Vertigo Resurrected: Finals

Will Pfeifer – writer

Jill Thompson – arter

Rick Parker – letterer

Rick Taylor – colorer

Joan Hilty – editor

Vertigo/DC Comics – publisher

Huzzah for resurrection!

Finals was originally published as four single issues in 1999, though I hadn’t heard of it until it was re-released this week as a “100-page spectacular.”  It’s pretty killer. 

Jill Thompson’s art is cute & gonzo here. I like her delicate wispy line work, and I like how the odd angularity of her characters makes folks look creepy and deranged.  She draws really emotive faces, I like that, too.  And Taylor’s bright & poppy coloring contrasts delightfully with the often grisly & macabre plot.  I mean, the plot is funny & satirical, but there are guns and cults and scalpels so, you know, also grisly & macabre.

But Pfeifer’s script impresses me most.  And it’s his first work in comics!  I love the “message from your college president” and “who’s who” blurbs that kick off each issue, although his writing is so assured and his characterization so precise they’re almost unnecessary. 

So unhinged college president Michael Woolrich annually demands of his KSU (Knox State University, or “Kaos U,” inspired by the Pfeifer’s Ohio alma mater, Kent State University) seniors a final project worth 75% of their grade.  The push for completion inexorably devolves into a cutthroat gauntlet of no holds barred mayhem, and in gruesome Very Bad Things fashion, lots of shit hits lots of fans as graduation day approaches. 

And in the end, Woolrich says of one of his grads, he says, Can’t you see that he’s brutal, vicious, and single-minded to the point of psychosis!?  Why, he’s the perfect college graduate!  Now, go, son!  Go and carve out your place in the world!, which is a gleefully grim & misguided extrapolation of the actual Kent State University fight song:

Fight on for KSU
Fight for the Blue and Gold!
We're out to beat the foe;
Fight on brave and bold!
Fight on for victory,
Don't stop until we're through.
We're all together,
Let's go forward, K-S-U!

So yeah, the whole thing is over the top & sardonic & kind of glorious. Ra!