Books 9 (Reading Sucks, This Is Not Propaganda, Young Shima Kosaku)

Reading Sucks - Beavis and Butthead (2005)



I'm a bit of a sucker for these kinds of comedy tie-in books. The archetype was Bart Simpson's Guide To Life, but lots of other films and TV shows have had excellent companion volumes, usually written by the fictitious characters and presented with some degree of diegetic verisimilitude (ie they are like an artefact from the show itself).

Reading Sucks is actually a compilation of four B&B books. That's some good value. Beavis and Butthead's humour essentially comes not from the antics of the moronic boys themselves, but their interactions with the quasi-realistic world they have somehow been situated in. They are the ultimate outcasts; too stupid to meaningfully engage with the world around them, and, frankly, too stupid to realise that they cannot meaningfully engage with the world around them.

Unfortunately, this book in it's written format is unable to capture the sheer joy of Beavis And Butthead's almost surreal, staccato non-dialogue. The bizarre non-sequiturs of the TV show are rendered through the boy's laconic attempts at communication, and the confusion of those around them. These books typically lack this, instead adopting an almost Platonic dialogue, with the comparatively erudite Butthead taking the role of philosopher, and Beavis generally gibbering away.

Eventually the books, and the hundreds of full colour pages of content wear you down, and you'll crack a few smiles. For readers of my age, X-Files parodies and nihilistic gen x humour are pretty much all we need. Others may question the relentlessly politically incorrect humour, though we must remember that Beavis And Butthead are a casualty of media saturation. They merely are a reflection of the world, and offer no comment through their performativity. 

Mike Judge has often related that Beavis And Butthead are his greatest creation and I am inclined to agree. They work as both cultural critique and humour of the broadest kind. Yet deep down, we envy their foul, distracted naivety. They wander the world with a Zen like calm, something like Dougie in Twin Peaks, an idiot savant whose joix de vivre transforms the lives of those around him. Except everyone hates Beavis And Butthead and are desperate to get away from them.

Perhaps above all, Reading Sucks and the volumes collected within work particularly well as a collection of exceptionally 90s design work. The colours, costumes and assorted iconography are wonderfully nostalgic. If anything it reminded me of dril's exquisite Get Rich And Become God Method, with the same delirious homage to stupidity and hilariously inappropriate layout choices.

This Is Not Propaganda - Peter Pomerantsev, (2019)



Purporting to be an exploration of the utilisation of online media to deliberately spread misinformation, This Is Not Propaganda in many ways benefits from its non-academic approach in order to deliver a clear, grounded thesis that is consistently based on examples. Pomerantsev is a TV producer and it shows. The book takes the form of a brash, overt documentary, one where the documentation inserts himself in the 'story' and embarks on a 'journey'. Normally I despise this mode of documentary, both in books and video, but because of the confusing, even metaphysical nature of the propagation of disinformation, the journey approach tends works well here.

Pomerantsev leaps between the Philippines, Yugoslavia and Venezuela, but his focus keeps coming back to Russia. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a massively weakened Russia has doubled down on ideology as a means of warfare, and is increasingly utilising blunt online trolling as a means to create mischief and sow discontent on a global scale. Rather than intending to simply mislead or misdirect, Russian state affiliated information blitzkriegs are designed to delegitimise, to sow discontent and to engender anxiety on a mass scale. By blurring the line between war and peace, safety and danger, a total simulation has been constructed which is compelling and vile in equal measures.

The book's  instance in spinning a number of yarns somewhat detracts from it's importance and it's presumed goal to elucidate Russian state endorsed misinformation. But it does provide a lot of fodder for thought, and it's a great jumping off point to more serious works. 

Young Shima Kosaku vol 1 - Hirokane Kenshi (2001)



I have a fetish for workplace narratives that I can only assume comes from the fact I have never stepped food in an office. The Office (US), Parks And Recreation, Shirobako, get that in my viens, baby! But all of these are too fanciful, too abstracted, too fanciful, too impure. What if there was a text that literally involved the trails and tribulations of working in an office, with no overt comedic tropes or magical realist elements?

Shima Kosaku seems to exist to answer my prayers. Firstly, this comic has been going for years, and seems to have seen the protagonist age in real time, charting his slow trajectory from lowly office grunt to towering titan of the office sphere. Young Shima Kosaku is a prequel series, and it seems like a good place to jump on. Set in 1970 there's lots of gentle fun for the elderly target audience. 

Making the proceeding even more deliciously dull is the fact that Shima Kosaku is a good guy. He is very good. He is lawful good. He is not good like Tintin. He doesn't go on adventures. He just goes to work pretty much every day. He definitely doesn't fuck. His goodness is overwhelming. In the first chapter, he encounters a moral quandary when a co-worker instructs him to dump TVs in the river rather than properly disposing of them. After much forehead rubbing and consulting two middle managers he decides to SAY NO and not do this any more. Then, inexplicably, the company director emerges from nowhere and tells him he is a stalwart young man. This is the story.

This is gekiga, dull little stories for old people, but the morals are sledgehammer blunt. Shima is not a character at all. He's a cypher. He's an example from a corporate textbook. He's the blank faced guy from a training manual and inexplicably someone has spent decades making stories about him doing the right thing over and over and millions of people have bought these stories.

I cannot suppress my joy at how hideously conservative Shima Kosaku is. Shima is the ultimate nice young man. After making an elderly couple redundant, he goes to visit them on Sunday to listen to their boring stories and you KNOW he's actually enjoying it. Later an 'older woman' (I think she's 34) drinks too much and passes out and he DOESN'T fuck her. I think this is supposed to be the epitome of moral character. 

Shima is sex-less and only takes joy from work. Nothing else but raw, benevolent capitalism can penetrate his  hoary hide. It's disgusting and wonderful. I don't know if I can read any more.