Born From Interpretation: Spawn #166, Last Page

I mentioned on this blog before that I have lost all respect for Todd McFarland. While this is still true, years ago, I had gotten my hopes up for the series when I heard that it was being taken to its original, dark roots (where it was supposed to be if it hadn't been for marketing). After the Armageddon Saga had been used as nothing but a McGuffin to reboot the series, and a cheap one, at that, the series needed a complete overhaul.

Enter writer David Hine, writer of the recent Daredevil comics as well as District X, and Brian Haberlin, co-creator of Witchblade. After seeing samples of Haberlin's art, I was still suspicious that the stories would be trash, but I was impressed with the art style. It was more realistic, grittier, and his monsters where disturbing (save for his fairly infant-looking Violator, but that's a topic for later). One day, out of curiosity, I opened up Spawn #166 on to the last page. This was the image that made me get into the Spawn series again, until Haberlin left (due to his wife giving birth), and McFarland screwed the character over.

Illustration is not as easy as people seem to think. Where in art, you're taking what you feel and putting it on paper, in clay, or whatever medium you're using, Illustration requires you to translate someone else's thoughts and ideas onto paper. With comics, these ideas can be written pretty specifically, or very loosely depending on how well the creative team is working together. With this image, Haberlin and Hine created a haunting visage of what the series could become: a grotesque, horrifying portrayal of life after the Apocalypse, that is, if the Apocalypse banished the existence of God and Lucifer to another realm.

Some background on the context: Throughout the issue, this woman had been biting her cuticles, tearing the skin back. A voice goads her on to keep tearing at her skin, until her boyfriend comes to pick her up. When she answers the door, she's wearing opera gloves to cover the fact that her hands are bloody. Later, her boyfriend comes back to see her, and she tells him that he won't love her anymore. Cue this page.

The next issue shows a behind the scenes look at the creative team's process of making a splash page like this. Hine's notes are extremely specific, and thumbnails are included as well. I would've loved to see this page done behind the scenes, mainly because it imbeds into your mind. She peeled so much of her skin off, that her fingers weren't strong enough to see how far she could go, so she pulled out a knife. Only her forehead and left shoulder have skin left. While she most likely shouldn't be alive, she should be, at least, in immense pain, but she doesn't seem to be.

Double that with the text: "I just had to see what was underneath." If this is the first image you saw of this particular issue, the combination of the image and her quote would most likely create some sort of indelible mark on your imagination. Moreover, Haberlin, who knew a lot about the human anatomy as an artist before, likely had to due extensive research on the muscular system. Speaking from experience as both an artist and someone who took anatomy classes in school, memorizing how the texture of each muscle looks (and how to separate the groups) is no easy task. Yet, Haberlin pulled it off like a true professional. His art work throughout the run continued to impress not only audiences, but the rest of the series' staff as well.

Next time (which should be next week or the week after), I'm going to take time to talk about an unfinished miniseries that was one of the most underrated comics in recent history. I'm only going to show two or three pages, but trust me, it'll be worth it. Besides, the fate of Earth depends on it. Well, not really, but it'd be cool if it did. Then, the series may actually be finished!

- Ben