by Neil Vodavzny

Following the actually convincing win for the Union in the Scottish vote, and the impetus now building with UKIP on the English side of Hadrian’s Wall, we are all now becoming embroiled in a constitutional debate: the resolving of the West Lothian Question, which is also now the English Question. But I’m not sure it’s been lost on people that this particular English Question, with all its talk of English home rule, does not concern itself at all with race and faith. Meaning, not government but the thing governed.

This relate to being in the Heideggerian sense, no doubt. But oblige me for a moment for digressing into my particular field of fantasy! It’s a truism amongst the best epics that Church and State co-exist. Of the ones I’m at least familiar with, there is:

Conan #s18-25, the war between followers of Hyrkanian deity the Tarim and Turanian invaders
Cerebus #s52-63, Church & State (self-explanatory)
Dreadstar, Starlin’s opus informed by his Catholicism
Star Wars the film
StarStruck the spoofy comic

Of those, I’m a close reader of anything Conanesque (still have some of the originals); Sim’s Cerebus started life as an outright satire, with king Cerebus and Red Sophia, so one can profitably compare the two. This is from the penultimate instalment, #24’s The Song of Red Sonja.

Conan #24, copyright 1971 Marvel Comics

Notwithstanding the sorcerous elements one expects, the story is redolent with symbolism. A brief rundown is:

High priest Kharam Akkad comes into possession of the mirrors of Tuzun Thune, ancient Valusian artefacts which predict the future, in which he sees images of a lion, eagle and serpent hovering over his fallen form. To cut a long story short, it transpires Conan’s sword is eagle-hilted, his shield is held by snake-strap, and he is destined to be Amra, the lion (on the black coast).

This is pretty formidable symbolism and, actually, the finale in #25 is about Conan, not the Turanian war, which is just a backdrop. With that in mind, how does it compare with Cerebus? Oblige me again, as Clifton (from the Comics Journal of yore) has something apposite to say on Sim’s method (rather than storytelling). Here’s his quote:

The gags at their best had a near Mad or Walt Kelly-like character, often collapsing several puns into single panels.. drawings and balloons just playing around.. That was then. Look at the pages in “The Merchant and the Coackroach” where he steals a horse and gold ... By Tarim Cerebus was moving, man! If Sim had stuck to his cartoony guns ... Cerebus might have evolved into the legend he deserves to be.
The Comics Journal #90, 1984

Cerebus #11, copyright 1979 Dave Sim

Clifton is talking about facility, the ability to depict movement. Now, actually, this is storytelling. The actual plot isn’t storytelling - the way you tell it is. Clifton’s thesis is that Sim gave up on this in favour of desiccated, rambling palace-intrigues, such as the aforementioned “Church & State”. In terms of being, Cerebus is vastly more aware of himself and his place in the fantasy in the earlier issues. Going back to Conan, the politics is just a side-issue; his self-awareness and his eventual destiny are what the story is really about.

In terms of art, Art Nouveau and the Pre-Raphaelites – influences on BWS style – are also redolent with symbolism. Maybe not symbolist, but Pagan and Christian for sure. This is narrative art, for which the Pre-Raphs were famous. Along with their naturalistic fervour, the high facility for agility, litheness, grace evokes something iconic. You can further say that without these icons of nature, storytelling, in the sense of the facility of telling by way of icons and symbols, doesn’t exist.

Faith is a type of naturalism; its symbols have a complex relation to nature. Belief-systems are complex, and they are to do with being, a quotidian reality. A people can thereby exist in complete accord with a belief-system, whether or not you are a true believer or a hermit on a hillside. Without this, what you tend to get is a desiccated style of government, without the thing being governed, be it village, people, town, temple. These things are there as the handmaidens to the state.

By that means, faith has a facility for race and naturalism which the state does not. Church & State, as with these fantasy epics, co-exist. Actually, the visceral power of Milius’s Conan movie owes much to its exotic symbolism, from the sword of destiny to the double-headed snake-cult of Thulsa Doom. Sandahl Bergman’s lithe, animal gait and the Frazetta-ish quality are nigh perfection. Sometimes words are superfluous.