The Onanistic Ritual
written by zac thompsons - illustrated by gavin mitchell - colored by fransisco segala with gloria martinelli - lettered by ed dukeshire
i actually like this issue so i actually want to write about it.
this story addresses the internet, which can be, in a word, cringe and hard to do, and i do not think necessarily this story does it well, but i think pairing this subsect of the internet with hellraiser is super interesting.
I would need to address the lore of hellraiser more in depth to truly give justice to the message of what the story is trying to do, but it uses and reflects on the connections within psychosexual pain and pleasure. i think applying this in a very modern context with bone smashing is very specific.
[1]
there is something to reflect here about pain and sex and the physical pains humans go through to obtain sex. the concept that this Mark fellow feels both like he has to do this to get attention from women, AND that he is entitled to feminine affection highlights the deep irony that this story is trying to highlight.
is the pacing of this story very good? no. is it a little on the nose? yes. do i think it is on the nose for people who take this community seriously? a mix of yes and know. there is a point where these things that these men have normalized loses its caricature features and simply is taken seriously.[2]
Presumably, we as the reader realize that Mark Sucks, and that is why it feels so good when he is dragged away to hell. I think some key context I am missing with this conversation is based in lore surrounding hellraiser itself. like, yes, it is cool to see a bad person who is equating pain and pleasure in messed up ways, but I am navigating from a perspective wherein people who also sin, but are less messed up, also get dragged to hell.
Perhaps this requires me to have more intense perspectives on the source material, which I will come back to eventually when I take official notes on the Hellraiser movies, presumably in October.
i could have clipped this picture to look specifically at this section of page but cest la vie. this guy, named mark presumably, says "today, i'm going to bonesmach my jay for greater facial harmony. this is the fastest way, as a man, to raise your sexual market value" ↩︎
I feel as though I could articulate this better than i am right now. there is a much more articulate way of articulating this ↩︎