We Asked Our Moms to Write About Un-Momly Comics Uzumaki & The Goddamned Because We’re Horrible Sons

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Last year for Mother’s Day, we made our moms review a bunch of comics and two of them swore to never read comics again. That refusal turned out to be only half-true. This year, the Paste Comics Editorial Team asked our moms for a repeat of last year’s exercise, and only one of the previous reviewers stuck to her guns and bowed out.

But next year may be even more sparse. Whereas Sue and Linda, the progenitors of editor Sean Edgar and assistant editor Steve Foxe, respectively, are back, we supplied them with even dicier material to see if their moral compasses were still well-aligned. Linda tackled the macabre, visceral tales of horror-manga maestro Junji Ito in Uzumaki while Sue confronted the heretical, biblical barbarism of Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera’s The Goddmaned. Here are their thoughts. Happy Mother’s Day!

Linda Reviews Uzumaki by Junji Ito
Whose Mom is She? Steve Foxe’s, Assistant Editor
Occupation: Senior Care Provider/ Retired Ford Motor Company Factory Worker
Movie That Scares Her the Most: Night of the Living Dead

Spoilers Ahead

My son has asked me to read and review the manga horror book Uzumaki. He knows I hate horror movies and I would not read a horror book on my own. But of course I said yes, I will try to read it. Then he tells me I also have to read from right to left and back to front. As if horror wasn’t enough! So I started reading the first book of the series. I actually liked it and didn’t want to put it down. I thought it was very creepy but I wanted to read more. I don’t think I can look at spirals or whirlpools ever again without thinking of this book.

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The series tells the story of a small city in Japan that has been cursed with spirals. The spirals appear in fields, in the sky and on the people. In the beginning, a girl named Kirie and an old classmate named Shuichi who had moved away try to avoid the spirals and whirlwinds that have taken over the city.

The spirals would appear on people and they would turn into snails with these creepy eyestalks. As the story goes, when food was running out, the others would eat the snails. Shuichi’s mother went insane dealing with the spirals. She saw her finger tips as spirals and cut them off with scissors and punctured her ears. His father shaped himself into a spiral and committed suicide in a washing machine. Some people would intertwine and die. The lake had whirlpools that would consume people and their souls would be left in the clay. Women were having babies and murdering people and their babies were feeding on the blood. The snails creeped me out, along with most of the book. But I wanted to read more so I read the other two books to see how it ended.

The ending was a little confusing for me. I didn’t understand why Kirie and Shuichi had fought so hard to avoid the spirals and ended up hugging and becoming a spiral themselves.

I thought the art was great, it had plenty of spirals everywhere. I would read another manga. Reading right to left and front to back wasn’t bad and reading horror was okay since I only read them in the daytime. I don’t think I could read them at night.

Sue Reviews The Goddamned #1 by Jason Aaron & R.M. Guera
Whose Mom Is She? Sean Edgar’s, Editor
Occupation: Social Worker
Likes: Christianity, Dove Chocolates, Hugs, Josh Groban

I was asked to write a review of a comic, and chose to read and review The Goddamned. The main character is Cain from The Old Testament Bible, the son of Adam and Eve who killed his brother, Abel. We first see Cain lying face first in a pool of feces and mud. He is noticeably disgusted and angry, both with himself and his current lot in life.

While one can initially be sensitive to his plight, and his feeling he has been abandoned by God, this sensitivity quickly turns into disgust at his blaming God and taking no responsibility for his behavior. He resorts to name-calling the Creator of the Universe an “asshole” and a “cunt.” How dare he do this!

As a Christian, I know God to be a good and loving Father who wants only good for his children. Cain’s evil spirit leaves no room to allow God’s goodness and mercy to flow into him. God will forgive him, if only he repents and asks. [Editor: I’m half-tempted to show her later issues]

This first issue sets the stage for Noah and everything that transpires before the great flood. Cain recognizes the evil in men and in the world, but appears to feel powerless how to find the peace and meaning he so desires.

He need only to ask…