Book Review: Vatican City, Las Vegas

Vatican City, Las Vegas
Story by F. Rex; art by T. Wolfinger; edits by C. Giovine.
Burbank, CA: ICCC Media Inc., 2006

Cannell Library Call #: PN6727 .R3 V2 2006

Guest Reviewer: Cosimo Giovine, Clark College English Instructor

There are very few revolutionary expressions anymore. But when one comes along, I jump at the chance to support the effort. So recently, when editing the graphic novel, Vatican City, Las Vegas, I worked with the graphic novelist, Fred Rex, to balance the comedic yuks and complex conversation in a text that explores all that’s rebellious, righteous and repugnant. Although not the revolutionary expression of the day, it’s a revolutionary expression that ultimately exposes humanity’s sores.

The characters in Vatican City, Las Vegas are embodiments of once revolutionary ideas. Yet when coaxed into captivity through the lure of material excess, they rattle their mortal cages and eventually dissolve. For Thomas Carlyle, the once celebrated Victorian writer and main character, disintegrates into nothing. His love for the virginal Mona unrequited. His need for a saving drink unmet. His revolutionary ideas perish unrealized.

Once the fires of revolution become self-consuming, damnation follows. For the patron pilgrims of Vatican City, Las Vegas, damnation begins with the hunger for material acquisition and ends with the acquisition of their souls. For Carlyle, his damnation begins and ends in an unconscious state, choking on the remains of his once revolutionary rhetoric. So passeth the author in a city that hath no need of the sun. Blot his name out of the Book of Life.