.  Well, actually, I wouldn't mind if he showed
up a bit less often, but my point is that his appearances always lent
something to the story.  They delve into Lusiphur's character, his
motivations, his fears, everything that makes him who he is.  That
said, it would be important not to overdo it.  Self-analysis is good,
but if you do it all the time, you never actually live your life.  One
thing about Parintachin that I'm wary of, though, is that he seems to
be losing his edge a bit.  He (and his environment) used to be much
more surreal and out of control.  Now he seems quite stable compared
to Luse.  I wouldn't mind seeing the tables turned again a bit.
Anyway, Parintachin composed most of the good issues in Sanctuary.

6) Luse's inquisition of the Eye of the Lins member with Basil's help
(last part of issue 16.  This was done superbly.  Nice page layouts.
Nice panel choices.  Nice pacing.  And a concluding page that just
ended with all the fury and action that you could imagine in a
one-panel page.  Best of all: the cover was the only time we ever saw
what the Eye of the Lins guy was seeing.  And anticipating it, only to
find that Drew never draws it explicitly, was just beautiful.  This
reminds me of the Mulehide print that Drew sold years and years ago of
Luse goosing the barmaid and a brawl ensuing.  It was just a random
scene that Drew explained would be part of a future story (I think he
did, or did I make that up?).  And then when issue 18 came out, it was
like you were hearing the joke whose punchline you'd been told years
before, but never quite got.  It's this kind of planning and
structuring and patient visual storytelling that I've been missing.
Basil was a great instance of it, though.

7) Issues 38-39.  I have to say that the last two issues have made me
much more optimistic about the future of this series than the rest of
the storyline.  38 was yet another great Parintachin-Lusiphur
interaction.  39 did about as good a job as you could hope for at
sealing up the mess that was Sanctuary, putting a bow on it, and
moving on.  I hope that the title "The Way Things Were" refers to a
return in the type of story and pacing and characters and plot that
the Mulehide issues had delivered.  And I sincerely can't believe that
Luse didn't meet up with Lirilith (I mean, I *can* believe it, and I
realize that he's not ready for another relationship right now in any
sense, but still...  isn't she the Jaka of Poison Elves for you?).
Oh, BTW: Bill's unexplained appearance in the first page and the
subsequent explanation were another example of that Basil-barmaid
delayed gratification thing.  Clever.  Nifty.  Fun.  Yay!

OK, so I've done a lot of whining.  You'll have to forgive me, it's
been building up for 39 issues now.  To be fair, the last time I saw
Drew was when issue 1 had come out and he said, "be sure to let me
know what you think of the series!"  I guess I've finally gotten
around to doing that.  I'm sure that I'll get plenty of email from
fans pointing out how I'm wrong and being too harsh and expecting too
much and asking me if I thought I could do any better (feel free to
send it, though I will probably still disagree).  Could I do better?
Probably not.  But I know Drew can, and that's why I was so
disappointed in Sanctuary.  And why I've got such high hopes for
issues 40 and on.  Come on Drew, don't let us down!

OK, enough of this.  If you've made it this far, I'll buy you a drink
the next time you come to Seattle (invitation to anyone, not just
Drew).

Actually, I've got one more thought: I have to wonder what Poison
Elves would look like if it were to come out bimonthly (or say once
every six weeks) rather than monthly.  If Drew has great reasons for
needing to do it monthly (financial or contractural), so be it.  I'll
hope that he can put together stories as short and sharp and shocked
as he did in his bimonthly days.  But I have to wonder whether that
extra 2-4 weeks of time would allow him to put his ideas and art and
scripts and stories together so perfectly that it would make the wait
be worth it.  And the stories better.  And the sales increase.
Something to think about (and if you agree, to suggest to
him--especially if you're his boss :).