CONTENT WARNING: Suicide, depression, addiction.

By Jarred A. Luján — I want to open this up with saying that picking a “Favorite Comic” is super difficult. I love a lot of books for a lot of different reasons, some that have spoke to me in a really particular way at a certain point in my life. In the same way people go see My Chemical Romance live in 2020, I feel about the comic Buzzkill: it hit a note with me at the exact right time and it made me feel…a lot of things.

Before we delve too deep into that, let me tell you about Buzzkill. It’s a 2013 book written by Donny Cates and Mark Reznicek, drawn by Geoff Shaw, and colored/lettered by Lauren Affe. That looks like a dynamite line up, I know, but the book was published before Shaw and Cates broke out. Before God Country and Thanos Wins and Cosmic Ghost Rider. Before Lauren Affe was doing Stranger Things and The Witcher. The first issue of this book hit way back in September of 2013.

This isn’t necessarily a review, but it should go without saying that the book is incredible. I’ve read bits and pieces of media that talk about it feeling rushed and, yeah, maybe…but the message of the book hit me with this sort of special strength that I hadn’t expected.

Here’s where things get personal and messy. The year 2016 was one of the worst years of my life. I mean, what a ringer of a year. I was having a lot of self-doubt then—I was a college graduate who couldn’t seemingly get a job anywhere near his field, a six year relationship came to a very sudden stop, and my grandmother abruptly passed away. The thing about all of that happening in such a rapid span of time is that it exposes you. Not to the world, but to yourself. The truth is, we don’t fool other people nearly as much as we fool ourselves. After all of that, right at the end of 2016, I really got to see how much of an awful person I was.

I know—you came here for comic talk. We’re getting back to that soon, I promise.

All of this is to say, in short: I hated myself and it spiraled into something pretty nasty. I wasn’t sleeping at all. I was drinking all the time and when I wasn’t drinking I was smoking. I withdrew from everyone. In short, I was planning on suicide for most of the last months of 2016. The thing about hating yourself the way I did, is that it felt different from others I’ve talked to about this, is that it was justified. I was a piece of shit. I was a mean person, angry at the world for whatever slights I had interpreted receiving. I was just mad all the time. There’s not a lot of ways to spin it. I didn’t have a chemical imbalance in my brain; I had an intense feeling of guilt and frustration at who I had let myself become.

So, in January of 2017 I began therapy. Listen, I hated the damn thing. Oh my god, it was the worst at the beginning. I didn’t want to talk about my feelings, I didn’t want to express myself, I wanted to go back home and hide myself from the world. So, about two sessions or so in, I was ready to quit. I didn’t feel like it was working because I was an idiot who didn’t know anything, and I was so uncomfortable sharing anything.

That’s about the time Buzzkill landed in my lap. It was lent to me by a friend who hooked me with “a superhero who gets his powers from being drunk.” I binged it in one sitting. I don’t think I moved more than an inch in that time frame. The book is about a superhero who gets his powers from drugs and alcohol, sure, but that’s not what it’s about, not really.

See, Buzzkill is about being a piece of shit. Someone who hurts others, who is a wrecking ball in the lives of people they meet; it’s about being a monster in human skin. It’s about all the best intentions in the world ruined at the touch of your hand. It’s Buzzkill’s ending that sets it apart from so many comics that want to tell a story somewhere in that same ballpark. Buzzkill accepts that sometimes the best thing we can do to the people we’ve hurt is to leave them alone. To walk away from them, to step out of their lives…though, maybe main protagonist Francis does it rather tragically at the end. It’s a story about accepting the things you’ve done and apologizing without the expectation of forgiveness or some “return to normalcy.”

Anyway, Buzzkill helped me realize a lot of that stuff for the first time. That I wasn’t going to get a lot of people back in my life, and that was okay. That the best thing I could do was to stay away from a lot of people I’d hurt. It made me realize that you don’t have to be the hero of the situation, that it was okay to simply not be the villain. It helped keep me in therapy, to get healthy mentally, and to ultimately strive towards becoming a better person.

I‘ve read Buzzkill at least twice a year since. It’s a great comic, sure, but it’s also one of those sensory memory experiences. Reading it takes me back to a time in my life that was terrible and dark and bad, but also to that moment of realization, that feeling where I really thought I could handle what was in front of me. Where I was determined to manifest good intentions into being a good person. It was the right book at the right place at the right time, and it’ll forever be a very special comic to me.

Buzzkill
Writers: Donny Cates and Mark Reznicek
Artist: Geoff Shaw
Colorist/Letterer: Lauren Affee
Publisher: Image Comics
Ruben is an unconventional superhero who gets his powers through the consumption of alcohol and illicit drugs. On one fateful day, facing a world-ending threat, Reuben drank so much that he blacked out. He saved the world...but he has no idea how or why. Now, he's in recovery, trying to get sober and piece together not only the events of the night in question, but the broken parts of his life as an alcoholic and an addict.
Release Date: Sep. 27, 2017

If you are someone you know needs help, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline now at 1-800-273-8255.

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Jarred A. Luján makes comics, studies existential philosophy, and listens to hip-hop too loudly. For bad jokes and dog pictures, you can follow him on Twitter.