Hey! It’s just lines on paper, folks!
- R. Crumb

The Book of Leviathan, by Peter Blegvad.
Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press, 2001.
$23.95 - 160 pages.

Each time someone attempts to do a history of comic strips, things get a bit arbitrary. Scott McCloud, in Understanding Comics, doesn’t hesitate to identify the first sequential “cartoon” drawings in Pre-Columbian (Mayan) manuscripts, while other authorities make a good case for the Paleolithic cave drawings at Cascaux. Frankly, the humor gets pretty obscure in both the hieroglyphics of Central America and Egypt and ancient stone etchings of Europe. I guess you had to be there.

However, from “Little Nemo” to “Garfield” and “Peanuts,” the comic strip as we know it has an established format. We laugh, or are entertained by recognizable characters - Donald Duck, Little Lulu, Pogo and Fritz, the Cat.

For over a century now, newspaper readers turn to the comics for a bit of levity and wit before they turn back to the dismal and provoking front page.

Well, things are changing - at least in England. Consider the Manchester Guardian’s The Book of Leviathan, which has developed an ardent following and is now being distributed in an impressive hardback collection in this country.

At first glance, The Book of Leviathan doesn’t appear significantly different from other comic strip formats. Levi, a talkative baby, blunders from adventure to adventure in the company of a cat, referred to as “Cat” or “Friend.” The relationship might be a variation of “Calvin and Hobbes,” right? Well, the familiar facade is deceptive, if not downright subversive.

Levi doesn’t have a face, (Blegvad says that makes him easier to draw!) and the cat frequently alters its shape in alarming ways. The landscape is constantly changing - realistic, surreal, nightmarish and fantastic, etc. And the humor is .....well, “intellectual” - a word with sinister connotations in comic strip country. Levi and his cat talk about some heavy stuff - Jung, aesthetics, abstract art and existentialism, for example.

Doesn’t sound very comical, does it? Well, it is - in fact it is hilarious.

A considerable part of the humor in The Book of Leviathan is created by the lowly puns, which Blegvad has “elevated.” They are everywhere. There is a literal “man of words;” a country of gigantic noses in which unhappy members commit suicide by sniffing old socks; a drawing of Hell’s kitchen (complete with appliances and hinges); Valentine cards with anatomically correct hearts; drawings of public restrooms in ancient Troy complete with prophylactic machines labeled “Trojans;” Moray eels that have been struck in the eye by pizza pies and a militant group that arms bears (the right to bear arms). There is even a special Olympics in which Levi scores a perfect 10/10 in the “tantrum throw” division. In short, this a comic strip for thinking, literate people. My personal favorite was a stampede of animals - elephants, lions, tigers, bears running in panic from a Hoover vacuum cleaner because, as Cat observes, “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

The range of literary philosophical and artistic references is impressive. Levi and Cat crack jokes that require a knowledge of people like Edvard Munch, Aldous Huxley, Thomas Hobbes, Emily Dickenson, Chuck Berry and William Butler Yeats. Throw in a trip to Hell, a chapter on furniture reproduction (tables that beget little tables), some references to Don Giovanni, the Golem and Pinnocchio, and you have one of the most remarkable comic strips ever devised.

Rest assured, The Book of Leviathan isn’t going to suddenly appear in your syndicated newspapers. Levi and Cat are most definitely not meant for popular consumption. All I have to do is conjure up a vision of the patrons of the local barbershop or cafe, opening the paper and reading a comparative study of bar codes and “bark odes” (poems composed by dogs), all presided over by Levi and Cat who are debating the merits of books with blank pages. What the hell? They omitted Snuffy Smith and replaced him with .....this?

However, there is quite definitely a limited market for this beautifully designed book. Initial sales indicate that The Book of Leviathan is doing well on college campuses and in book stores. Be advised, the humor is thought provoking, wicked and original. It also frequently requires thought.

Where else can you find a story about nocturnal creatures called Nameless Dreads that creep into people’s bedrooms at night where they dissolve into a fog which is inhaled by the sleepers? The next day, the haggard victims confide to friends that they are filled with...yes, you guessed it, “a nameless dread.” Sometimes, they become so upset, they replicate themselves, whereon they can say that “they are beside themselves.” Yes, well, the love of bad puns is probably an acquired taste.

As for this reviewer, I am awaiting the publication of the sequel to The Book of Leviathan, and I am waiting with baited breath. (Sounds like a pun in the making!)

(Gary Carden is a storyteller and writer who lives in Sylva. He can be reached at gcarden498@aol.com)

 

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