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Abstract
This article analyzes the representations of rock singer Alice Cooper in comics, focusing on his debut in ‘From the Inside’ (Marvel Premiere #50, 1979) and the three-part miniseries The Last Temptation by Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli (Marvel Comics, 1994–1995; Dark Horse Comics, 2000), alongside his albums of the same names. After offering a brief background of rock music and comics, the article analyzes Cooper's representation in ‘From the Inside’: arguing that, rather than using the medium to offer a thematically consistent depiction, this comic subsumes Alice Cooper's persona into its idiosyncratic style. It proceeds to contrast this with Gaiman and Zulli's interpretation, arguing that The Last Temptation instead privileges the performative elements of Cooper's character, which is created through aesthetic excess (makeup, clothing and exotic stage props) and subversion (of gendering, authority and naturalism). It then analyzes the different strategies Gaiman and Zulli use to convey Alice Cooper, with particular reference to the comics medium's narrative conventions: including iconography, intertextuality and retroactive continuity. It also considers the use made of the medium's essential narratological features: such as its creation of the hyperreal, an ‘aesthetic of excess’ and reliance on reader involvement. It concludes that The Last Temptation demonstrates an ambitious use of its medium's conventions in order to represent Alice Cooper and, more generally, that comics are ideally suited to depict the type of theatricality and subversion essential to such celebrity antiheroes and rock stars.
Notes
1. The following summary is necessarily brief, and interested readers should consult Ian Shirley's (2005) very thorough book.
2. The seven titles under this imprint are: Alice Cooper: The Last Temptation #1–3 (Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli, with Alice Cooper, 1994), Bob Marley: Tale Of The Tuff Gong #1–3 (1994–1995), Break The Chain (based on the life of KRS-One and including a cassette of a rap reading of the comic, 1994); Woodstock, 1969–1994 (Mort Todd, Charles Schneider and Pat Redding, 1994); Marty Stuart: Marty Party In Space (Marty Stuart, Paul S. Newman, and Pat Boyette, 1995); Billy Ray Cyrus (Paul S. Newman, Dan Barry, and Gail Beckett, 1995) and Rolling Stones: Voodoo Lounge (Dave McKean, 1995).
3. Set up by Jim Salicrup, this project was plotted by Roger Stern and scripted by Ed Hannigan, with pencils by Tom Sutton, ink by Terry Austin and colour by Marie Severin (Khoury nd).
4. An article in Outloud magazine documents that: ‘Two trucks hauled the forty tons of stage sets and equipment used in the show. Equipment such as a guillotine, a dentist's chair, a sawing-in-half machine, six hatchets, 22,000 sparklers, 300 baby dolls, 14 bubble machines, 28 gallons of bubble juice, 2,800 spare light bulbs, 6,000 spare mirror parts etc.’ (Turner 1973).
5. Originally an actual theatre in Paris (1897–1962), the Grand Guignol showed classic shock stories that were heavily reliant on gory special effects (using animal innards, eyeballs and similar). Five or six short plays would be performed at each performance, mostly amoral tales of disembowellings, self-mutilations, rapes, human sacrifice and so forth – alternated with the occasional charade or sex farce for comic relief. Characters included brutal louts, hapless victims, madmen and women, satanists and so forth, the guilty often went unpunished, and lovers and friends routinely betrayed one another. The theatre took its name from the popular French puppet character Guignol, whose original incarnation was as an outspoken social commentator, a spokesperson for the workers, and this ties the genre further to Alice Cooper whose performance is ‘satirizing villainy’ (Cooper et al. Citation2007, p. 205). Both Alice Cooper and the Grand Guignol are based around a performance of excess, largely due to their reliance on props and abject fluids (although Cooper sticks to stage blood), and combination of the humorous and grotesque. For a full discussion of this theatre's fascinating history please see Mel Gordon's excellent book (Citation1997).
6. Including Welcome to My Nightmare (1975), Alice Cooper Goes to Hell (1976), From the Inside (1978), The Last Temptation (1994), Brutal Planet (2000), Dragontown (2001), and Along Came a Spider (2008).
7. The band originally claimed that the name came from an Ouija board session which revealed to Cooper he was the reincarnation of a seventeenth-century witch. However Cooper has since retracted this, saying it was simply the first name he thought up and that it appealed due to its opposed qualities: ‘There was something about it. I conjured up an image of a little girl with a lollipop in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. Lizzie Borden. Alice Cooper. They had a similar ring’ (Cooper et al. Citation2007, p. 54).
8. Although Cooper has a real-life passion for watching bad kung-fu movies, he has yet to incorporate this into his behaviour.
9. Shang-Chi first appeared in Special Marvel Edition #15 (1973) and again in # 16. With issue # 17 the title changed to The Hands of Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu and ran until issue #125 (1983) (Englehart and Starlin).
10. For a fuller discussion of possible techniques and effects, please see the author's (2007) article ‘Visual Perspective and Narrative Voice in Comics: Redefining Literary Terminology’.
11. For a fuller discussion of this metafictional rewrite, please see the author's articles ‘Subverting Shakespeare? The Sandman #19’ (2008) and ‘Transforming Shakespeare? Neil Gaiman and The Sandman’ (2010) which last also discusses the incorporation of Shakespeare into The Sandman #75.
12. This is however open to fan debate as it has been suggested that there are references to his perspective or voice in certain songs on the albums Alice Cooper Goes to Hell (1976) and DaDa (1983).