MediaUnderground Reviews Club Zero-G

Book Review: Douglas Rushkoff: Club Zero G
(Disinformation Books, 2004)
Reviewed by Mortimer

               
art by steph dumais


I’ve never been big on graphic novels. Most of the time when I read them I feel like a nostalgic retard trying desperately to reclaim a perception and idealism that died with the collection of 2000 AD comics my mother destroyed in retaliation for me tearing the bathroom wallpaper as a child. I had done it deliberately so I guess her actions were justified. I was about nine years old at the time and I watched in horror as she tore each one individually. Oh the trauma of it all. I guess I’ve never really recovered. Whenever I see a comic book today I always shy away from it in revulsion as the memory of my prize collection being destroyed rears its ugly head like an uncontrollable bout of atavistic psychosis.

Regardless of this, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series and Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles have kind of revitalised my interests in the genre - although it still feels shameful to read such literature on the bus since one can’t help feeling that one is being looked upon as some kind of freak adult Harry Potter reader. There is no excuse for the latter however; I don’t care how fucking good Harry Potter might seem to you (or the fact the author comes from Edinburgh), if you are over fourteen years old and reading this bullshit you should go see a shrink about the possibilities of latent paedophilia in your psyche. You’re an adult. It’s a kiddie’s book. There’s something wrong with you. Go out and buy an airport porn novel and jack off until it’s out of your system.

But I digress.

I guess the first thing that struck me about Club Zero G was how minimalist it all seemed. Certainly there were just as many pages to it as any other graphic novel that I’ve read, but the artwork by Steph Dumais seemed almost basic with a character dialogue that was virtually non-existent. As I began to read I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to say anything good about the book at all, but I persisted under the pretext that I got a review copy for free and that it shouldn’t take me any more than an hour at most to get through it.

It didn’t, and when I finally put the book down I understood precisely what Douglas Rushkoff had created.

This story centres round Zeke, an unpopular nineteen year old college student who discovers a new club that transcends beyond anything he has experienced before. Here he is accepted amongst the crowd only to discover later that the club is merely a dream - albeit an extremely vivid one.

The dream however is recurring, and each night Zeke becomes more and more involved in the “reality” of the club, in which his friends tell him that they have no recollection of its existence whilst awake, only of its reality during sleep. Eventually his girlfriend, who won’t acknowledge his existence outside the club, finally perceives the truth of what is happening and a realisation dawns on Zeke that the club is in fact some form of telepathic matrix created by mutant children from the future.

Living in a future where free-thought and individuality are considered criminal, the mutant children have telepathically created the club with the sole purpose of contacting the minds of the past in an attempt to alter the course of human history for the better.

So it’s all pretty far-fetched, right?

Well, let's forget all that for a moment and take a look at the author and what floats his boat, for there is something unique about this book that no reviewer seems to have yet picked up on.

Rushkoff is in essence a cultural and subcultural analyst; a character, it seems, who is fascinated with how media, behaviour, and the flow of information affect society and culture as they mutate through time. As a writer, lecturer and author of eight books, Rushkoff also appears to have a fascination with the fringe elements of society; exploring counter-culture, cyberculture, esotericism and virtually anything of an unconventional nature. As the keyboard player of PsychicTV (an experimental music band fronted by cultural engineer Genesis P-Orridge), Rushkoff’s methodology of putting together this graphic novel intrigues me. After all, this is a man who aligns himself closely with the Disinformation Company - an organisation that has managed to manipulate the way mainstream media is covered by infiltrating directly into it and subsequently becoming it.

The minimalism that is present in Club Zero G makes the pace of the book exceptionally fast. The images are simple yet bold with a richness in colour that seems extremely striking to the eye. The dialogue is sparse yet to the point and it is this which encourages the reader to run through the story quickly, whilst the mind is bombarded by an array of vivid imagery that conveys an almost subconscious message about a battle between human potential and consensus reality. As one reaches the book's conclusion the tables are switched quickly and cleverly to bring the reader into the equation.

Did I just read a comic book or participate in an experiment?

To most people this will seem like just another graphic novel, but to anyone like me whose time as a youth was laced heavily with an interest in occultism, Club Zero G is a deliberate and effective form of modern day Pop Magick.

Perhaps Rushkoff will now tell me if my assumptions are correct, or maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know. Whatever the case, readers should not feel afraid of approaching the sigil Club Zero G. After all, if it works the future of humanity might not turn out as bleak as it presently looks.

Club Zero G is available from the Disinformation Company priced $19.95.

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