(From Seaguy #1 by Morrison and Stewart. Click to enlarge.)
Following Lynda Barry's dissection of her character, the debut of Grant Morrison's new character and dud superhero Seaguy is obstructed by ennui and tv. From the get-go, Seaguy is outmoded, his brand and iconicity pallid next to the absurdity of Mickey Eye and the ubiquity of Xoo. Mickey Eye: a doppelganger Disney program advocating "am-bi-gyoo-ity" and a zany non-sequitur from the previous panels. Xoo: malleable and sentient food item that brainwashes and silences. How can Seaguy compete with global marketing? "But everything's been done," he says, and eats. What strikes me about this sequence is the shadow of the fork-and-food in the second panel. This code or glyph shines on Seaguy's face, and should probably mean something, communicating as it were over Seaguy's mouth and under Seaguy's words. It's an enigmatic and esoteric contrast to the advertising tableau of the fourth panel (SG's Xoo endorsement). A nice touch by artist Cameron Stewart.
Four parallel lines, that's all? Read between them. Maybe I should have used the word "umbra."
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