Why I Hate Saturn

AUTHOR: Baker, Kyle

ARTIST: Kyle Baker (illustrator)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1990

Publication History

Comics creator Kyle Baker began his career as an intern for Marvel Comics and spent several years inking various titles. An attempt at creating a newspaper strip led to the 1988 publication of The Cowboy Wally Show by Marlowe & Company, a Doubleday imprint. While the book sold few copies, it did lead to Baker receiving more work from Marvel, as well as DC Comics and First Comics.

Baker had initially set out to write a story that would appeal to a mainstream audience. He intended to sell the story as a script for a situation comedy, but eventually Why I Hate Saturn was published under Piranha Press, a DC Comics imprint. Piranha Press had begun one year earlier as an imprint through which DC Comics could publish stories outside the superhero genre, providing mainstream distribution for work that had an “underground” sensibility. The titles were mostly created by writers and artists not traditionally associated with superhero work or with comic books at all. However, the imprint lasted only a few years, ending in 1994, and Baker’s situation comedy would be Piranha’s most successful title.

Why I Hate Saturn was later re-released under Vertigo, another DC imprint, in 1998. Like Piranha Press, Vertigo specializes in alternative titles, although some titles do fit loosely into the superhero genre. Vertigo proved a more successful imprint (partially because it reused characters established in other books), and Why I Hate Saturn is still available through this imprint.

Plot

Anne Merkel, the story’s protagonist, is a cynical, twenty-something New Yorker who writes for Daddy-O, a trendy magazine that she loathes. Although her column is popular, Anne recognizes the pointlessness of her work. Unfortunately, she lacks the drive to write something more meaningful, despite having a book contract to fulfill. She divides her time between getting drunk in bars with her friend, Rick, and getting drunk at home alone.

Anne’s lifestyle is challenged by the arrival of her sister, Laura, who is bleeding from a gunshot wound. Needing a place where she can hide out for a while, Laura moves in with Anne. They grow increasingly annoyed with each other over the next several weeks until Laura leaves, never explaining the origin of her gunshot wound or why she had to hide.

Several days later, Anne is visited by Murphy Warner, a man interested in Laura’s whereabouts. He gives Anne the diary of her former boyfriend, Frank. After reading it, she learns that Frank was in a relationship with Laura before he met Anne. Initially wary of Laura, who claimed to be the Queen of the Leather Astro-Girls of Saturn, Frank used a false name, Bob, on their first date and never told her his real name. Frank eventually left Laura, citing her delusion as one of his reasons. Three months later, he began dating Anne. Frank never realized that Anne was his former girlfriend’s sister. Anne never realized that her sister’s former boyfriend “Bob” was really Frank. After a year with Anne, Frank decided that he was still in love with Laura and left Anne to search for her.

Anne is contacted by Warner again. When she still refuses to help him find Laura, he uses his money and influence to have her fired from Daddy-O, after which the publishing house cancels her book contract and her apartment building is condemned. Anne then goes searching for Laura to warn her about Warner.

Anne eventually tracks her sister to San Francisco. Laura explains that she was in a relationship with Warner after Frank left her. Her gunshot wound was the result of Warner attacking her when she decided to end the relationship. While Laura and Anne try to figure how best to handle the situation, they discover that Frank has been murdered and Laura is considered the prime suspect. Realizing that the entire scenario has been orchestrated by Warner, the two of them decide to go into hiding.

Unfortunately, Anne and Laura are quickly tracked to a remote location in a desert, where they are surrounded by Warner and a hundred police officers. Laura demonstrates to Anne how one must sometimes use unconventional means to solve problems when she kills Warner and the police officers with a rocket launcher.

The story ends six months after Warner’s death, with Laura hiding in Mexico and the newly self-confident Anne having written a best-selling novel.

Characters

•Anne Merkel is a young writer for Daddy-O magazine. Her work for the magazine is well-received and even leads to a publishing firm offering her a book contract, but her work habits are so poor that she rarely submits pieces in a timely fashion. She drinks to excess and is unwilling to make her life easier by performing mundane tasks such as acquiring a bank account or a state ID. She is usually sullen but also observant.

•Rick is Anne’s best friend. He shares a similarly pessimistic worldview with Anne but uses his observations of the human condition to exploit people (specifically the various women he dates) rather than simply bemoan it.

•Laura Merkel is Anne’s sister. Unlike Anne, she is an overly optimistic woman, a trait that causes her trouble throughout the story. She is environmentally aware but suffers from the delusion that she is Queen of the Leather Astro-Girls of Saturn.

•Murphy Warner is a former boyfriend of Laura. An extremely rich and powerful man, he wants Laura back as his girlfriend and possesses the means to ruin the life of anyone who does not cooperate with him. His obsession is so absolute that he is willing to resort to murder to achieve his goal.

•Frank Roberts is the former boyfriend of both Anne and Laura. By dating Laura under an assumed name, neither sister is aware that the other has had a relationship with him until long after he has left them both.

Artistic Style

Why I Hate Saturn is illustrated in black and white using a storyboard format, with both dialogue and internal monologue running either below or beside the corresponding panels. Faces are rendered with more detail than bodies or backgrounds. During dialogue scenes, the panels tend to close in on the speakers’ faces. The combined effect of storyboard panel layout, detailed facial expressions, and close-up panels is that the artwork keeps the focus on dialogue rather than scenery. Anne’s internal monologue scenes, on the other hand, either pull back the focus to whatever room Anne is occupying or “pull in” the focus to the point where the reader is actually seeing the thoughts in Anne’s brain.

The character’s clothing is also used to convey mood and disposition. Anne’s bitter and cynical nature is reflected by the fact that she almost always wears black. Rick, being cynical yet determined to make the most of what he sees as a bad situation, alternates between black and white clothing, with quite a lot of gray. Laura, being far more optimistic, both in her views of people and of what she can do to improve the world around her, tends toward white or light-colored clothing. It is significant that in chapters 20 through 22, when Anne and Laura try disguising themselves, Anne switches to bright colors and Laura switches to black. Furthermore, they begin to switch philosophic viewpoints, with a brightly dressed Anne advocating passive resistance while a black-clad Laura dismisses the effectiveness of nonviolence, culminating in her murder of the police officers with a rocket launcher.

Themes

Why I Hate Saturn deals extensively with topics of identity: how people define those around them, how the media define people, and how people define themselves. Anne, Laura, and Rick all struggle with these issues, and each transcends the labels assigned by themselves and others.

All three characters begin the story somehow hampered by their assumptions about other people. Anne dismisses her co-workers, readers, and fellow New Yorkers as being shallow. When Laura arrives, Anne finds that she cannot dismiss her sister as being shallow as well, so instead dismisses her as insane. Laura is recovering from a terrible relationship when she first appears, her assumptions about the basic goodness of people having placed her in a life-threatening situation. Rick is cynically coasting from one exploitive relationship to another under the assumption that all women can be placed in one of three categories: beautiful/stupid, ugly/intelligent, or insane.

The media is shown defining people primarily by stereotypes or oversimplified labels. Anne receives a book deal from a publisher that defines her as a “female Charles Bukowski.” Rick, an African American, is considered “not really black” because he is well-educated and speaks articulately. Laura is mistakenly labeled a murderer by media outlets controlled by her stalker, Murphy Warner.

All three characters transform when they choose to redefine themselves. Anne transforms into a best-selling author once she stops comparing herself with people she does not respect. Laura transforms from a drifter to a more dynamic character once she stops defining herself as a pacifist. Rick is able to have a romantic relationship with Anne once he ceases to be a self-centered exploiter.

Impact

While Kyle Baker had done both writing and illustration work for Marvel and DC Comics, he had not received much critical attention until the publication of Why I Hate Saturn. In 1991, the book received a Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Original Work. Following the book’s publication, Baker began selling cartoons to a variety of magazines, doing animation work for several television shows, and receiving more writing offers.

Baker has continued writing and illustrating comics for Marvel, DC, and Image Comics. Among his work for these companies is an Eisner Award-winning series based on the Jack Cole-created character Plastic Man. He has received five Eisner Awards for Best Writer/Artist of Humor (1999, 2000, 2004, 2005, and 2006). He also founded his own company, Kyle Baker Publishing. Baker’s books since Why I Hate Saturn have included You Are Here (1999), I Die at Midnight (2000), King David (2002), Undercover Genie: The Irreverent Conjurings of an Illustrative Aladdin (2003), and Special Forces (2007- ).

Piranha Press imprint was noteworthy at the time it published Why I Hate Saturn for allowing many of its creators to retain the rights to their work—DC Comics traditionally published work-for-hire, as did its chief rival, Marvel Comics; however, the rights to Why I Hate Saturn still belong with DC Comics, not Baker. While the title has been considered for film adaptation on several occasions, Baker is not involved in any such project.

Further Reading

Baker, Kyle. I Die at Midnight (2000).

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Plastic Man: Rubber Bandits (2005).

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. You Are Here (1998).

Bibliography

Kaplan, Arie. Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed! Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 2009.

Nolen-Weathington, Eric, and Kyle Baker. Kyle Baker. Modern Masters 20. Raleigh, N.C.: TwoMorrows, 2009.