`Happy!’ Birthday Image! An Appreciation Of The Morrison And Robertson Classic
by Tom Smithyman
From Spawn to Savage Dragon to Invincible, Image Comics has produced a ‘who’s who’ of memorable characters over its 33-year history. With its birthday month now upon us, we thought we would look back at some of our reviewers favorite series and creations, starting with 2012’s Happy!
Written by comics legend Grant Morrison and impeccably drawn by Darick Robertson, Happy! tells the Christmastime story of ex-cop turned enforcer Nick Sax and the imaginary friend Happy the Horse. Happy may not be Nick’s imaginary friend, but for reasons I won’t get into here for fear of spoilers, the anti-hero can see and hear the adorably blue troublemaker.
Over the course of the four-part limited series, Sax gets shot, stabbed, and complains of several heart attacks as well as eczema. And through it all, Happy is there to convince him to look at the bright side of life, while also focusing Sax on rescuing Hailey. The young girl has been kidnapped for a disgusting web broadcast to sexual deviants. The would-be rapist? No less than a strung-out Santa Claus impersonator. A Christmas Carol, this ain’t.
Morrison infuses the story with more than Sax could ever handle, which makes Happy the story’s real hero. Morrison is showing off their ability to capture different character voices – from the profane Sax, to a perverted priest, to the icy mob torture expert, to the eternally happy Happy.
It’s Robertson, though, who really shows off here. In addition to his range, he has the uncanny ability to communicate nearly everything we need to know about the character just by looking at them. We see Sax, which his unshaven face, dead eyes, and perpetual cigar floating from his mouth and we know precisely who he is. Same with Happy, though for very different reasons. And, of course, the range that Robertson shows in his characters is impressive as well.
The comic series was so successful that Morrison was able to turn it into a television series in 2017. Christopher Meloni nailed Sax and Patton Oswalt lent his voice to create the perfect Happy. The series was so spot on that it’s difficult to go back now and read the comics without hearing those voices in your head.
Happy! may not be the best or the best-know comic to come out of Image, but it’s one of the most memorable and most exciting to go back and read again.
