"Now hear this."

Alphonse:

Reviews and Features

Essay at The Awl, with reactions at Jezebel and Broadsheet

Story in Our Sunday Visitor

Review of Alphonse:  Murder Sleep by Eve Tushnet:  "Alphonse is a horror comic about a fetus who survives abortion; he knows, and thinks, and hates.

The cover of this second installment tells the story. A broken doll sits in horrifying suspense in front of the inevitable revenge: a carving-knife. All my Pet Sematary terror-feelers started tinglin'.

Alphonse continues to complicate the categories of abortion-horror I [have] talked about... It's baby-horror and grief-horror at once--almost as if both sides had a point!

The art is lumpensympathetic. The grays are used to suggest a world of complicity and fog and nightmare. There are some well-chosen, sharp echo images: The light gleams and breaks against the ice in a glass of scotch the way it breaks against the display window of a cell phone. The overall aesthetic is a wash of gray with sharp black character-defining lines coming out of the quicksand.

The actual storyline is hard for me. This is the second installment, thus we're getting more pieces on the chessboard; and I guess I don't care yet about the new pieces. There are suddenly mafiosi (yes, with heavy irony and a pet white cat, but still) and some kind of conspiracy plot. This seems more... comic-booky, and you know what I mean even if you want to be defensive... than the basic wrongful-birth plot. So far I'm okay with the comedy-horror of the conspiracists, but I wish we had more sympathy for them. The first issue of Alphonse was striking in large part because of its relentless focus on suffering and complicity: No one was exempt from its punishing storyline. This issue, again solely because the conspiracy tropes are hit so hard, seems to exempt its audience from some of its horror. Not all the horror, by any means--the pro-life girl and guy are still really messed-up, and their dialogue is well-balanced and gives a real sense of how people suddenly dropped into an impossible, perhaps miraculous but also horrifying, situation might respond. But this issue seemed to have 'villains' in a way which the first one didn't.

It's impossible to talk about this comic without talking about abortion. I think the first installment was less-polarized than this one. Nonetheless I think this comic understands the terror of pregnancy and childbearing. So far, I'm not sure this comic will work--especially if it goes too far in the conspiracy direction, which is what soured me on Human Target, since I honestly think conspiracy stories are the opposite of complicity--you don't do conspiracy stories unless you think no one would ever do bad if they knew they were wrong.

But so far, I'd strongly recommend Alphonse to every horror-comics fan who doesn't immediately reject it based on the subject matter. That isn't a criticism. The politics of abortion are intrinsic to the story. There are at least a hundred reasons you wouldn't want to read a comic in which that was a plot element. So far, though, I--as a pro-life Cat'lick dyke, who has never been in danger of pregnancy in all her ramblin' life--think this comic is presented without sentiment, with sympathy for those who support abortion rights, and with... it's hard to tell because of the particular storyline... but with at least some sympathy for women who abort. I think if you can read Alphonse as a story about abortion it makes sense; I don't know if it makes as much sense if you read it as a story of one woman's abortion. But the narrative hints that we will learn much more about Alphonse's unwilling mother, and if that happens, I think it will go a long way to addressing my uncertainty about this approach.

Highly recommended; despite my qualms, I have to admit that nobody else is doing this, and someone should be."

 

Review of Alphonse:  Untimely Ripp'd by Eve Tushnet:  "UMBERT THE UNHEIMLICH: If you spend a lot of time in Cat'lick prolife circles, you may well run across a cartoon strip called "Umbert the Unborn." In this thing, a charmin' little guy hangs out in his (never-pictured) mother's womb, offering uplifting folk wisdom about the funny little things in life.

You... can probably tell from that description that this strip is way too Bil Keane for me to understand its virtues. Apparently at least one other pro-life Catholic has found the premise of this strip intensely creepy.

Matthew Lickona's Alphonse features a similarly-sentient fetus. But Alphonse is vividly aware of his utter helplessness--not as a political contingency but as an existential threat. His mother wants to kill him. And she would succeed... except that Alphonse, in a horrific freak occurence, survives and crawls away.

This is a horror comic which simultaneously exploits and transcends the abortion-horror storylines I talked about here. The comic relies on the flesh-creeping, Uncanny Valley nature of the late-term fetus in order to get its effects--yet, unlike most other horror-baby works, it treats the creature as a person: a monster like Frankenstein's, a bloodied self whose individuality is real, not purely symbolic. And Alphonse's would-be savior herself must break ethical boundaries in order to do what she thinks she has to do to preserve his life. We get trapped in spirals of wrong actions, and when you get down low enough it's hard to see a clean way out.

(The fact that the comic never states explicitly that that's the very reason many women abort is one of its many signs of respect for its audience. There are several parallels between the would-be abortive mother and the would-be baby-saver, but they're done quietly, not stridently.)

The artwork is gritty but not awkward, by an artist who's worked in mainstream comics (WildStorm and maybe something else?) and who uses fairly standard contemporary Western comics techniques clearly and well. The art basically doesn't get in the way, though it also won't be the reason you buy the comic. The figures, gestures, "camera angles," and pacing are all unobtrusively well-chosen. (The women, by the way, look like individual women--indie comics usually do a lot better about this than superhero titles, but I still thought I should mention it.)

I don't know to what extent I can recommend this title yet, since I've only seen the first issue. It's the sort of thing where the premise might be much better than the denouement. But if you think this sounds worth trying, do check it out. I'll say that it does pummel you emotionally, but not ideologically. I'm excited to see where this story goes."

             Item in The Washington Times

             Article at Inside Catholic

             Self-interview at California Catholic Daily

             Article at Catholic News Agency

             Interview at The American Catholic

Swimming with Scapulars:
Reviews and Features

"We failed to mock the book because it's actually pretty good."
- Alex Balk

"Matthew Lickona’s Swimming with Scapulars: True Confessions of a Young Catholic (Loyola Press) is a sometimes funky, sometimes lyrical explanation of how a cradle Catholic, who buys the whole package, thinks, prays, struggles, and manages to have a lot of fun while being self-consciously counter-cultural."

- George Weigel

"An engaging case study is now on offer in Matthew Lickona's Swimming with Scapulars: True Confessions of a Young Catholic(Loyola, 278 pp., $19.95). I will not be surprised if this becomes something of a niche classic. Lickona and his wife Deirdre are graduates of Thomas Aquinas College in California and live with their four (as of this writing) children in La Mesa, California, where he is staff writer for the San Diego Reader, an alternative newspaper. "Alternative" is the word for the ever-ancient, ever-new way of life they are striving to live, a life of self-discipline and spiritual struggles joined to the hilarity and high adventure of Catholic fidelity. (Four days into the honeymoon they were still virgins because, being committed to Natural Family Planning, the time was not right for Deirdre.) Thomas Aquinas is among the more prominent of alternative Catholic colleges established in recent decades, and this charming and frequently crazy book serves as a report card on what such schools are producing. If the Lickonas are representative, a rigorous (they would say vigorous) orthodoxy results in a way of being Catholic that has left behind the stale liberal-vs-conservative squabbles about what went wrong and what went right after the Second Vatican Council and has moved on to living the life of the faith in all its fullness. Theirs is not a return to the Catholic "ghetto" or "subculture," nor are they part of an angry counter-culture. Rather, Lickona provides a delightfully high-spirited and candid account of living Catholicism as though it were true, scapulars included. The author is in lively engagement with the surrounding culture and the problems encountered by those who have chosen another way. "Let's be open and clean," he writes. "Let's drag this out into the light and discuss. Let's not be shocked and resentful; let's love the lonely. Perhaps, coming from a fanatic, the message of God's love will regain some of its wonderful outrageousness. 'Listen. I have a secret. I eat God, and I have His life in me. It's the best thing in the world; it leads to everlasting life. But first, you have to die to yourself.'

There is a good deal of Matthew Lickona's self in Swimming with Scapulars, but with the guidance of St. Augustine, C.s. Lewis, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church a new man is manifestly a-bornin. This book may not be a portent of the Catholic future, but it is a compelling account of the Catholic present as experienced by a growing number of young people who have dared to accept Christ's invitation to "put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." In catching, Matthew Lickona has been caught, and with winsome enthusiasm he recommends the experiment to others. The times they are a'changin."

- the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, writing in First Things
Review at Relapsed Catholic

"As personal faith stories go, Lickona's is a breath of fresh air, thoughtfully written and happily absent of platitudes and pious moralizing. A 30-year-old husband, father of four and writer for the San Diego Reader, an alternative weekly, Lickona lives a Catholicism that is orthodox, but also dynamic and relevant to modern culture.  He reads Salon and The Onion and gleans life lessons from contemporary film and fiction even as he embraces beliefs and traditions rejected by his parents' generation.  He admits to being a virgin when he married, and he and his wife practice natural family planning in keeping with their church's ban on artificial birth control.  Lickona also wears a scapular, fasts during Lent and has a statue of St. Joseph in his front yard.  In writing about these beliefs and practices, he explains how he came to accept them, often after a period of questioning.  As he navigates the realm of Catholic faith in the 21st century, Lickona reflects candidly on his failures, foibles and doubts. He confesses to "parish-hopping" in search of a Mass that will not disturb his peace of soul, to personal struggles with "constant wanting" and anger, and to his weakness in communicating his faith. Most readers will disagree with Lickona's assessment that he is a poor communicator, and will find themselves captivated by this winsome story of a soul."

- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Pastors, bishops, sociologists and others who want to get some insight into the minds of young, practicing Catholics today should read Matthew Lickona, a writer for the San Diego Reader who has produced a short but charming book, winsomely written...Young Catholics want to be strengthened and challenged by Tradition, which is rich and satisfying when presented in all its beauty and rigor. As T.S. Eliot put it in his famous 1931 essay, 'Thoughts After Lambeth,' 'you will never attract the young by making Christianity easy; but a good many can be attracted by finding it difficult: difficult both to the disorderly mind and to the unruly passions.'”

- Homiletic and Pastoral Review

Interview at Catholic Mom

Profile in U.S. News & World Report

Excerpt at Godspy

Interview at Godspy

Review in the San Diego Union-Tribune

Self-interview at the San Diego Reader

Blog interview at Open Book

"A thirtysomething practicing Catholic, Lickona was raised in a conservative Catholic family and academic atmosphere. He attended Thomas Aquinas College, where he "encountered practices, beliefs and traditions that had withered away in the more arid, post-Vatican II climes" of his ambient Catholic culture. In this book he offers an autobiographical account of how traditional religious symbols and practices can get in the way or get lost in the swirl of today's culture. Lickona considers questions of sex and courtship, death and redemption, marriage and parenthood, interiority and secularity. He uses Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas to construct his viewpoint and employs novelist Walker Percy to refine his views. Using simple but elegant writing style and carefully correct theological language, Lickona makes his argument with grace and humor. Ultimately, the book is enjoyable but may have limited appeal. It is most suitable for Catholic parish libraries and community libraries with strong circulation of books on the Christian life." -David I. Fulton, Coll. of St. Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ.

- Library Journal

"Ever since Augustine groaned over his sins (to his readers' secret delight), the best spiritual memoirs have laid bare the contours of the soul in ways that burst the seams of words like 'sin' and 'salvation.' Matthew Lickona and Patton Dodd, though new to the genre of holy self-exposure, are already proving their knack for it. Each burrows into the innards of his Christian experience as a 20- to 30-something to uncover—or recover as the case may be—the inherited truth for himself. Lickona’s Swimming with Scapulars skewers the matter head on: what does it mean for a Roman Catholic to root himself in a premodern faith in the postmodern world? There’s no shilly-shallying for Lickona, whose neighbors describe him as 'Catholic all the way.' He dives deep into tradition and up again into the world of cinema, literature, politics, and his ripening experience as a young father. We get a picture of a soul alternately relishing the Eucharist—‘Listen. I have a secret. I eat God, and it’s the best thing in the world'—taking itself to task, and twining its convictions around the day-to-day: Lickona brands his seven-year-old a 'tremendous materialist,' recounts the agony of an extra four days of abstinence after marrying his ovulating wife, and blunderingly shares the good news of Flannery O’Connor with a fellow Catholic. It’s all done in precise, sometimes rollicking language that is charged with a taut energy that comes with tying the firm line of formal religious practice to the anchor of devotion...In the end, it’s the recognition of...complexity that beats at the heart of both Lickona's and Dodd's spiritual memoirs, a recognition that bodes well for the genre as a whole."

- Image Journal