Land of Noe

Sister Juana from The Convent of Hell.  All Art Copyright © by Ignacio Noe.  

Part 2 of an occasional series on NBM's Amerotica and Eurotica creators and their work. 


Do people still laugh in bed anymore?  The way Joan Rivers might have advised us to?  "I said to my husband, 'My boobs have gone, my stomach's gone, say something nice about my legs.' He said, 'Blue goes with everything.'"  It was a joke; as with so many of the late comedienne’s barbs, aimed unerringly at ourselves.  It’s the kind of joke Argentinian graphic novelist Ignacio Noé (or simply Noe) would revel in retelling.

So much of Noe’s work is farce—comic, dramatic, crude, ludicrous—with a timely or timeless viciousness.  Facial expressions, scenarios, sound effects—there is so much we’re to laugh at until a situation takes a dark turn into incest, murder, mayhem, rape, all somehow meant to be as redemptive as it is madcap.  Rivers could be cutting; I don’t recall her drawing this amount of blood.  She also said, “I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.”  Could Noe make a similar claim?  Maybe few private thoughts could survive full airing in our present age of heightened alert to sexual malfeasance. 

The Convent of Hell (1997), illustrated by Noe with script by the late Ricardo Barreiro, also from Argentina, is set in the Convent of the Cloistered Barefoot Marionite Sisters “on the outskirts of the city of León” in Spain.  It opens with the censure of a young nun named Sister Inés by her Mother Superior, Sister Juana, and cohorts.  The year is 1951.  The young nun, who is bound, has presumably committed the sin of masturbation.  The device with which they intend to discipline her is a wooden screw dildo “as big as a donkey’s.” 

The sadism, as in the rest of Noe’s work, sits (un)comfortably beside the absurd.  The nuns look like seductive jackals, with painted lips, pencilled eyebrows and thick eyelashes.  The colours are vivid.  They drool as they inflict pain, their eyes glistening with the anticipation of it.

But evil, in the Land of Noe—or, at the very least, bad, hypocritical behaviour—is often identified with a mind to punish and lampoon.  And if the effects of this choice can’t be measured or gauged at a time when adult film actress Stormy Daniels has accused United States President Donald Trump of physically threatening her and her family’s safety if she revealed any details about their alleged affair, then they may never be.

Noe’s painted art is representational but also cartoony in The Convent of Hell.  It feels European, precise, yet full of abandon, excess, especially in the depiction of sex.  His eyes and lips are very vivid.  Other times, a sense of minimalism is expressed in the colours: they are just bright enough in a generally grey world.

This story is about the shady sides of themselves people hide: beneath Sister Juana’s habit are sexy bra, garters and stockings, but no panties—the better to show a neatly trimmed crotch.  After assaulting Sister Inés, Sister Juana shows no remorse.  She does what she does to get off sexually, not because of some perverse sense of punishing sin in herself or others.    

The earliest of Noe’s work available from NBM may be his weakest.  The translation by Robert Legault is serviceable, though this may reflect the limitations of the original script.  The graphic novel was apparently serialized in 8-page segments during different periods.  The seams, in story and art, sometimes show. 

There are gaps in the dialogue and lapses in logic.  That Sister Juana’s judgement remains largely unquestioned after the revelation of her dealings with the devil (Beelzebub, here, crossed between a donkey, goat and satyr with a frightening phallus to match) is odd.  Or is it?  As Mother Superior, she is never less than in charge.  In keeping with her growing power, strengthened through a dream-time connection with the forces of hell, the kind of sexual gratification she seems to be after is ruthless, insatiable and devoid of love—of spirit.  What terrifies others—the attack on a nun by hellish, tentacle-like members—turns her on.   Where others yearn for a spiritual union with Christ, she seeks a carnal connection with the devil.

In this way, Noe challenges notions of the erotic, of what we allow ourselves to accept as a legitimate relationship, and of what we relate to without condemning.  The mutual consent between Beelzebub and Sister Juana helps.  They are suited to one another.  But over-the-top sound effects (like an improbable SWOOSH when the beast sodomizes her) remind the reader not to be overly alarmed at the proceedings.  There is also an ending that maintains such lust rarely goes unchecked.

Noe’s work gets lighter as he gets older.  By degrees, I mean: there is an adolescent vibrancy to the art in all his self-penned books.  In Ship of Fools (1999), translated from the Spanish by Am, Noe refuses to take sex seriously.  The storytelling benefits, too, from not being episodic, even if the plot doesn’t quite convince.  The cargo ship of the title looks like a laughing penis or breast.  It is transporting mentally ill patients from Earth to Mars.  “It was hard to understand how the federal government got the colonies to take care of their mentally ill.  They accepted, in spite of risking becoming a human garbage dump.  It’s strange but a lot of weird things happen these days,” says the Captain, who narrates the story.  The patients, all “15 000 nutcases,” are safely in suspended animation.   That’s until the ship’s frustrated engineer starts waking up some of the more deviant and violent ones to have sex. 

Of course, the Captain has issues of her own.  She figures the only way to lockdown these psychopaths is by role-playing with them.  "I’ll become the object of their sick desires, this way they’ll come to me…and when they think they have possessed me I’ll…put them to sleep with my gun.”

The process of screwing her way out of her situation awakens the Captain’s mature sexual desires (and, perhaps, true romance and personal freedom on Mars).  As with The Convent of Hell, there is something disturbing about Noe’s treatment of such a storyline, even if the heroine is cast as dominant, as the one really using her sex as a weapon.  If we go with this reading, the question becomes unavoidable: “What’s Noe getting at about (un)earthly desire and the exercising of passion, particularly with those over whom one has authority?”  We quickly see, in all his books, how badly events unfold for those not in the thrusting position, whether man or woman.  And power dynamics can be swiftly reversed, leaving the fucker fucked, to put it plainly. 

Being in control is what’s important and a great turn on for Noe’s protagonists.  At one point, the Captain thinks of a homicidal escaped patient whose head is buried between her legs: “Poor thing!  He is so enthusiastic…  What do I lose if I wait a bit before putting him to sleep.[sic]”  But she learns what the protagonist in The Piano Tuner (2003) learns—repeatedly—in his escapades: that it’s all fun and games until someone else gets the upper hand on you, or already has it.    

D’Elia is the second-generation piano tuner of the title, again translated by Robert Legault from the Spanish.  The story's focus is his sexual exploits.  He says, “The work was no sweat, and paid me enough to indulge my vices.”   D’Elia will discover what happens when one’s hunt is turned into someone else’s attack. 

Noe has a greater sense of what should be clearly defined and what should be left sketchy in the illustrations here. Howard Chaykin's ornateness comes to mind in certain panels.  Yet the sex is portrayed in much the same exuberant fashion as in Ship of Fools, with plenty of groping and tonguing through a handful of positions, and abundant sound effects.  Sometimes, hands and faces look like those of puppets.  This may be a deliberate statement. 

Noe’s plotting is patchier than in The Convent of Hell.  This is less of a concern with these genuine vignettes.  From situation to situation, D’Elia’s innocence or ignorance is his undoing.  That’s the true interest of The Piano Tuner.

When a lady asks if she can count on his discretion, D’Elia says (with bobbing hard on), “Of course.  I’m a man of integrity.”  What he is, actually, is a failed artist, a pig, someone who looks and plays music like a man possessed with lascivious thoughts.  Whatever D’Elia attempts with the women he seduces ends very bizarrely and disappointingly for him.  This is where there may be more real story in The Piano Tuner (which has a sequel) than in Noe’s other work.  Life does indeed just happen, one action leading to another, with little sense of direction or control.  The Piano Tuner almost seems like too obvious a cautionary tale for our times.  D’Elia’s adventures become increasingly perilous, or unharmonious, as he goes along, with their underlying humour turning gloomy to downright somber.  Maybe his situation would be different if he finally chose to tune the piano in the room instead of the women who own them.  But for that he would first need to master his own instrument.

Last modified June 18, 2018.

· Robert is the critically acclaimed author of the NBM Amerotica titles Great Moves, Attractive Forces and Stray Moonbeams.  His other books include the novel And Sometimes They Fly; the story collections Fairfield: The Last Sad Stories of G. Brandon Sisnett, Intimacy 101: Rooms & Suites, The Tree of Youth, and Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall; and the memoir Sand for Snow: A Caribbean-Canadian Chronicle.

All of his graphic novels are now available as e-books from NBM.