Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect & The Last Laugh A Review and Interview with Novelist and Comic Writer David Thorpe
Recently I had the pleasure of reading Doc Chaos: The Chernobyl Effect and The Last Laugh, from Author David Thorpe. Set during the Cold War, this Satire follows the exploits of the Doctor as he explores the road to bliss.
In the tradition of David Copperfield, comes the story of Doc Chaos. He is as he boasts ‘Pure Science made flesh’; often falling into narcissistic over reaching rants, but without them, this character would not stand up to his own claims. The fact that a medical dictionary would be a useful companion makes me feel as if the Doc has in fact, earned his degree. He is morally corrupt, sadistic and a wee bit twisted, and yet, there is a truthfulness you have to respect. If only all were so forthcoming in their thoughts!
Doc Chao's ramblings of madness while comical also make you remember what failure can bring out of us, how despairingly desperate we can become when we are starved for what we all need. The shaking, tumultuous, and overpowering feeling that can only be found when flesh meets flesh, at the heart of the tale is a love story, told by the only one the Doc has ever truly loved. Himself.
What are the lengths in which he goes to fulfill this love? You’ll have to read to find out.
With Doc Chaos, David Thorpe shows a grasp of the greedy corporations of the world, in a way that could make one realize just how corruption can and will lead to our own definitive end. It is interesting to see the inner workings of his mind as he sets the world up for one of the most horrendous disasters of the 20th century, the Chernobyl melt down, all in the pursuit of the ultimate ejaculation of the spirit, and no one can stop him from attaining it.
Then we find him decades later, in “The Last Laugh.” Still believing he has done the world a service that his creation of chaos was to prepare man for the results of their avarice. He alone has lasted, has thrived, to make available to the world the means to let its self burn. He looks out over the barren lands, awaiting the opportunity to rise again, to become glorified once more, in his sadistic fashion he feeds off those still with him unaware of his twisted needs.
In general, I recommend this tale, having been unfamiliar with the character before now, although I am well aware there are more twisted tales, which I will now have to seek out. It is not often that a story lets you delve so deeply into a mind, as this one does. I look forward to seeing more from David, and Doc Chaos.
Not to be ignored is the artistry of Bryan Talbot, Simon Bisley, and Brian Bolland just to name a few, the work has an eerie surrealism, lost on some, but caustically clear as the images in the Doc's head. It truly is astounding, as is the way David Thorpe works “The Brilliance of the Thesaurus.” I am an avid fan, and I applaud its use when it does not come across as obvious, and even more so when it is. It shows that a writer does their homework and is trying not to bore me. When it comes to a turn of phrase, in this book, I have not been bored.
After the read, David was kind enough to answer some questions.
Q: What was your inspiration for Doc Chaos? Is he representative of a specific theme or does he have roots in people you have experienced in your life?
A: Some of the biographical history of the bad Dr. comes from my own upbringing, such as the visits to the clinic, and the fact that we both suffer from cerebral palsy. Of course, he is a satirical creation, and as such derived partly from my own reading of Mary Shelley's apocryphal Dr. Frankenstein, Alfred Jarry's Dr Faustroll, and, of course, William S Burroughs' Dr Benway. That is his literary ‘family tree’.
Q: That’s quite the ‘family’. Doc Chaos' mind is filled with formula, what if any research did you do to make him come across with such genius/madness?
A: When I wrote it, along with the TV series and comics scripts from which it is derived, chaos maths and chaos theory were extremely popular. Posters and postcards of fractals and the Mandelbrot Set were widely available and used on posters for clubs, raves, etc. Alongside this was the fringe craze for chaos magic, which is a kind of punk, post-modern form of magic heavily influenced by Chaos theory, and I was the 1st comics writer to get involved with a group, that met in Greenwich above a cafe called Bullfrogs. Later, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and others were to get involved. The idea of using formulae was to satirize the lust for order using mock mathematics.
Q: Well it certainly ‘sold’ the tale for me. What was your favorite scene to write, why?
A: What was a favorite scene? I guess the sex scenes! Particularly the cut-up one. It was really interesting writing that because I was writing it on an Amstrad personal computer, you know the ones with the green screens, that used a now lost word processing program called Locoscript. A major advantage of this was that, unlike every other word processing program that I'm aware of which only allow you to copy and hold in the memory one phrase at a time to paste somewhere else, with this you could assign to each letter and number on the keyboard a separate phrase or sentence. I did this and then randomly hit the keyboard to let the computer generate the text. By swapping and changing the phrases that were held in the memory over the course of generating the chapter, the text progressed. I then edited the result.
Q: I have never had the pleasure of using an Amstrad; they were gone before my time. But what I wouldn’t give for that program.
In the Afterword, you state that you may do the work to fill in the gaps between The Chernobyl Effect and The Last Laugh, but do you have any plans for us to see the Doc after the scenes in the Last Laugh?
A: I have no plans at the moment for writing a Doc Chaos story that takes place after the Last Laugh, but you never know. Perhaps he will have his brain transplanted into the body of a wolf!
‘A wolf eh? I’d love an advanced copy if it ever happens! Thank you so much for all your time.’
Where to find more from David Thorpe:
Twitter: @DavidKThorpe
Web: www.davidthorpe.info
Blogs:
http://lowcarbonkid.blogspot.com/
http://sympathyftm.blogspot.com/
In the tradition of David Copperfield, comes the story of Doc Chaos. He is as he boasts ‘Pure Science made flesh’; often falling into narcissistic over reaching rants, but without them, this character would not stand up to his own claims. The fact that a medical dictionary would be a useful companion makes me feel as if the Doc has in fact, earned his degree. He is morally corrupt, sadistic and a wee bit twisted, and yet, there is a truthfulness you have to respect. If only all were so forthcoming in their thoughts!
Doc Chao's ramblings of madness while comical also make you remember what failure can bring out of us, how despairingly desperate we can become when we are starved for what we all need. The shaking, tumultuous, and overpowering feeling that can only be found when flesh meets flesh, at the heart of the tale is a love story, told by the only one the Doc has ever truly loved. Himself.
What are the lengths in which he goes to fulfill this love? You’ll have to read to find out.
With Doc Chaos, David Thorpe shows a grasp of the greedy corporations of the world, in a way that could make one realize just how corruption can and will lead to our own definitive end. It is interesting to see the inner workings of his mind as he sets the world up for one of the most horrendous disasters of the 20th century, the Chernobyl melt down, all in the pursuit of the ultimate ejaculation of the spirit, and no one can stop him from attaining it.
Then we find him decades later, in “The Last Laugh.” Still believing he has done the world a service that his creation of chaos was to prepare man for the results of their avarice. He alone has lasted, has thrived, to make available to the world the means to let its self burn. He looks out over the barren lands, awaiting the opportunity to rise again, to become glorified once more, in his sadistic fashion he feeds off those still with him unaware of his twisted needs.
In general, I recommend this tale, having been unfamiliar with the character before now, although I am well aware there are more twisted tales, which I will now have to seek out. It is not often that a story lets you delve so deeply into a mind, as this one does. I look forward to seeing more from David, and Doc Chaos.
Not to be ignored is the artistry of Bryan Talbot, Simon Bisley, and Brian Bolland just to name a few, the work has an eerie surrealism, lost on some, but caustically clear as the images in the Doc's head. It truly is astounding, as is the way David Thorpe works “The Brilliance of the Thesaurus.” I am an avid fan, and I applaud its use when it does not come across as obvious, and even more so when it is. It shows that a writer does their homework and is trying not to bore me. When it comes to a turn of phrase, in this book, I have not been bored.
After the read, David was kind enough to answer some questions.
Q: What was your inspiration for Doc Chaos? Is he representative of a specific theme or does he have roots in people you have experienced in your life?
A: Some of the biographical history of the bad Dr. comes from my own upbringing, such as the visits to the clinic, and the fact that we both suffer from cerebral palsy. Of course, he is a satirical creation, and as such derived partly from my own reading of Mary Shelley's apocryphal Dr. Frankenstein, Alfred Jarry's Dr Faustroll, and, of course, William S Burroughs' Dr Benway. That is his literary ‘family tree’.
Q: That’s quite the ‘family’. Doc Chaos' mind is filled with formula, what if any research did you do to make him come across with such genius/madness?
A: When I wrote it, along with the TV series and comics scripts from which it is derived, chaos maths and chaos theory were extremely popular. Posters and postcards of fractals and the Mandelbrot Set were widely available and used on posters for clubs, raves, etc. Alongside this was the fringe craze for chaos magic, which is a kind of punk, post-modern form of magic heavily influenced by Chaos theory, and I was the 1st comics writer to get involved with a group, that met in Greenwich above a cafe called Bullfrogs. Later, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and others were to get involved. The idea of using formulae was to satirize the lust for order using mock mathematics.
Q: Well it certainly ‘sold’ the tale for me. What was your favorite scene to write, why?
A: What was a favorite scene? I guess the sex scenes! Particularly the cut-up one. It was really interesting writing that because I was writing it on an Amstrad personal computer, you know the ones with the green screens, that used a now lost word processing program called Locoscript. A major advantage of this was that, unlike every other word processing program that I'm aware of which only allow you to copy and hold in the memory one phrase at a time to paste somewhere else, with this you could assign to each letter and number on the keyboard a separate phrase or sentence. I did this and then randomly hit the keyboard to let the computer generate the text. By swapping and changing the phrases that were held in the memory over the course of generating the chapter, the text progressed. I then edited the result.
Q: I have never had the pleasure of using an Amstrad; they were gone before my time. But what I wouldn’t give for that program.
In the Afterword, you state that you may do the work to fill in the gaps between The Chernobyl Effect and The Last Laugh, but do you have any plans for us to see the Doc after the scenes in the Last Laugh?
A: I have no plans at the moment for writing a Doc Chaos story that takes place after the Last Laugh, but you never know. Perhaps he will have his brain transplanted into the body of a wolf!
‘A wolf eh? I’d love an advanced copy if it ever happens! Thank you so much for all your time.’
Where to find more from David Thorpe:
Twitter: @DavidKThorpe
Web: www.davidthorpe.info
Blogs:
http://lowcarbonkid.blogspot.com/
http://sympathyftm.blogspot.com/
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