A review by 600bars
Megahex by Simon Hanselmann
1.0
My roommate brought this home from the library. They/I thought this would be Michael DeForge adjacent, who is one of our favorite graphic novel artists. A stoner witch and her cat on adventures? Pretty colors? Daniel Clowes endorsement? Seems great!
Unfortunately this was like if your friend said let’s watch a movie and then the movie was A Serbian Film. Ok I’m exaggerating, but I was absolutely shocked at the cruelty and nihilism on display here. I thought maybe if I smoke a bit I’ll be more in tune with the characters and I’ll find it funny. No.
Right away a wolf character is at a party and takes out a cheese grater and then cheese grates his balls! For no reason! There's blood everywhere! The cat and the witch, Megg and Mogg, are in a sexual/romantic relationship and live with an Owl who they abuse becuase they have no other meaning in their sad lives. All they do is hit gravity bongs and watch iCarly and quite literally torture their “friend” Owl.
I am not exaggerating when I say torture. It reminded me of that youtube channel, daddyoffive, where they had one child that they constantly picked on. I cannot overstate the cruelty here. The way they treated Owl was unrelenting abuse. They drug and gang rape him. When he expressed anger over having been drugged and raped they mock him. They drug him and strip him and put him through a drive through in a shopping cart and eventually he is arrested. There’s one instance where he really needs to shit and they will not allow him in the apartment. Owl has no choice but to squat outside, but then a dog comes and eats the poop and knocks Owl over. He hits his head and is knocked unconscious, and the dog who is poop covered licks his unconscious body. Megg and Mogg are watching all of this from the window with a detached air. Instead of helping their friend, once he’s on the ground they say welp show’s over then go make out. At one point Owl tries to get sober, so they feed him an alcoholic smoothie but don’t tell him there’s alcohol in it. Owl gets absolutely plastered and humiliates himself all around town. They joke about trying to get him to kill himself. Need I go on???
Every incident shocked me more than the last. There is never any complication to their dynamic, like it’s not like they have good times sometimes. And Owl is never mean to them. It's not like they are having back and forth prank wars that occasionally go too far. Owl occasionally tries to stand up for himself, but not very hard. We see Megg experience bouts of depression, and sometimes her stoned paranoia was funny. But not funny enough to make me sympathize with her one bit. I typically enjoy things where people are mean to each other like Succession, but there was nothing redeeming to balance it out. The cruelty wasn’t gleeful, it was absolutely repulsive. I really wanted Owl to kill them or something because of how extreme it was. He flies away in the end but it feels like putting a bandaid on open heart surgery!!!
I typically have no issue with dark nihilistic stories. Part of my horror was due to the fact that I smoked a bowl and settled in for what I thought was going to be a relaxing stoner comedy and instead was reading….this…. Sometimes the bait and switch can work, like I thought the movie Raw was going to be a rom com and it def wasn't. I still loved it even though it wasn't what I was expecting. But this was absolutely too much for me. Stay Away!
Unfortunately this was like if your friend said let’s watch a movie and then the movie was A Serbian Film. Ok I’m exaggerating, but I was absolutely shocked at the cruelty and nihilism on display here. I thought maybe if I smoke a bit I’ll be more in tune with the characters and I’ll find it funny. No.
Right away a wolf character is at a party and takes out a cheese grater and then cheese grates his balls! For no reason! There's blood everywhere! The cat and the witch, Megg and Mogg, are in a sexual/romantic relationship and live with an Owl who they abuse becuase they have no other meaning in their sad lives. All they do is hit gravity bongs and watch iCarly and quite literally torture their “friend” Owl.
I am not exaggerating when I say torture. It reminded me of that youtube channel, daddyoffive, where they had one child that they constantly picked on. I cannot overstate the cruelty here. The way they treated Owl was unrelenting abuse. They drug and gang rape him. When he expressed anger over having been drugged and raped they mock him. They drug him and strip him and put him through a drive through in a shopping cart and eventually he is arrested. There’s one instance where he really needs to shit and they will not allow him in the apartment. Owl has no choice but to squat outside, but then a dog comes and eats the poop and knocks Owl over. He hits his head and is knocked unconscious, and the dog who is poop covered licks his unconscious body. Megg and Mogg are watching all of this from the window with a detached air. Instead of helping their friend, once he’s on the ground they say welp show’s over then go make out. At one point Owl tries to get sober, so they feed him an alcoholic smoothie but don’t tell him there’s alcohol in it. Owl gets absolutely plastered and humiliates himself all around town. They joke about trying to get him to kill himself. Need I go on???
Every incident shocked me more than the last. There is never any complication to their dynamic, like it’s not like they have good times sometimes. And Owl is never mean to them. It's not like they are having back and forth prank wars that occasionally go too far. Owl occasionally tries to stand up for himself, but not very hard. We see Megg experience bouts of depression, and sometimes her stoned paranoia was funny. But not funny enough to make me sympathize with her one bit. I typically enjoy things where people are mean to each other like Succession, but there was nothing redeeming to balance it out. The cruelty wasn’t gleeful, it was absolutely repulsive. I really wanted Owl to kill them or something because of how extreme it was. He flies away in the end but it feels like putting a bandaid on open heart surgery!!!
I typically have no issue with dark nihilistic stories. Part of my horror was due to the fact that I smoked a bowl and settled in for what I thought was going to be a relaxing stoner comedy and instead was reading….this…. Sometimes the bait and switch can work, like I thought the movie Raw was going to be a rom com and it def wasn't. I still loved it even though it wasn't what I was expecting. But this was absolutely too much for me. Stay Away!