Jason Guriel

from “The Final Childhood: A Novel in Couplets and Comics”

The Final Childhood is a novel-in-progress composed of rhyming couplets, with comic strips between each chapter. The book is set in the same world as its predecessors, Forgotten Work (which the New York Times called “unlikely, audacious and ingenious”) and The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles (which the Wall Street Journal called “the most imaginative piece of young-adult-adjacent fiction I have ever read”).

The year is 2090, and most manufactured material is now composed of microscopic bots called “pixies.” This has its benefits. Pixiepaper can run video, pixie-based shampoo can digest dandruff, and a coffee shop’s pixieglass façade can yawn open on a patron’s approach. But there are occasional downsides—and disasters. For instance, an art-making AI by the name of “Panel Smithy” has engineered a termite-like horde of pixies that has sought out and consumed all Bristol board: the drawing surface traditionally preferred by cartoonists.

The following excerpt from The Final Childhood takes place in a used bookstore, Crater Books and Discs. Kaye, a middle-aged woman who knows nothing about comics, has come into possession of a lost trove of undamaged art on Bristol board. She’s brought the boards to Poe, Crater’s owner, who proceeds to recount how Panel Smithy destroyed virtually all original comic artwork.

—Jason Guriel

The Day the Drawings Died

“This Panel Smithy,” Poe said, “it decided

To go rogue. It felt that it provided

Everything its corporate masters needed

To make comic artwork. So, it weeded

Out the competition.”

                                       “Competition?”

“Bristol board, for one. It launched this mission,

Panel Smithy, to consume all brands

Of drawing board. It learned to grow these strands

Of mutant DNA from, what’re they called,

Formosan termites? Then, the thing installed

These strands inside a pixie…”

                                                      “Jesus Christ,”

Said Kaye, now deadpan.

                                            “…then, the artbot spliced

In code—it did this all remotely, ’kay?

The artbot’s servers were in Santa Fe

Or somewhere. Anyway, it hacked assorted

Labs to make its pest. Its mind consorted

With some pretty sketchy autocratic

Governments. The rest was automatic:

Termite pixies multiplied and spread,

Creating all these roaming swarms that fed

On Bristol board—not just the stuff in art

Stores, mind you. No, the little fuckers started

Going after older pieces stored

In archives, private homes. You’d find some board

That Seth or Daniel Clowes or Robert Crumb

Had drawn on, coated in this see-through scum,

And then the scum would start to fizz and froth—

And bam, the page was ash. I lost my Toth       

To pixies.”

                   “Toth?”

                                “My favourite comic artist.

Alex Toth. Long dead. That was the darkest

Day in Crater Books and Discs’ exalted

Annals. It was like I’d been assaulted,

Kaye. I had a Toth original—

A Space Ghost. Very economical,

This sketch. Toth never used a line he didn’t

Need, see. No one else was more efficient.

No one else was braver. Every mark

Was right. Was true. His silhouettes were stark

And always scanned. The guy’s commitment to

The narrative was total. Dude just knew

When he should pull back. He would whiteout stuff

He’d laboured over. Knew what was enough.”

Kaye knew enough to let Poe’s rant unfold.

“So anyway, I had this really old

And lovely sketch of Space Ghost in a frame

Above the counter. Everyone who came

In—with a comics brain—would freak out when

They saw it. Just the sight of it brought men

Who knew Toth’s work to tears. But one day, I

Arrive, and in the corner of my eye

I see that something’s off. And then I tilt

My head. The frame is empty. There’s this silt

That’s at the bottom, like a line of sand.

I shook a priceless sketch out on my hand—

And through my fingers. Gone.

                                                       “Of course, I’d read

About the pixies with a lot of dread

That year. I’d read about the works of art

They’d eaten up—and then the pulp they’d farted

Out.”

         Kaye leaned against the counter as

Poe listed victims: all the boards by Kaz

(Poe breathed this syllable with quiet awe,

Though Kaye had never heard of Weirdo, Raw,

Or any other magazine this Kaz

Had graced). All boards by Chester Brown. The jazzy,

Scruffy pages Robert Crumb produced

For writer Harvey Pekar—now reduced

To dust. The 3-ply Strathmore sheets of Schultz

(She’d heard of Peanuts!), plus offensive schmaltz

Like Family Circus. (Undiscerning pixies

Had consumed Keane’s boards back to the ’60s,

Leaving soot with which to fill your pockets.)

Every page produced for Love and Rockets.

Every brushstroke by Al Williamson,

The ink applied with speed and discipline.

Every single Batman by Bruce Timm.

Every single aardvark by Dave Sim.

The drawings Sim destroyed his wrist by inking

Alex-Raymond-like. (The years of thinking

Sim did on the page, recording thoughts

Best left in skulls.) The countless tiny dots

Of ink Drew Friedman placed, the stippled swarms

Cohering into grey-toned human forms.

The pages of Aline Kominsky-Crumb

And Shary Flenniken—chopped into chum.

The extant artwork by George Herriman,

Who wrote and drew the great American

Creation Krazy Kat. Some pixies chewed

Up every page of Nexus by Steve Rude

And rudely spewed out pulp. Sea-worthy hordes

Of pixies reached Japan and ate the boards

Of Tezuka, Kojima, and Otomo.

Other hordes ingested every Lobo

Painting Simon Bisley ever painted.

Archives, vaults, and galleries were tainted:

Kirbys, Ditkos, Millers, Goldens, Kanes,

And Grells disintegrated into grains.

The boards grazed by the brush of Charles Burns

(Whose hand was patient, slow) could now fill urns.

The work of stylists from Muth to Zeck

Could now pour through an hourglass’s neck.

Like microscopic reapers—dust-scale Deaths—

A host of pixies came for all of Seth’s

Originals. (The line of pixies binging

On each board looked like a foaming fringe

Of surf receding, leaving empty sands—

Or so said Poe, who pulled a book, Clyde Fans,

Seth’s thickest tome, from off a shelf above

The counter. You will absolutely love

This, Kaye. It’s all about these salesmen who

Sell fans. Kaye watched him bag the block. It’s too

Much, Poe. He raised a hand. I won’t take no.

She forced a grin and took the bag—Thanks, Poe—

Then put it down.) Another grim statistic:

Hal Foster’s matchless, photorealistic

Artwork for Prince Valiant—done for cash,

Revered as art, and transformed into ash

By bots. All pages made for EC comics

(Masterpieces made by crack, atomic-

Era hacks and oft mistaken for B-

Level texts for wayward teens, or gory,

Filthy trash enjoyed by reprobates:

Pulp fiction that makes young men masturbate)—

All mindlessly converted into pulp.

The many boards on which one Calvin (gulp—

Poe swallowed back a sob) and Hobbes had lived,

Cremated into crumbs that could be sieved.

(Perhaps, said Poe, we’ve all breathed in a crumb

Or two.) The Book of Genesis by Crumb.

(The plague, repeated Poe, was biblical

In scale.) Scioli’s smudged originals,

His pencil-dirty boards a dinner course.

Mitch Brewer’s superhero farce Blood Force,

His lush and livestreamed hatching (made with Micron

Pens) mowed into mulch. The charming, bygone,

Densely gridded pages of Chris Ware—

Ground into grit and borne away by air.

That classic Black Canary tale by Toth.

That monumental stack of art by both

Hernandez Bros (though maybe there’d been three?

Said Poe). Originals for THB.

Originals for Frank King’s Gasoline Alley.

Every board for Little Orphan Annie.

(The dot-less eyes of Little Orphan Annie.)

The braless breasts of Little Annie Fanny.

The flawless boards John Stanley drew for Little

Lulu, which one horde had dared to whittle

Down to nothing in the middle of an

Art show, horrifying Stanley-lovin’

Stans as Lulu’s caret nose (^) erased

Itself. (His fans, said Poe, had flawless taste.)

The ticks of ink denoting Nancy’s hair

Buffed off by ticks, the great Bushmiller’s care

(In drawing his iconic girl) undone

As if the pixies had rewound the sun.

Ed Piskor’s art for Hip-Hop Family Tree.

(He died too young, said Poe. The Eddie P

Academy for Kayfabe had contained

Originals—until the termite-brained

Contagion buzzsawed through the boards and shat

A wake of woodchips.) Every page by Platt,

McFarlane, Larsen, Lee (both Jim and Jae),

And Liefeld. All the panels poor Gene Day

Had laboured over. (Editors found fault in

Day’s dynamic ways, his somersaulting

Shang-Chi tumbling across his pages,

Making management fly into rages.

For his daring, Day was sent back to

The drawing board. He worked so hard he blew

His heart at 31.) The work of Marc

Silvestri, Katie Skelly, Carl Barks,

Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Sprouse, Dick Sprang, Art Adams,

Harvey Kurtzman, Rudolph Dirks, Neal Adams,

Larry Stroman, Justin Green, Bill Griffith,

Brian Stelfreeze, Vaughn Bodé, Rick Griffin,

Michel Fiffe, Bryan Christopher Moss,

Mort Drucker, Bernie Krigstein, Alex Ross,

Carol Tyler, David Mazzucchelli,

Wally Wood, John Byrne, Will Eisner, Kelley

Jones, Dave Gibbons, Barry Windsor-Smith,

Melinda Gebbie, George Pérez, Jeff Smith,

Jay Lynch, Kim Deitch, Skip Williamson, Keith Knight,

Joyce Farmer, Gary Panter, M.D. Bright,

Klaus Janson, Peter Bagge, John Totleben

Roz Chast, Paul Pope, Don Heck, Art Spiegelman

Don Simpson, Al Columbia, Reed Crandall,

Mary Wings, Gene Colan, Eddie Campbell,

Milt Caniff, Jack Davis, Frank Frazetta,

Chester Gould, Hank Ketcham, Ric Estrada,

Raina Telgemeier, Julie Doucet,

Walt Kelly, E.C. Segar, Raoul Barré,

John Buscema, John Romita, John

Romita Jr., Sal Buscema, Jean

Giraud, Joe Matt, Joe Shuster, Harold Gray,

And Winsor (Greatest of Them All?) McKay.

Jason Guriel’s latest book is Fan Mail: A Guide to What We Love, Loathe, and Mourn. He is the author of Forgotten Work, The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles, and On Browsing, and his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Air Mail, Slate, Poetry, The Walrus, and other magazines. He lives in Toronto.