On Beyond Zarathustra (14)
By:
October 8, 2016
Earlier this year, John Holbo unearthed Nietzsche’s abandoned graphic novel, On Beyond Zarathustra, later cannibalized for the author’s philosophical prose-poem, Thus Spake Zarathustra. (According to Holbo, this ur-text prompts us to ask: Do the townspeople ignore Zarathustra because his proposed transvaluation of values is too radical? Or is it because, like Dr. Seuss’s Gerald McGrew or Morris McGurk, he tends to rattle on and spiral off?) A HILOBROW exclusive! The pages in this 15-part series have never before seen the light of the day. Enjoy…
“You protest (what’s that?)/That you simply want happiness?/You don’t need some Super-de-Duper Zip-Zapiness!/Lightning-like, liking strife, face full of mirth?/Overman, Roverman, meaning of Earth!/’Where is this fellow,/Who’d leave us in lurches/Let’s see HIM stride forth/Between acrobatic perches!”
HOLBO AT HILOBROW: On Beyond Zarathustra — a double parody | Sugarplum Squeampunk — Christmas cards by deranged Victorian “cthuligrapher” Albert Wedge-Wheskit | Not Trash, Pop — a celebration of forgotten midcentury gag panel artist Susi Steinitz Ettinger | CROM YOUR ENTHUSIASM: The Conan Mythos | HERMENAUTIC TAROT: The Heaviest Heads.
MORE NIETZSCHE & SEUSS: Josh Glenn’s ZARATHUSTRA VS. SWAMP THING mashup | THE ARGONAUT FOLLY pt. 2 | Nietzsche as HILO HERO | Dr. Seuss as HILO HERO | Greg Rowland and Joe Alterio’s MY FIRST CRITICAL THEORY ABC.
ORIGINAL FICTION from HILOBROW: James Parker’s swearing-animal fable The Ballad of Cocky The Fox, later published in limited-edition paperback by HiLoBooks; plus: a newsletter, The Sniffer, by Patrick Cates, and further stories: “The Cockarillion”) | Karinne Keithley Syers’s hollow-earth adventure Linda, later published in limited-edition paperback; plus: ukulele music, and a “Floating Appendix”) | Matthew Battles’s stories “Gita Nova“, “Makes the Man,” “Imago,” “Camera Lucida,” “A Simple Message”, “Children of the Volcano”, “The Gnomon”, “Billable Memories”, “For Provisional Description of Superficial Features”, “The Dogs in the Trees”, “The Sovereignties of Invention”, and “Survivor: The Island of Dr. Moreau”; several of these later appeared in the collection The Sovereignties of Invention, published by Red Lemonade | Robert Waldron’s high-school campus roman à clef The School on the Fens | Peggy Nelson’s “Mood Indigo“, “Top Kill Fail“, and “Mercerism” | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Flourish Klink’s Star Trek fanfic “Conference Comms” | Charlie Mitchell’s “A Fantasy Land” | Charlie Mitchell’s “Sentinels” | Joshua Glenn’s “The Lawless One”, and the mashup story “Zarathustra vs. Swamp Thing” | Adam McGovern and Paolo Leandri’s Idoru Jones comics | John Holbo’s “Sugarplum Squeampunk” | “Another Corporate Death” (1) and “Another Corporate Death” (2) by Mike Fleisch | Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer and Frank Fiorentino’s graphic novel “The Song of Otto” (excerpt) | John Holbo’s graphic novel On Beyond Zarathustra (excerpt) | “Manoj” and “Josh” by Vijay Balakrishnan | “Verge” by Chris Rossi, and his audio novel Low Priority Hero | EPIC WINS: THE ILIAD (1.408-415) by Flourish Klink | EPIC WINS: THE KALEVALA (3.1-278) by James Parker | EPIC WINS: THE ARGONAUTICA (2.815-834) by Joshua Glenn | EPIC WINS: THE ILIAD by Stephen Burt | EPIC WINS: THE MYTH OF THE ELK by Matthew Battles | EPIC WINS: GOTHAMIAD by Chad Parmenter | TROUBLED SUPERHUMAN CONTEST: Charles Pappas, “The Law” | CATASTROPHE CONTEST: Timothy Raymond, “Hem and the Flood” | TELEPATHY CONTEST: Rachel Ellis Adams, “Fatima, Can You Hear Me?” | OIL SPILL CONTEST: A.E. Smith, “Sound Thinking | LITTLE NEMO CAPTION CONTEST: Joe Lyons, “Necronomicon” | SPOOKY-KOOKY CONTEST: Tucker Cummings, “Well Marbled” | INVENT-A-HERO CONTEST: TG Gibbon, “The Firefly” | FANFICTION CONTEST: Lyette Mercier’s “Sex and the Single Superhero”