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Sebastian O (1993) #1 Kindle & comiXology
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVertigo
- Publication dateApril 6, 1993
- File size81325 KB
- Due to its large file size, this book may take longer to download
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Product details
- ASIN : B019WTE0EG
- Publisher : Vertigo (April 6, 1993)
- Publication date : April 6, 1993
- Language : English
- File size : 81325 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Not enabled
- Enhanced typesetting : Not Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Not Enabled
- Sticky notes : Not Enabled
- Print length : 26 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,407,247 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #7,836 in Fantasy Graphic Novels (Kindle Store)
- #14,318 in Fantasy Graphic Novels (Books)
- #25,966 in 45-Minute Comic & Graphic Novel Short Reads
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Grant Morrison is one of comics' greatest innovators. His long list of credits includes Batman: Arkham Asylum, All-Star Superman, JLA, Green Lantern, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Invisibles, WE3 and The Filth.
The TV series of his graphic novel HAPPY! is showing on SYFY and Netflix.
Photo by PDH (File:Grant_morrison.jpg) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Nonetheless, according to Michel Foucault, sex was exhaustively discussed and studied in the Victorian Age, sex was a force that needed to be disciplined. Sexual pathologies didn't exist previously... it is during this era that someone describes every sexual practice and decides that some are normal and others abnormal and thus abhorrent. Unfairly accused of depravity, many people suffered because of this, including famed writer Oscar Wilde, which is the inspiration behind the fictional character of Sebastian O, a riveting metaphor of the sublimity of art.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote once that art must lead the way to the future, it's only fitting then that Morrison's approach takes the figure of the ultimate artist and places it into an alternative reality that can have only the most unpredictable future. As a matter of fact, drawing from science fiction subgenres such as steam-punk, Morrison recreates England under the ruling of Queen Victoria but adds advanced steam machinery, and all the technology derived from alternative energies. As a result, although firmly established in the late 19th century, this reality has been privy to major scientific breakthroughs.
What is most fascinating about the author's proposal is mixing a world of futuristic technology while emphasizing Victorian idiosyncrasies. As a result, we have a rather sensible boy, Sebastian O, heir to a fortune that many would kill for, but living a life of torment and disappointment. For instance, his stepfather has one goal: "eradicating the lad's effeminate tendencies". Exiled from home at an early age because of those very tendencies, the child will have one too many adventures, until far from England he is "tutored in the ways of the Hasheesheen, a sect of all-male ecstatic killers".
Once he makes his triumphant return to London, he meets a group of seemingly immoral men, such as the teenaged homosexual poet Arnold Truro, the ambitious Lord Theo Lavender, the sexually devious novelist George Harkness and the Abbe who claims to have "devotion to underprivileged young men" when in true he indulges in pederasty. Together, they are the founders of the Club de Paradis Artificiel where this "jaded group of pomandered and frock-coated dandies imagine in Her stead a world of perfect, flawless artifice".
Why is it that the conception of art is so important for this clique? Because according to Nietzsche, Apollonian art is contrary to Dionysian art. Apollo's realm is the world of will power and representation; of individuation and therefore finitude. By becoming an elegant assassin, always concerned with his physical appearance and aesthetic pursuits, Sebastian O defines himself as an individual that has nothing in common with mundane people. Apollo's essence is the dreaming and the primordial yearning for appearance. Sebastian O is obsessed about his stylish finery, and this urgency reveals the implacable need for maintaining an appearance, an indelible façade that upholds the protagonist's spirit. Aesthetically speaking, beauty is but an appearance that covers the horror; in this case, Sebastian O's morbid desires and appalling opinions are perfectly hidden under his disguise of a civilized and graceful gentleman.
Let's remember also that Apollonian art follows certain parameters: simple lines, sobriety, clear architecture; all fundamental traits of a man of distinction. These elements have also inspired an artist like Steve Yeowell to look for simplicity, cleanliness and tidiness in his pages (Steve Yeowell had worked before with the author in their seminal series on 2000AD's Zenith: Bk. 1 , a very different story about a super-powered teenager in the "real" world). Finally, art's goal would be to transform existence into beauty; Sebastian O, a dashing young man, takes the concept of the dandy to its logical outcome: elegance is not a virtue but a duty; to have a refined taste is not optional but mandatory.
When sodomy charges are presented against Sebastian O, he ends up in jail (not unlike in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde ) and the Club de Paradis Artificiel is swiftly disbanded. But Sebastian O hasn't trained as a mystic assassin in vain, and after months in prison, he escapes. Now, it's his mission to seek revenge, if only to preserve his reputation. But what dishonorable tasks have his old friends been up to? What can be more scandalous than watching the Abbe still abusing children? As Sebastian O visits his old comrades, he finds transvestite allies as well as lesbian collaborators, but will that be enough to defeat the mysterious mercenaries that are ruthlessly chasing him?
Besides all this, a former member of the Club de Paradis Artificiel has been conspiring for years, and he now possesses the power to control Queen Victoria absolutely. With the entire Royal Army and Knights of the Crown against Sebastian O, what can the gifted dandy do? Perhaps, he can break down the barriers and taboos, and liberate himself and Britain through sex, or if that fails, through manslaughter.
Originally a 3 part series, this graphic novel collects the issues of gifted writer Grant Morrison, who takes his deliciously Oscar Wilde-esque character Sebastian O from Bedlam (a hospital for the mentally deficient, the unwanted, and those with the tendency to make society uncomfortable) through his quest to find revenge for the betrayal which put him there. Unlike the tragically confined Wilde, who attempted to flaunt and thwart society, Sebastian manages to pull off his rebellion with aplomb. The book bends those narrow assigned gender roles with equal skill and wit. Sebastian, Abbe, George, and Theo, the members of the Club De Paradis Artificiel will remind history buffs of the Bloomsbury group or the art circles of the Pre-Raphaelites.
This title has its weak moments, thus the 4-star rating. The humor occasionally covers flimsy points in the narrative, and the characters sometimes dip a toe into farcical archetypes of themselves. All in all, however, this book is a must buy.
Sebastian O is a three-issue miniseries from the early ‘90s and, despite being written by Grant Morrison, it’s relatively obscure. But if you’re familiar with the name, you might expect this book to be a little tricky to read but it’s actually very straightforward. Too straightforward even. This is actually the first Grant Morrison comic I found myself wishing things to be a little more complicated!
Sebastian O’s plot is your average revenge story that’s been doing the rounds long before Alexandre Dumas wrote the definitive one in The Count of Monte Cristo. And because Sebastian’s a dandy who fancies himself an aesthete (with an Aubrey Beardsley hairdo) Morrison tries - and fails - to come up with some Wildean witticisms for him:
“We may be in the sewer, but there’s absolutely no need for that kind of gutter profanity” and
“It seems almost criminal to remove my whiskers. I look indefinably christlike. Having said that, I refuse to martyr myself for one second longer”
Hmm. I know Morrison’s attempting caricature here but it doesn’t quite work, being such weak and empty humour. Alan Moore attempted something similar in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, which further underscored exactly why Wilde was so celebrated, then and now: nobody else could write or think like him.
I quite liked Steve Yeowell’s art in this book. The mechanical gardens looked great as did Sebastian’s tricksy, trap-laden home, and steampunk Blighty looked convincing with just the right amount of oddity to make it look similar, but wholly different, to Victorian England. His design for the Abbe also looked a lot like Beardsley’s Ali Baba, a style and reference that I’m sure wasn’t a coincidence.
Sebastian O is minor Morrison but given his many successes and popularity, it seems strange that DC would decide to discontinue this book’s print run forever. I think Morrison has enough of an audience that this comic, however ordinary, could generate a decent amount of sales for them if they re-released it.
If you’re a Morrison fan and enjoy his more story-driven work over his trippy-hippy stuff, you’ll enjoy this - it’s not amazing but it’s certainly not bad. But if you can’t get your hands on a copy - which will become more likely as the years go on - then don’t worry as you didn’t miss a masterpiece.
Top reviews from other countries
Sebastian O is a three-issue miniseries from the early ‘90s and, despite being written by Grant Morrison, it’s relatively obscure. But if you’re familiar with the name, you might expect this book to be a little tricky to read but it’s actually very straightforward. Too straightforward even. This is actually the first Grant Morrison comic I found myself wishing things to be a little more complicated!
Sebastian O’s plot is your average revenge story that’s been doing the rounds long before Alexandre Dumas wrote the definitive one in The Count of Monte Cristo. And because Sebastian’s a dandy who fancies himself an aesthete (with an Aubrey Beardsley hairdo) Morrison tries - and fails - to come up with some Wildean witticisms for him:
“We may be in the sewer, but there’s absolutely no need for that kind of gutter profanity” and
“It seems almost criminal to remove my whiskers. I look indefinably christlike. Having said that, I refuse to martyr myself for one second longer”
Hmm. I know Morrison’s attempting caricature here but it doesn’t quite work, being such weak and empty humour. Alan Moore attempted something similar in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, which further underscored exactly why Wilde was so celebrated, then and now: nobody else could write or think like him.
I quite liked Steve Yeowell’s art in this book. The mechanical gardens looked great as did Sebastian’s tricksy, trap-laden home, and steampunk Blighty looked convincing with just the right amount of oddity to make it look similar, but wholly different, to Victorian England. His design for the Abbe also looked a lot like Beardsley’s Ali Baba, a style and reference that I’m sure wasn’t a coincidence.
Sebastian O is minor Morrison but given his many successes and popularity, it seems strange that DC would decide to discontinue this book’s print run forever. I think Morrison has enough of an audience that this comic, however ordinary, could generate a decent amount of sales for them if they re-released it.
If you’re a Morrison fan and enjoy his more story-driven work over his trippy-hippy stuff, you’ll enjoy this - it’s not amazing but it’s certainly not bad. But if you can’t get your hands on a copy - which will become more likely as the years go on - then don’t worry as you didn’t miss a masterpiece.