Clell, Madison – Cuckoo #12

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Cuckoo #12

Frankly, this doesn’t look like a very appealing comic. A friend of mine read this before me and he couldn’t stop talking about how much he didn’t like it, so I went into it with an automatic negative attitude. I still don’t know what to think after reading it. It’s #12 and I felt like I was jumping on right in the middle. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no kind of continuing story (at least I don’t think there is). It just feels like something she has been doing her whole life, and I guess she kind of has. A back story is needed here. Madison Clell suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder and has (from what I’ve been able to piece together from the comic) suffered from this since she was raped when she was 7. Horrible stuff, I know. She proclaims herself cured on the first page after eight years of therapy, but if that’s the case I hope she did this before she was cured, because it’s bizarre stuff. The closest I could come to describing it would be a kick in the teeth. Page after page of confused, desperate rambling about her life and how things have gone. The stories in here deal with her trying to convince her therapist that she’s not crazy, learning that her parents knew that the people who raped her were deviants before they attacked her, and (I think) the last moments of a young girl’s life. Hard to follow at times, but unmistakably distressing stories. Not the kind of thing to read if you’re in the mood for a laugh, but if you’re up for a challenge and don’t mind reading in minute detail about a ruined life, you’ll get a lot out of this. Her homepage is pretty interesting too, even if it hasn’t been updated in a while. She has quotes from all kinds of odd people, including the real Patch Adams. E-mail her and ask about other issues too. She has a whole volume of work available, that’s for sure…