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UMBERT THE UNHEIMLICH<\/em><\/strong>: If you spend a lot of time in Cat\u2019lick pro-life circles, you may well run across a cartoon strip called \u201cUmbert the Unborn.\u201d In this thing, a charmin\u2019 little guy hangs out in his (never-pictured) mother\u2019s womb, offering uplifting folk wisdom about the funny little things in life.<\/p>\n

You\u2026 can probably tell from that description that this strip is way too Bil Keane<\/a> for me to understand its virtues. Apparently at least one other pro-life Catholic has found the premise of this strip intensely<\/em> creepy.<\/p>\n

Matthew Lickona<\/a>\u2018s Alphonse<\/em> features a similarly-sentient fetus. But Alphonse is vividly aware of his utter helplessness\u2013not as a political contingency but as an existential threat. His mother wants to kill him. And she would succeed\u2026 except that Alphonse, in a horrific freak occurence, survives and crawls away.<\/p>\n

This is a horror comic which simultaneously exploits and transcends the abortion-horror storylines I talked about here<\/a>. The comic relies on the flesh-creeping, Uncanny Valley nature of the late-term fetus in order to get its effects\u2013yet, unlike most other horror-baby works, it treats the creature as a person: a monster like Frankenstein\u2019s, a bloodied self whose individuality is real, not purely symbolic. And Alphonse\u2019s would-be savior herself must break ethical boundaries in order to do what she thinks she has to do to preserve his life. We get trapped in spirals of wrong actions, and when you get down low enough it\u2019s hard to see a clean way out.<\/p>\n

(The fact that the comic never states explicitly that that\u2019s the very reason many women abort is one of its many signs of respect for its audience. There are several parallels between the would-be abortive mother and the would-be baby-saver, but they\u2019re done quietly, not stridently.)<\/p>\n

The artwork is gritty but not awkward, by an artist who\u2019s worked in mainstream comics (WildStorm and maybe something else?) and who uses fairly standard contemporary Western comics techniques clearly and well. The art basically doesn\u2019t get in the way, though it also won\u2019t be the reason you buy the comic. The figures, gestures, \u201ccamera angles,\u201d and pacing are all unobtrusively well-chosen. (The women, by the way, look like individual women\u2013indie comics usually do a lot better about this than superhero titles, but I still thought I should mention it.)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know to what extent I can recommend this title yet, since I\u2019ve only seen the first issue. It\u2019s the sort of thing where the premise might be much better than the denouement. But if you think this sounds worth trying, do check it out. I\u2019ll say that it does pummel you emotionally, but not ideologically. I\u2019m excited to see where this story goes. Lickona\u2019s website<\/a> might be the best place to order it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"