High Heaven: The Austerity Gospel

In this religious satire crossed with gritty dark fantasy, whiny sad sack David is killed by a falling piano and winds up in heaven, where he’s massively disappointed by the accommodations. The food is terrible, he shares a grimy dorm room with a series of roommates, and an angry, sunglasses-wearing St. Peter curses him out whenever he complains. David soon learns that the elect are living it up in the considerably more posh (but still limited to unimaginative earthly pleasures) “High Heaven,” but trying to score an upgrade means taking on the corrupt bureaucracy of the afterlife. The grimly photorealistic art, with characters’ faces forever frozen in exaggerated angry expressions, is awkwardly matched to the script. Alternately a black comedy, a caustic critique of Christianity, a punch-em-up action fantasy, and an attempt to engage seriously with complex issues like mortality and class divisions, the work never finds its tone. The violence is sometimes wacky, sometimes serious and gruesome; the afterlife is sometimes a comic send-up of Earth, other times a complex fantasy world with an elaborate history and weird sci-fi elements. Full of hard-to-like characters and concepts that don’t quite gel, this comic throws out multitudes of big ideas but runs into as many rough edges. [em](June) [/em]