Comic review: Edward Scissorhands #1- The return of creepy old Edward

Writer: Kate Leth
Artist: Drew Rausch
Publisher: IDW Comics
Released: 23rd October 2014


The only thing that felt contemporary to me about Edward Scissorhands #1 was the absence of any father figures in the narrative. That’s quite a common theme nowadays you know. Why? Simple really, the corporate state wants Father’s out of the home, replaced by Daddy State, who will control both Mum and Children with tax incentives, welfare and school/media propaganda from birth to grave.

But don’t children need a Dad in their lives? Doesn’t the lack of having a loving Father cause huge social, psychological, economic and societal problems? Yes, it does. But with any deliberately manufactured problem there’s a state sanctioned solution just waiting to clean up the mess. That’s what the illegal drugs, prisons, police and military are for. Some of the messed up children put on the uniforms of control, whilst others put on the uniform of prisoners. Abandoned children, now completely controlled by the corporate state. Why would the state want Fathers? Fathers mess things up, so they do all they can to get rid of them. But back to cuteville and old Edward Scissorhands.

I saw no sight or sound of the ubiquitous mobile devices that teenagers have glued to the sides of their heads these days, and there was no mention of any technology that didn’t exist when the movie came out in 1990. That was a bit odd as the book is set in the future, with the main protagonist being a teenage girl who was a baby in that movie. I know this will make me unpopular, but what I do on my blog is let you know exactly what I think about things, no self-censorship at all, just pure unadulterated truth from my mind straight onto the eternal void that is the Internet.

Do you know who Edward Scissorhands reminds me of? Edward Cullen from those dodgy Twilight movies, the eternally youthful old man who gets to hang out with teenage girls of every new generation. Creepy, isn’t it? But let’s not mention that, eh? It’s cute when creepy old guys with eternally youthful faces date jailbait schoolgirls. Isn’t it? If it’s a movie that made money that means it’s okay…….right???

Am I’m being a bit too harsh? Or am I just pointing out the sticky, uncomfortable truth? Because what happened in Twilight appears to be happening again in this comic. It’s a young looking old guy connected to young girls, and we’re supposed to find this cute and romantic? Not me mate.

In this book Edward Scissorhands is physically unchanged from over twenty-years ago, pottering around his Adams Family mansion being all cute and endearing. Whilst he is doing so a young schoolgirl is having Mom and school problems, her father is mentioned, but is physically absent, and so she is ripe for the pickings for cute old man Edward. That is a neon warning sign, and I would be engaging in wilful ignorance if I choose to ignore it.

But it’s supposed to be cute, and a woman writes it, and you’re looking too deeply into things. No I’m not. I’m just pointing out the reality of it all. That’s all I’m doing here. Let’s face it. Would you want Edward to be messing around with your school-age daughter? I bloody wouldn’t. I don’t care how cute it is. It’s just bloody weird, and wrong.

But this is a book about outsiders, I hear you complaining. Yeah, outsiders in 1990 mate, not real outsiders in 2014. The outsider in this book is not a cute (and young) Johnny Depp. He’s an old man living by himself who doesn't have any friends, and there is a young schoolgirl in the village who is obviously going to seek out and befriend him in future issues.

Is that cute?

Are you sure it’s cute?

Do you want to rethink that?

I’m not saying this is all deliberate. All I’m saying is that this is supposed to be teaching us lessons about bullying and being an outsider, but there’s something very iffy about it all. Iffy like the Twilight movies. Iffy in a way that makes me feel really uncomfortable with it all. This ain’t cute. It’s old man weird. Just uncomfortably, check Edward Scissorhand’s hard-drive weird.

Does my reaction say more about myself than the book itself? I don’t think so. I live in the UK, and one of the most famously ‘eccentric’ old men who we all grew up with on our television sets also had a thing for being lovably odd and befriending young girls with absent fathers. His name was Jimmy Saville. We knew him as Jim’ll fix it. He liked to fix things, just like Edward in this book. I’ll leave a link below.

Rating: 5/10 (Cute book with very creepy undertones)


Click link below for the context of this review:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scandal