Never Iron Anything!: In Review - ‘The Sons of El Topo’ Volume 2 from Archaia.

‘The Sons of El Topo’: Volume 2 ‘Abel’

Written by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Illustrated by José Ladrönn.

Coloured by Ladrönn andugo Sebastian Fabio.

Translated by Edward Gauvin.

Lettered by Deron Bennett.

Published Archaia.

79 Pages - Oversized Hardback.

£14.99 - £10.00 (digital via ComiXology).

I talked about this book on the recent episode of The Awesome Comics Pod but felt that I’d like to repeat some of what I said and more importantly expand on a number of the thoughts I had at the time and continue to have a couple of days after reading.

Jodorowsky is someone that I have a troubling reader/viewer relationship with and a creator I consider is at once a fantasist and someone I wouldn’t want around kids (genuinely). I’ve seen the majority of his movies and read many of his comics and books and often wonder where he crosses that line of transgressively creative writer and deluded self-promoter. I also wonder at his predilections and who and why he likes provoke.......I wonder at these every time I look at one of his pages.

The second volume of The Sons of El Topo continues in the story that started in 1970 with the release of the titular El Topo at American cinemas (and if Jodorowsky is to be believed kick-started the midnight movie grind-house craze). It is by anyone’s standards a mixed piece of art. The narrative is messy and shifts through scenes and themes with the supposed changing moods of it’s writer, director and star Jodorowsky himself. It falls into that sub-genre of Acid Western and also into a mystical and quasi-religious diatribe of sex and murder and spilled internal organs.

Jodorowsky can easily be ridiculed about his need to shout loudly about his own genius. He loves to sermonise his personally created legend and pummel the listener with his (possibly) acid flash-back theories. He is what my father used to say ‘A legend in his own lunchtime’. But I often smell a rat. More recently as I watch his eyes as he speaks I spot something of the snake oil salesman and his faux magical intensity. Like Grant Morrison’s space alien first contact story it seems falser with the passing of time. An impact not unfelt by the bullshitter as well as the person being muck spread upon.

So onto this volume. This is not an easy read. But to give credit where credit is due this is a gorgeous looking book. Hardback in that oversized album treatment we see so often in Belgium and France. It bears the mark of class that is José Ladrönn and you can marvel at his level of intricate thin-lined and imaginative pages all day. I honestly think that without his input I would have given this a miss. It isn’t a long volume but gives over more than the expected story beats as we tumble through the bizarre structure and drama.

It opens with Cain on the back of a horse being ridden by a young nun. They are sinking into a swamp. In the first of Jodorowsky’s switch and bait catholic metaphors the nun initially seems to be standing miraculously on land with her head above the rushing water. But as Cain ducks his head beneath the waves he shouts that she is in fact standing on the back of the dead horse. He moves from a possible miracle believed by the naive and weak-willed to the cold hard reality of that world? Would the writer agree with me? I guess he might but I would also wonder at the same time if he isn’t agreeing through some attempt at jumping on a reader’s assumption and so gets to claim brilliance (once again).

The pair are saved by a raft full of an Amish style cowboy cult visually at first straight out of The Scarlet Letter. Cain and the Nun are dragged to a clearing that is strangely very dry on the sandy ground and a matriarchal haridon approaches them. The young nun is stripped and nailed down and spread with her legs open on the ground. This wizened woman has a small pack of oversized mountain cats on leads who snarl at those in her wake. This woman demands ‘The Holy Rape’. And that is exactly what is attempted. Not in the dark or in shadow or merely in an expositional narration, nope, we see it happening right there on the page plain as day. This moment has troubled me and I find it hard to rectify it’s appearance. I have thought long about why it should be displayed so and I have returned to the book to ponder. Is it merely for the titilation of those perverts with such interests or does it mean more? Look back at what has just happened in the swamp. This woman seems to have a messianic plot thread. The first man who attempts to penetrate her declares that she is a virgin and the second man has his penis and groin burnt by the attempted rape. What is the writer saying about the actions of religion and maybe the centuries long intentions of the Catholic Church specifically. What is he saying when he has a woman call out the order for the rape?

Using sex as a weapon is something that has been used both theologically and literally by the church for pretty much as long as it has existed. I hope that this is meant as a warning and as a lesson and not just part of Jodorosky’s sandbox play....... I suppose that I will never know for sure.

You can see what I mean about this comic having troubling aspects.

You could write a book of many hundreds of thousands of words on the possible reasoning and implications behind the stories that Jodorowsky creates. They are always far from what you’d expect from a western or a space opera or even an autobiography. He intertwines the fantastical with the absurd with what can only be seen as po-faced lies. He floats in the relish of the surprise and the raised eye-brows of the reader. I feel that the almost obsessive confusion I feel and the need to read onwards is his crack cocaine, he needs that energy from his readers to force his way onwards and maybe a little bit downwards.

The madness in this second volume continues with added velocity.

In this single volume we meet the leader of a bandit army who believes that he is a dog and sits naked on the floor gnawing on a bone and barking. The aforementioned bandits all have small feathery wings and I can only guess for what reason. We find a castle under siege and manned by male nuns with crafted beards and curled moustaches. Does this show that the bandits are the good and the costumed religious zealots are ‘the bad’? (Then why is the leader a carnivorous dog? My brain is in a spin!)

In other sequences a dead mother hangs between the real world and the after-life and has an hypnotic fragrance that attracts butterflies and menfolk. There’s a dead forest filled with skull faced warriors and an army of Bishops, Centurions and Knights who are seemingly battling a last crusade knee deep in bright red blood.

I fully admit that I find myself drawn to this book and it’s combination of insanity and beauty. José Ladrönn is revelatory in his style and layouts. He makes use of the oversized format by adding all and every detail. You see and feel emotionally the confines of small rooms as well as feeling your vulnerabilities in the wide-open skies of his landscapes. The battles are brutal, the emotions are raised beyond the norm and the women can be sexy and predatory all at once. I’m struck by how the artist and the colourists handle the nature and animals that seem a very important part of the story and also of the hidden meanings I guess at often whilst reading. Eagles soar overhead, horses are tired and embattled, the sky is often grey and claustrophobic and the mountains roar at the edges of the panels.