Tim + Alex dot com

Once more we return, with the now-regular format of two monthly essays focusing on the most recent issue of The Wicked + The Divine. This time out, Alex takes a close look at the issue’s return to a familiar scene, and Tim delves into the latest revelations about Baal, and how they play into the series’ themes of identity, divinity and performance.

Spoilers right up to issue #35 below the cut.

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Once more, we return. Once more, we have changed formats. It’s for a good reason, though – we managed to hit the first stretch goal on our brand new Patreon, which means Tim + Alex will be writing one essay each, every time a new issue of WicDiv drops. With a bit of luck, this will remain our format for the rest of the series – but you know what we’re like.

(Warning: Below the cut are lots and lots of spoilers for everything up to issue #34. Also, much wankery.)

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Here’s an incredibly obvious statement: The Wicked + The Divine is a comic about performance. Like, yeah, dude, do you remember the very first double-page spread? It’s like page 10 of issue #1.

‘Performance’ is always the word WicDiv chooses for the gods doing their artistic thing. Not show, or concert, or act. Most likely, that’s to help separate it from music – especially important when dealing with past pantheons, with their writer gods, cinema gods, theatre gods and so on – but I think it’s a telling choice.

Look at what Ananke – who is presumably the arbiter of this vocabulary – has to say about performance, in issue #9:She means that it’s easier to decapitate a god when they’re performing, but it makes sense because of the truth in the underlying metaphor. Art is a way of bearing your soul to people, and doing that live, with people in the room, who probably paid to be there? Well, I’m just thankful I’m a writer.

This isn’t the only kind of performance in WicDiv, though. There’s also a kind that has the opposite effect: performed identity.

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