World Famous Comics: Lazarus Churchyard: The Final Cut
Lazarus Churchyard: The Final Cut
By: Warren Ellis Publisher: Image Comics Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Image Comics Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 128 Publication Date: January 01, 2001
Appalling, energetic, funny Lazarus Churchyard was Warren Ellis' first major creation. In another writer's hands, the concept of a practically-immortal man who can reshape his body at will might have ended up in superhero territory. You know it's Ellis when the hero looks like a zombie Joey Ramone and lives in the desperate underbelly of a violent future Europe.
It's good: amazingly good, when you consider how early in his career this was published. You can see the commonalities with Transmet ( Transmetropolitan Vol. 1: Back on the Street), which he started several years later: transhumanism, a strong, flawed lead, social commentary, robust female characters, wicked wit, tragedy, a fascination with the weird variations of homo sapiens, and a rage at what we do to each other.
That said, Lazarus Churchyard is its own animal, and not simply a preparation for Transmet. It feels, in fact, larger than it is; the stories are roughly continuous, but it's amazing how much it feels like outtakes from a long, established series. I don't meant that it's difficult to follow, but that there's a reality to the characters and the setting that seems to extend beyond the borders of the stories we see.
Graphic SF Reader Lazarus Churchyard inhabits a very twisted world. He, and a few offsiders work as troubleshooters for hire, of a sort. They get involved with monsters, and magic, and the occult, because they are some of the people that can deal with that sort of thing. He, himself has the odd superhuman abilities that give him an advantage in this sort of work.
Stylishly ultraviolent and wickedly funny Lazarus Churchyard, as far as I can tell, was a character who appeared in Heavy Metal and possibly even less mainstream books. He is an older brainchild of Warren Ellis from his pre-Stormwatch days.
Lazarus is technically immortal. The vast majority of his body was shorn away at the genetic base level and replaced with highly resilient intelligent plastics capable of adapting to any situation in approximately the time it takes for a thought to be fired from the brain to another part of the body. At the time in which we see him, he's been alive for approximately 400 years, in which the world has seen plagues, revolutions, ethnic cleansings, and corporate takeovers of sinister proportions (much like "The Company" so often referred to in the "Alien" series). We are presented with four misadventures in the life of our antihero as he consumes prodigious quantities of drugs and wishes for death while casually dispatching anyone who gets in his way or those which he maintains strained friendships.
The language is short, sweet, and stylish. Ellis creates a futurespeak which tastes familiar if you've read "A Clockwork Orange" but is an entirely different creature of its own. "Creation" is the preferred slang of Lazarus' time, but we are thankfully spared the task of having to decipher it ourselves.
If you're a fan of Ellis' later works, you can't help but notice shades of "Transmetropolitan" begging to be fully fleshed out.
The art is dark, depending heavily on shades of purple and red. At times seeming almost amateurish, one cannot help but be struck by the masterful sequencing and panelling choices, not to mention the skill at which "the gutter" (as Scott McCloud put it) is used.
Although out-of-print, "The Lazarus Churchyard Collection" can still be found in some out-of-the-way places (I found my copy in the bargain bin of a Newbury Comics in Boston). It may also be possible to find the original printings of these stories in back-issues of Heavy Metal.
I highly recommend this collection for the serious Ellis fanatic or those who are simply looking for a good comic read.
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