Nobrow Press
Forming’s a huge book, in size and theme. Size first – an oversize, bigger than A4, 122-page hardcover from Nobrow, with all the gorgeous design touches and flat-matt colours that we’ve come to expect. Always lovely to look at.
This is the first of three projected volumes and quite fittingly starts at the start, the very start. We’re in the white heat of creation territory here, with Jesse Moynihan creating a fantastical, ridiculous mythology and a very off-kilter history of planet Earth. Forming takes a unique look at human history, the origins of our species, the formation of primitive society, and along the way covers life and death, the nature of consciousness, and the fundamental basis for religion and faith.
But where this sort of thing could take a very serious, almost po-face and clinically cold approach, I’m happy to say that Moynihan’s version of history and mythology is nothing of the sort. This is creation and humanity through an absurdist, practically comedic filter. Moynihan’s characters are ridiculous, child-like Gods in the classic jealous, vengeful mold, easily angered, prone to teen strops and adolescent urges. It is frankly insane. But in a funny, eye-popping, surreal sort of insane way.
So, here we are – Gods, lots of ‘em, big elder Gods, pseudo-gods, demi-gods, strange children of the Gods, Giants, Titans, Cyclopes and so much more, all in hyper-bright colours. Lets start with Mithras…
(Alien super-being and soon to be God of those pink, hairy things – Mithras makes Earthfall. From Jesse Moynihan’s Forming, published by Nobrow Press)
Mithras arrives on Earth in 10,00BC, an alien super-being, on a mission from dad to set up a mining operation. And all these primitive ape-like things are perfect labour. The problem is that Mithras, the alien super-being is actually more of a petulant child, whose idea of rebellion against dad involves setting himself up as a deity, and doing things his own way.
From here, Moynihan takes all the most unbelievable elements of classical mythology and mixes them all together, creating a series of increasingly insane moments where the Gods begin to act as if in some farcical blending of wrestling and straight to video action films. And that’s not a criticism – seeing this done against the background of cosmic importance is a brilliantly surreal read where every moment of epic grandeur is tempered by some equal moment of almost cartoon irreverence.
You’ll find so much thrown at you in this first volume; incredibly powerful alien gods, Titans right out of Ancient Greek mythology, interplanetary assassin droids, the very beginnings of humanity, the establishment of primitive societies and so much more.
(Mithras does the thing all these Gods seem to do, fraternising with the locals and making special boys)
So much of the humour in Forming comes from the idea that so many of these God-like beings are, frankly, dicks. And like Gods through the ages, this particular dick can’t help but spread his seed around a little, resulting in a series of demi-gods, Titans and Cyclopes – all those special boys.
What Mithras isn’t aware of is that Daddy has sent a second lot of young gods down to Earth, tasked to do the job right, get the mining operation sorted and get Mithras the hell out of there. But they too fall foul of the Gods acting as dicks thing. And there’s God fighting, but with all those bright costumes, it looks like a wrestle bout on pay per view TV.
(The rest of the gang hit town. More gods than you can shake a stick at.)
Along the way we see humanity and society form, sin introduced, and even revisit a Earth core dwelling Lucifer still smarting over the battle that sent him Earth bound and, just by accident, hapened to create the whole damn universe.
Lucifer plots and plans, manipulating the Gods, demi-gods and all the rest in an attempt to recover the “Crown Jewel”.
(The Adversary vs Michael, “Ultimate Challenge!”, and then the big bang. Not one you’ll find in a textbook.)
There are so many layers in Forming, so much to take in, that it’s a credit to Moynihan that the story rarely sags. It’s a huge volume, but when you’re in the middle of it, it seems anything but, as pages and complex ideas flow past, Moynihan in full command of the storytelling thoughout. It’s sacred text as an over the top made for American TV wrestle-mania event where they have sociological debates between rounds. Mad, but so much fun.
Forming has been serialised on Moynihan’s website since back in 2009, but I can’t imagine how unsatisfying it would be that way, there’s simply too much going on, too many disparate strands to follow, it can only work with sufficient material to read through, something this undeniably impressive Nobrow collection does admirably.
Forming is available from Nobrow Press and the FPI webstore but dammit, if you can’t find their books in your local comic shop, you’ve probably gone to the wrong one.
Leave a Reply