THEY CALLED ME GOD

In Simonar’s graphic novel, an alien called God crash-lands on planet Earth.

The story, conveyed via a combination of text and photo-realistic images, begins in 2400 B.C.E. when a humanoid alien being arrives in Wiltshire to continue his slow experiments in manipulating hominid DNA. He’s already a figure of folklore in many parts of the world: “God’s wrath was legendary,” readers are told. “Untold armies died by his hand.” This godlike being is frustrated with humanity, lamenting that his subjects are “still struggling with their primitive genome.” Eventually, this prompts him to re-enter “cryo-sleep” for another 2,400 years. He awakens in the present day, a stone’s throw from Stonehenge. He immediately meets a sexy young woman named Amanda and is smitten. “God felt a certain rush of feelings … He had not enjoyed himself so in 5 million years.” This meeting introduces the element of frank eroticism that continues through the book as God’s “Children of the Light” movement does its part to combat declining birth rates (Simonar’s colorful illustrations grow correspondingly explicit when God’s adventures call for it). The narrative expands from sheet-scorching sex to international politics and the threat of nuclear war, always with God looking on with a sardonic smile, poking at human complacency. (“You study brains as hardware or wiring systems, ignoring the 35 trillion cells of your soul,” he tells one character. “Would you study MI6 command center without noticing there are a lot of humans involved.”) The story is a largely an effective blend of narrative elements from SF classics like Chariots of the Gods? (1971) and Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). Simonar’s artwork is unfailingly compelling (although his accompanying text has a distractingly high number of typos), and the characterization of his protagonist is ultimately touching. “Is this to be my legacy?” he asks himself. “A footnote in the annals of our galaxy? The man who created a new species that played with balls.”

Lively and thought-provoking.