It’s peculiar indeed that the best thing I’ve read in a while, Ty Templeton’s humourous black and white graphic novel Bigg Time, is from DC’s Vertigo line. DC’s stock-in-trade is superheroes, generally speaking, while their alleged "Mature Readers" offshoot, Vertigo, largely consists of either the endless plundering of the well picked-over corpse of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, or semi-pornographic and allegedly post-modern excrescences like Codename: Knockout. Bigg Time is none of these things, and is all the better for it. What it is is a well written, well illustrated, and more-or-less thought provoking tale about a man and his guardian angel.

Lester Bigg is down-and-out, whereas his guardian angel is simply bored. A thousand years of watching over humans will do that to you, so he entertains himself by causing Lester to do stupid things. This backfires on him when he causes Lester to pee on the third rail in a subway station, thereby getting a massive electric shock. After Lester recovers, he finds he is able to see his angel. Between one thing and another, he blackmails his angel into a deal whereby he is to become famous before his next birthday. He variously, and extremely unsuccessfully, becomes a singer, a film star and a gameshow contestant. He gets a hairpiece and a psychotic girlfriend, but it still doesn’t work out. Most of the time, though, he is haunted by the fact that his brother, who was a baseball player, is more famous than him, and doesn’t seem to even care about his fame. It all ends both well and badly.

This book is about the nature of fame, and about how we sometimes should be careful what we wish for. It also takes an interesting look at the whole idea of angels, as well as how people sometimes refuse to accept responsibility for their own lives. Fate, destiny and free will, I suppose, lie at the heart of it. Personally, I don’t believe in angels, although I know a lot of people who do. I once found myself working as a rep selling crystal balls and magic wands, so I may know more believers than most. Ty Templeton, who did all the jobs on this book, from the writing to the lettering, doesn't, I’m guessing. Within half an hour of having bought this, mind you, a white haired old man with a homemade jerkin with "The End of the World is Nigh" written on it put his hand on my shoulder and said "you’re not long for this world", so maybe now would be a good time to start rethinking my position…

If the mainstream comics companies are going to start putting their resources behind projects like this, the comics field will be much the richer for it. I recommend it unreservedly.

Publisher: DC / Vertigo
Date: September 2002
Price: $14.95
Format: Pb
ISBN: 1563899051
More Info: Amazon.com / Amazon.ca

Review originally on The Alien Online