Da Fug!

No, I never got around to writing that Seaguy thesis or whatever, but here's a post I just made on another message board which sums up most of my thoughts:

Yeah, Seaguy is pretty bewildering, but I liked it. It's a fugue-like madcap romp in a world that doesn't know it's crazy, and has charming characters and kooky stuff and all the things one likes in Grant Morrison comics. It seems to be mainly about how corporations and brands are trying to homogenize the world and rob it of its special qualities, and of the power of the individual; after all, individuation is a key theme in most of Morrison's stuff.

Seaguy is also the story of a child's life, or at least, I think so. We've got Seaguy, who is, apparently, a superhero, but he never really goes on any adventures; it could be all in his head, with Chubby da Choona as his "imaginary friend." There are also the parent figures; Anti-Dad is the father and he "dies" but his presence still lingers (I'm sure he's behind Mickey Eye, somehow), and as the "child" that is Seaguy discovers the horrors of the world, in his process of becoming an "adult," his world falls apart around him, the shadows creep in, it seems like everyone's after him, something harmless and cuddly turns into a giant penis monster, his "imaginary friend" dies, the girl he has a crush on (She-Beard... and if that's not a euphemism, I don't know what is) rejects him, the friendly old guy he hung out with turns out to be just like any other adult (evil and in the world of business... it's like when you hear that Mr. Rogers was a sniper in the military) and he runs off to hide with his mummy (mommy) on the moon, but the horrors of the adult world follow him anyway, and then brainwash him into being an imagination-less slave of an evil conglomerate.

So it's really a coming-of-age story about puberty and adolescence.

The ambiguous ending has me wanting more. Does the wink mean Seaguy remembers Chubby and is totally on top of the world, or that he only *thinks* he knows what's going on, but is really just a pathetic cog in the machine? I'm dying for the other two mini-series to wrap it up, but Cameron Stewart tells us that nothing's in the pipeline yet and might not be for some time, or ever. So who knows? Maybe Mickey Eye wins after all.