Moonshadow

AUTHOR: DeMatteis, J. M.

ARTIST: Jon J. Muth (illustrator); George Pratt (illustrator); Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh (illustrator); Kent Williams (illustrator); Kevin Nowlan (letterer); Gaspar Saladino (letterer)

PUBLISHER: Marvel Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1985-1987

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1989

Publication History

Moonshadow was first published as a twelve-issue prestige format maxiseries by Epic Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics. Epic Comics was a unique imprint in that it published creator-owned titles. Because of the highly intensive painted illustrations and elaborately textural nature of the work, individual issues were scheduled to appear on a bimonthly basis. However, on two occasions, production delays resulted in three-month intervals between issues.

Moonshadow was marketed as “a fairytale for grown-ups.” Indeed, Moonshadow was rife with explicit sexual and violent imagery and mature themes that placed the books firmly beyond the allowable boundaries of the industry’s Comics Code Authority. As a result, the series was produced with the direct-sales market in mind.

The twelve issues of the original Moonshadow series were first collected into graphic novel format by Marvel Comics in 1989. As a creator-owned title, J. M. DeMatteis and Jon J. Muth were able to transfer publishing rights for Moonshadow from Marvel Comics to DC Comics. In 1994, DC Comics reissued the Moonshadow series under its Vertigo imprint, and four years later, released it in graphic novel format under the title The Compleat Moonshadow (1998). In this later title, DeMatteis and Muth included a largely textual coda to the original story that elaborated on the ambiguous ending of the original series.

Plot

Moonshadow begins as an aged Moonshadow Bernbaum, the main character, reflects back on his journey to awakening. The plot starts with the abduction of his mother, Sunflower, by a member of the G’L-Doses. The alien places Sunflower in “the Zoo,” a “space ark” containing innumerable other alien species they have abducted. Sunflower marries her G’L-Doses abductor and becomes pregnant with Moonshadow.

Born into the Zoo, Moonshadow is a perpetual outsider, scorned by other members of the Zoo for being the result of his mother’s relationship with one of their captors. Longing for adventure and companionship, Moonshadow tries to befriend the gruff, lecherous Ira, who continually rebukes him. Three weeks before Moonshadow’s fifteenth birthday, his G’L-Doses father appears and informs him that he will be leaving the Zoo. Against his wishes, Ira is teleported with Moonshadow and his mother to a spaceship outside the Zoo.

Traveling in their ship, they are overtaken by a horde of other ships fleeing a plague. Against Ira’s vehement protestations, Moonshadow and Sunflower decide to assist a ship in distress. Venturing onto the ship, Moonshadow and Sunflower discover a plague-ridden alien who is struggling to give birth to her baby. Sunflower helps the mother deliver a sharp-toothed “insectoid” creature that viciously attacks them. Unable to save his mother’s life, a despairing Moonshadow decides that he and Ira will travel to the mall world of GimmeGimme in order to give her a proper burial. Ira betrays Moonshadow, and, as a result, Sunflower’s funeral is plunged into chaos and Moonshadow is sent to the Jobidiah Unkshuss Home for Miscreants insane asylum. While in the asylum, he befriends a fellow inmate, King Macha, who is lord and ruler of Machovia.

Ira tries to flee the planet only to discover that Moonshadow has pawned their ship to pay for Sunflower’s funeral. Ira frees Moonshadow from the insane asylum so he can make the teenager earn the money he needs to get the ship back. After he wastes Moonshadow’s wages on drinks and sex, Ira decides they will get their needed funds through thievery. When Moonshadow refuses, Ira brutally beats him and threatens to leave him; Moonshadow finally acquiesces.

As the two flee the scene of the crime, Ira knocks Moonshadow unconscious and takes the valuable artifact they have stolen. Moonshadow awakens heartbroken but is guided to the insane asylum by a vision. The police have incarcerated Ira in the asylum after he was ultimately caught.

At their trial, Moonshadow and Ira are pressed into military service. Moonshadow is thrilled to be going to war, seeing it as a romantic adventure. Ira is cynical and bitter, with no illusions about war. Ira’s violent resistance results in their platoon being volunteered for a suicide mission. Moonshadow and Ira travel to the planet BingBangBoom, where an enemy scientist, Lord Gaylord, has allegedly created a planet-destroying superweapon. In reality, Lord Gaylord is a pacifist who has started the rumor in order to keep both sides fearful of attacking him, thereby allowing him to provide shelter for soldiers who do not wish to fight. Refusing the offer to stay, Ira and Moonshadow are diverted to a nearby planet, where they become embroiled in a battle of immense carnage. Despite being shot, Moonshadow manages to drag Ira miles to safety. They are captured and sent to a prison camp, where Ira fiercely protects a weakened Moonshadow from being attacked by fellow starving prisoners.

The camp commander, Darkmeister Eben, is charmed by Moonshadow’s giving heart and befriends him. Moonshadow uses his influence to free Ira and his fellow platoon members. However, when he asks Eben to free all the prisoners, Eben responds by sending them all back to the camp to be killed by immersion in vats of boiling acid. Just before Moonshadow is about to go into the vats, Eben frees him and his friends. G’L-Doses appear, freeing and healing the prisoners and chaining their captors. Ira and Moonshadow return to Machovia as heroes.

Moonshadow is hired to be nanny to King Macha’s children, while Ira leaves with Mobidiah Unkshuss to go on a lecture tour of the planet. Afraid of Moonshadow’s growing influence over the royal family, Pobidiah Unkshuss frames Moonshadow for rape, forcing him into exile. Moonshadow meets up with Lord Gaylord, who, motivated by their earlier encounter, has brokered an end to the war.

Moonshadow travels with Lord Gaylord to the planet Pillbox and settles into a happy family life. His contentment is disrupted when a G’L-Doses gives him a vision of an imprisoned Ira. Moonshadow hurries back to GimmeGimme to rescue Ira. He finds that Mobidiah Unkshuss is using beatings and drugs to force Ira to tour the world giving prowar speeches. With the help of Flobidiah Unkshuss, Moonshadow frees Ira, and seeking refuge at Lord Gaylord’s home, they discover that it has been destroyed and almost all of Moonshadow’s surrogate family is dead.

Despondent, Ira and Moonshadow go to a house of prostitution, where they are recaptured by the Unkshusses and brought back to GimmeGimme. There, Ira and Moonshadow are chained in a basement and taunted by Pobidiah Unkshuss. With Flobidiah’s help, Moonshadow and Ira escape and overthrow the Unkshusses. Moonshadow receives a letter from Lord Gaylord, whom he believed dead, telling him to hurry to the planet Hump-T where Lord Gaylord has finally located a long-lost religious prophet he believes can explain the meaning of life. Flobidiah and Moonshadow travel with a dying Ira to Hump-T to discover a large procession of pilgrims traveling to meet the prophet. After Ira dies and Flobidiah joins the pilgrims, a shattered Moonshadow finally experiences the awakening at the end of his journey.

Volumes

•Moonshadow (1985-1987). Collects issues 1-12. Features Moonshadow’s journey from birth to awakening.

•Farewell, Moonshadow (1997). A one-shot sequel clarifying the end of the original series.

Characters

•Moonshadow Bernbaum is a young, loyal, hopelessly romantic human teenager who longs for adventure and companionship. His friendship with and love for Ira repeatedly leads him to enter into dangerous situations that, over time, change how he views the world.

•Ira is one of the aliens imprisoned in the G’L-Doses’ Zoo. Covered head to toe in shaggy brown fur with a bunny tail and constantly sporting a black bowler hat and a cigar, he continually rebuffs Moonshadow’s affection before slowly coming to terms with his own feelings and acknowledging his unique relationship with Moonshadow.

•Sheila “Sunflower” Bernbaum is a long-haired, flower child of the 1960’s. Seeking truth and the meaning of the universe, she is abducted by a G’L-Doses; eventually, she marries him and gives birth to their child, Moonshadow. Her philosophy is one the central pillars undergirding Moonshadow’s interaction with the universe.

•G’L-Doses are a shiny, floating ball-like alien species. Capricious and possessed of enormous powers, the G’L-Doses travel the universe, interfering with peoples and planets as the whim strikes them. One G’L-Doses, Moonshadow’s father, appears at random moments in Moonshadow’s life to provide boons or stymie his wishes, seemingly without any rationale.

•Jobidiah Unkshuss is a tall, gaunt, balding male humanoid. Sinister and manipulative, he, with his father, brother, and sister, rules over King Macha and the kingdom of Machovia by keeping the king fearful and delusional. His scheming results in Moonshadow’s imprisonment and conscription and marks Moonshadow for death.

•King Macha is the huge, sluglike ruler of the kingdom of Machovia. Prone to fits of delusion, he is a puppet ruler for Machovia’s real ruling family, the Unkshusses. His friendship with Moonshadow serves to further enmesh Moonshadow in the Unkshusses’ web of deceit and terror.

•Mobidiah Unkshuss is a tall male humanoid with the appearance of a beatnik, sporting a beret and small, round dark-tinted glasses. The brother of Jobidiah, he poisons and beats Ira in order to break his spirit and to control him. This leaves a deep, irrevocable scar on Ira’s psyche.

•Flobidiah Unkshuss is a tall, thin-necked female humanoid who sports a large floppy hat with a big, red bow. She goes along with the sinister machinations of the Unkshuss family even as she remains opposed to them. She falls in love with Ira and ultimately breaks from her family, repeatedly assisting Ira and Moonshadow in their attempts to escape from the Unkshusses.

•Pobidiah Unkshuss is the father of the Unkshuss clan and envisions himself as a religious leader. Sporting a yarmulke and referring to himself as Pious Rabbi, he ruthlessly promotes the war Moonshadow and Ira are attempting to end in order to further his own political and economic interests.

•Lord Gaylord is a large, portly male Goyimian. His pursuit of pacifism and religious epiphany helps Moonshadow to extricate himself from his ongoing travails and inspires him onward toward his ultimate awakening.

Artistic Style

Moonshadow was one of the first comic book series to feature fully painted artwork, the majority of which was done by illustrator Muth. Throughout the series, the art contains a high level of consistency and coherence. Indeed, the work of the secondary illustrators, while often of line-style art rather than Muth’s more blended impressionism, coheres relatively seamlessly throughout the course of the series.

Overall, Muth adopts different styles to represent different themes. During the frequent scenes depicting hallucinatory or mystical episodes, the art style becomes increasingly gauzy and impressionistic. However, during “real-world” events, the artwork is grounded and naturalistic. This naturalism is nonetheless tenuous, for the artwork focuses consistently on exaggeration and surrealism.

While Moonshadow and the other human characters are usually depicted with a high degree of realism, the alien characters around Moonshadow are highly distorted and elongated, their emotions and actions often exaggerated to comic effect. This bifurcation helps lead the reader into the mystical frame of mind that forms the central theme of Moonshadow’s journey to awakening. The “real” Moonshadow seems to be living in a world that is a fever dream of wild imagery, and the art helps immerse the reader in Moonshadow’s internal struggle by depicting the world Moonshadow traverses as a jumbled, tenuous reality.

The artwork of Moonshadow is also notable for its lettering. While the character dialogue in Moonshadow makes use of the traditional comic book format of all-capitalized, block-style lettering, the extensive narration throughout the book is written in an unusually formal manner, using proper grammatical formatting and foregoing the staccato sentence fragment structure typical of traditional comic book narration. This narrative lettering is also written in a style so as to appear as if it were handwritten text.

Also of note, the series ends with a bravura seven-page text-free illustration of Moonshadow’s awakening. This highly controversial ending relies on collage and changes of perspective to document what the narrative describes as a “mystical . . . transcendent experience” that is incapable of being expressed in words. In this way, Moonshadow ranks the ambiguity of art over textual authority as the medium for ultimately understanding the central themes of the series.

Themes

Moonshadow is primarily a coming-of-age tale. Its author, DeMatteis, has indicated that many of the themes and issues in Moonshadow are highly personal and autobiographical in nature.

Moonshadow’s main theme is about belonging. All of the major characters in Moonshadow struggle with defining where they fit both within the universe and their interpersonal relationships. The story emphasizes continually the irrationality that lies within the bonds with those we love. Most clearly illustrated in Moonshadow’s struggle to form a loving bond with Ira, the story depicts how conflicted human emotions can be. Moonshadow maintains a deep love for Ira, even as Ira continually betrays, attacks, and abandons him. In these actions, the reader is meant to sympathize with Moonshadow’s pursuit of love rather than condemn him for being a victim of Ira’s assault. Indeed, by the story’s end, Ira has been largely won over by Moonshadow’s affection and repeatedly reciprocates in kind, which reflects the larger theme of Moonshadow, that life only has meaning through connections with others. Characters who are isolated from real relationships lose their way, falling into despair and madness. Their salvation only comes when they begin to find their true selves by forming bonds of friendship and affection with those around them.

Moonshadow also possesses a deep theme of spirituality. Throughout the book, characters struggle with defining their relationship with the mystical and religious forces that surround them. Moonshadow’s journey can read as his attempt to cohere the spiritualism bequeathed him by his mother with the pseudoreligious godlike nature of his father. The other main characters, heroes and villains alike, find themselves motivated primarily by spiritual goals and impulses, from Lord Gaylord’s lifelong search for religious truth to the Unkshuss family’s adoption of Judaic symbolism to bolster their sense of identity.

Impact

Moonshadow was one of the first comic book series to feature fully painted illustrations. While largely unknown at the time of Moonshadow’s publication, painted illustrations became a recurrent feature used by comic book publishers to indicate that a title was an exceptional work. Later artists, such as Marvels (1994) illustrator Alex Ross, became known primarily for their painted illustrations.

Equally important, Moonshadow’s boundary-breaking use of deep textual narration and allegorical storytelling helped to broaden the definition of the comic book medium during a period heavily dominated by superhero narratives. DeMatteis has noted that at the time of Moonshadow’s initial publication, debate existed about whether Moonshadow actually constituted a comic book. Artists such as Mike Cavallaro have cited Moonshadow as influential in expanding their idea of the boundaries of the comic book medium, encouraging them to pursue more experimental storytelling.

Moonshadow has also had a significant impact on how the comic book industry treats creator-owned titles. With its creators transferring publishing rights from Marvel to DC, Moonshadow set a precedent for creators subverting publisher control of titles.

Further Reading

Busiek, Kurt. Marvels (1994).

Clowes, Daniel. Ghost World (2001).

Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000).

Bibliography

DeMatteis, J. M. “J.M. DeMatteis on Raising Kaine.” Interview by Matt Adler. Comic Book Resources, October 1, 2009. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=23140.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗.“Interview: J.M. DeMatteis.” Interview by Dan Epstein. Slush Factory, April, 2011. http://www.slushfactory.com/features/articles/062402-jm3.php.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗.“J.M. DeMatteis: Fantasy Life.” Interview by Mike Jozic. ComicsBulletin, January, 2004. http://www.comicsbulletin.com/features/107406438371130.htm.

Muth, Jon J. “Interview.” Interview by Book Wholesales. jonjmuth.com, May, 2005. http://www.jonjmuth.com/muth‗interview.html.