Emily The Strange: 13thHour
I have always admired the wonderful artwork that was brought forth from the Emily The Strange series. There was a time when Emily’s image graced everything from T-Shirts to purses and shoes. I have never actually read a single word from the comic book series, so when Dark Horse sent me a review copy of The 13thHourI was pretty excited about it. This trade paperback collects a four issue run into a single graphic novel that serves, near as I can tell, as essentially the origin story for Emily. Even the back cover asks: “we all know Emily the Strange is the world’s weirdest thirteen-year-old, but do you have any idea how that came to be?” The 13thHour begins on Emily’s 13thbirthday, a day of a solar eclipse, a day when a strange gift is sent by an aunt neither Emily or her mom have never met. Written by Rod Reger, and interestingly drawn my Buzz Parker (who demonstrates a wild graphic sense) this tale is told in four parts. And let me be very clear about this, Emily lives up to her title.
It starts stable enough, Emily has some nightmares about falling and being chased by a witch like figure, awakens to her mom’s planning her birthday, would rather do her own thing with her cat, Sabbath, then gets a cool gift from her Aunt Larue, a puzzle box. Emily works hard to crack the box, about to miss the eclipse her mother planned to watch with her, and discovers it contains a pocket watch with 13 hours on the face. As soon as Emily touches it, we are in for some Lewis Carroll level Strange. A little striped demon-like figure steals the watch and slips into a sort of hole, Emily finds she can talk to her cat, and together they seek after the little demon thing and the reader is left pondering what they have gotten themselves into. Off we go into another world, where Emily can talk to the local cats and garners up their help to chase down the thief.
As a parent I found the alternate reality a bit more than strange, maybe slightly disturbing. But as a graphic novel reader I adored the way Rod Reger kept the nonsense just sensible enough to compel you on. As if you would come to understand it, if you just read a little more. Disturbing were comments and images that could be suggestive of an altered state of mind chemically induced rather than imagined. When Emily catches up with the demon figure the first time it is in a sort of night-club where everyone is wearing striped clothes. Says the thief to her, “wiggy, wiggy, get striped little girl, everyone’s doing it.” Emily’s allies, namely the jazzy-cool cat named Miles, also display a weird conversational tone. When Emily firsts asks Miles where she is he answers, “ You is where you is and you gone from where you was.” All this in part one.
From here the book gets stranger. We have another cat who has a ship called the Ubercat that runs on imagination. Emily needs to make the trip (and they talk about taking a “trip” a lot) take course out of her own mind. When she is unsure how to do that, the captain takes her and her fellows through the Emerge and See Exit to the Inside Passage, which is inside Emily. Yup, they climb by her heart, up her throat and escape out her mouth down a long tongue. By now you expect the cat puns, and you get “cat got your tongue” right on cue. The ship ventures through The Headlands, where gigantic Emily heads roll in a pink and white sky. Here the book takes another strange turn when the Ubercat’s captain says Emily must “feed her head” – see, Lewis Carol. She has three bowls of brain food, a sort of elixir I guess, and each reveals a secret. One she consumes by taking off the top of her head and pouring the goo into her brain pan. This is about midway through the graphic novel, and I don’t want to spoil the rest of the journey for you. It does get a lot weirder though.
Part of me was caught off guard by Meger’s story. Truly one can read Alice in Wonderland as a straight up fantasy and make no allegation of drug play involved, but you can’t help but see the pattern in there when you are older – and a parent! Emily’s journey can be seen in exactly the same light. Flying snail cats, ideas like “by making your own rules you unlock your dreams”, and a bit on-the-nose word play (Larue… Real U) aside, Emily the Strange: The 13thHouris essentially metaphysical prose. It has a gifted ability to keep you thinking about it long after you put it down. Further, this book is a wonder just to look at. The graphic art element, heavy inked in black and many shades of red, is simply delicious. If you are looking for something that makes you ponder and will keep your visual interest stimulated, pick it up. Just expect it to take a while to comprehend what it was that you just read.
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