THE Cadavre Esquis

So, it turns out that our WikiFiki is, in fact, Digi version of an old surrealist game called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse ... Read about it. Its really cool and it summons up an era that I am simultaneously fascinated by and know nothing about. Whole art movements that came out of specific coffee shops. Salons. Complex French Names and profound movements and this funny suspicion that it was all a big con. And that's kind of art in and of itself.

But there's something else Cadavre Esquis (Exquisite Corpse) brought back, and it was a comic book of that name. I remember it from the late '80's or early '90s. It was a comic from Dark Horse that was, in its day, or maybe in any day, horrific. Psycho serial style crimes, etc.

Anyway, I was talking to one of the guys involved with it. I think it was a creative person, but maybe marketing. He told me that the strategy for the book was to make it as offensive as possible and then send it to all of the right wing pastors of the day. Apparently, they did this.

Nobody cared. I assume the book street pizzad and I remember wondering -- because I like things like this (not gross comics, but weird marketing strategies) why it failed. I asked Frank Miller who understands comics inside and out. He said something like the following.

"Well, comics are about Childhood. If you Dent the Batmobile, people get upset. If, however, you're doing something new. Nobody cares."

Anyway, that is the streamthought that ties to Exquisite Corpse.