Call it a promise to a friend. I became aware that Jim Aubuchon, whose book Heartstone I reviewed a couple years ago, was looking for someone to review his graphic novel Third Eye Shut. I had enjoyed Heartstone and was looking forward to the sequel, so I offered to look at this and he sent me a copy. I put it near the top of my reading list, and soon had the opportunity to get through it.
That was when I realized I was out of my element, and in several ways.
The most obvious is that I am not an aficionado of graphic novels. It is not quite that I have not read them since they were called comic books. I did read one by another friend, C. J. Henderson. However, I still think of them as comic books. I did not find C. J.’s graphic novel to be on par with his other books.[1] I realize even comic books need to be taken seriously within the rules of their own genre, but my limited exposure makes it difficult to identify those rules.
Then there is the additional problem that the story is, at least to my eyes, clearly allegorical, but I know that I am missing bits of the allegory. Aubuchon’s background includes an extensive understanding of occult practices which I lack. Even the title, Third Eye Shut, is a reference to an occult concept of opening a third eye to see spiritual things. The story asserts that to the degree our third eyes are open we are blinded by the illusion created by the enemy, and it is only by closing our third eye against that illusion that we can see reality as it truly is. The spirits we see when we open our third eye to the spirit world are intent on deceiving us, and so the more we open that eye the less clearly we see reality.
In the end, though, on my first reading I could not find the point. The story made a significant issue about how important the young heroine Amber is to the plans of “The Leader”. However, we never see her do anything successfully. She rejects the Third Eye Open teaching, learns to close her third eye, and sees the world as it really is, and then goes into training to fight with the forces of The Leader against the evil of “The Warlord”. Next she is part of a failed mission to save her family, and then she attempts to rescue another of The Leader’s warriors from the fortress of The Warlord, and gets captured and is held prisoner for a long time until others rescue her, The Warlord is defeated, and she renews her promise to fight against The Warlord in other cities around the world–presumably in the next issue. She never actually succeeds at anything that matters.
I was having trouble understanding the point.
I set aside the book, read something else, and after several months picked it up afresh.
To risk a pun, the second reading was a real eye-opener to me. I realized that this was the point. Amber is important not because she is going to bring down The Warlord or accomplish great tasks herself, but because when she fails and is captured she becomes the reason for the rest of the forces of The Leader to mobilize and destroy The Warlord’s fortress to set her free. She is not the heroine in the traditional sense of the one who wins the victory, but in the sense of the one who inspires others to win the victory because she is in need. In an excellent display of understanding of spiritual battles, Aubuchon has given his heroine the role we all take, the failure who needs salvation, for whom heaven is mobilized to deliver us.
All of which is to fail to speak of the experience of the novel itself, which is certainly worth recognition. Aubuchon weaves realities seamlessly. The little old retired missionary widow across the street is also the powerful armored warrior when you can see the reality. The apartment where Amber lives with her useless boyfriend is simultaneously a cell within The Warlord’s fortress. The messages in television, advertising, school, and elsewhere are all ultimately about rejecting The Leader once the veneer of appearances is removed. It is in many ways reminiscent of a master of the blending of realities, Charles Williams,[2] as city streets become battlefields against the invisible enemy using the invisible weapons. Kudos to Rob Ewing, Atlantis Studios, Noval Hernawan, and Oscar Yanez for illustrations which captured this blending of worlds. However, with the changing of artists, some of the characters were a bit inconsistent in appearance such that I once or twice had to check who was speaking. Amber’s hair color and sometimes her facial structure changes according to who is rendering her, and some of the minor characters when they recur in subsequent chapters are only clearly identified by being named in the dialogue. The lettering is always legibile, and although there were a couple of errors in the spelling these were rare and minor; overall it is an excellent book in that regard, for which again Atlantis Studios and also Khari Sampson, KJ Media, and Terminus Media share credit.
Overall, I wish to commend Jim for his very clever story and insightful execution, creating a fantasy world in the midst of our own, in which warriors combining elements of swords & sorcery, mecha, and video game are hidden from most of us by the illusion we call reality. It is an excellent book.
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1 The Things That Are Not There is an excellent fantasy horror novel from him.
2 Descent Into Hell is probably his best in this area.
