Fight club 2

Fight Club #2

by Chuck Palahniuk, Cameron Stewart

Certains amis ne vous laissent jamais en paix...

La première règle du Fight Club ? On ne parle pas du Fight Club !

En revanche, on peut le lire... Accrochez vos ceintures, Tyler Durden est de retour, plus féroce et plus enragé que jamais !

Découvrez en exclusivité le prologue du roman graphique événement, disponible le 28 avril 2016.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Thriller, Comic Book, Crime

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 2, 2015

About the author

Written in stolen moments under truck chassis and on park benches to a soundtrack of The Downward Spiral and Pablo Honey, Fight Club came into existence. The adaptation of Fight Club was a flop at the box office, but achieved cult status on DVD. The film’s popularity drove sales of the novel. Chuck put out two novels in 1999, Survivor and Invisible Monsters. Choke, published in 2001, became Chuck’s first New York Times bestseller. Chuck’s work has always been infused with personal experience, and his next novel, Lullaby, was no exception. Chuck credits writing Lullaby with helping him cope with the tragic death of his father. Diary and the non-fiction guide to Portland, Fugitives and Refugees, were released in 2003. While on the road in support of Diary, Chuck began reading a short story entitled 'Guts,' which would eventually become part of the novel Haunted.

In the years that followed, he continued to write, publishing the bestselling Rant, Snuff, Pygmy, Tell-All, a 'remix' of Invisible Monsters, Damned, and most recently, Doomed.

Chuck also enjoys giving back to his fans, and teaching the art of storytelling has been an important part of that. In 2004, Chuck began submitting essays to ChuckPalahniuk.net on the craft of writing. These were 'How To' pieces, straight out of Chuck's personal bag of tricks, based on the tenants of minimalism he learned from Tom Spanbauer. Every month, a “Homework Assignment” would accompany the lesson, so Workshop members could apply what they had learned. (all 36 of these essays can currently be found on The Cult's sister-site, LitReactor.com).

Then, in 2009, Chuck increased his involvement by committing to read and review a selection of fan-written stories each month. The best stories are currently set to be published in Burnt Tongues, a forthcoming anthology, with an introduction written by Chuck himself.

His next novel, Beautiful You, is due out in October 2014.

Reviews

[Jochem · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am Jack's bitter disappointment

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

10 years after Project Mayhem…

He’s called Sebastian these days. Married to Marla Singer, the two have a son, Junior. Released from the funny farm with a heavy-duty pill regimen, he works an office job, she plays the doting housewife, and both are crushingly bored. The pills keep… him… away. Except Marla’s been substituting Sebastian’s pills with sugar out of desperation for a good lay! The urge for a good fight is building again. Now “someone’s” kidnapped their son. He’s back. And this time Tyler Durden will bring about Armageddon! Rize or Die.

I re-read Fight Club a couple of years ago and was delighted that it still held up after so long. And when I heard the sequel was coming out – as a comic no less! – I couldn’t’ve been more pumped. I was a bit worried that Palahniuk might stumble in the change of format as this would be his first comic but was reassured when I heard Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, Sex Criminals) was consulting on the script, helping him break it down into comics layouts. Cameron Stewart was drawing it with Dave Stewart (no relation) on colours and David Mack doing the covers – Chuck had a fantastic art team joining him on this story.

So – and I really hate to say this as a huge fan of these characters - it’s damn disappointing how utterly crap Fight Club 2 turned out to be.

SPOILERS from here on out!

All sequels riff on what they follow for obvious reasons and Fight Club 2 is the same – except it does so gratuitously and pointlessly. Some of it makes sense like Marla in desperation falling back on going to terminally ill patients’ support groups, Sebastian going back to Paper St. to get to Tyler and find his son and I liked seeing what happened to Angelface after so many years. But why the fuck is Robert Paulson (The Big Moosie, Meat Loaf’s character from the movie) back from the dead and lumbering around???

We see him at Chuck’s house (yup, he wrote himself into the story but I’ll get to that later), we see him topless in a war zone (close up on those bitch tits, yeah!), and then we see him risen from the dead – I know the chronology is fucked. Why? No idea. Nostalgia? “Comedy”? It’s such a bizarre and stupid element to include. Even fucking Chloe is in this – “Joni Mitchell/Meryl Streep’s skeleton” (depending on whether you remember the book or movie quote)! That doesn’t make sense either, especially given how she looks now! It’s too many call-backs to the original none of which add anything good to the story.

So Marla makes friends with the patients in the progeria syndrome support group (a disease that rapidly ages the appearances of kids). According to Fight Club 2, all terminally ill patients are expert hackers AND commandos, parachuting out of planes on para-military missions! Rize or Die International, Tyler’s organisation that is the largest provider of for-hire military personnel, can’t stand up to a terminally ill kid wielding a knife apparently! It makes zero sense but I guess, er, “comedy”, right? Hi-larious. But let’s give Chuck the benefit of the doubt - maybe it’s a satirical comment on contemporary society, how grown-ups behave more like kids these days and the progeria patients reflect the switched roles: kids who look like old people. Nah, that’s probably bullshit.

These are minor problems though compared to the clangers Palahniuk drops in the final act. Apparently Tyler is no longer a dangerous split personality, he’s a malignant sentient mental virus flitting from host to host over countless years – Sebastian is just the latest vessel and his son is next in line, kinda like Rosemary’s Baby. Wow. That’s Palahniuk’s midichlorians moment right there.

And still it gets worse.

The story goes from Tyler kidnapping Sebastian and Marla’s son to Armageddon/rebooting civilisation, which is a decent story – nothing mind-blowing, kinda predictable as it’s like the first book but still sorta interesting – and then Palahniuk gives up towards the end because he has no idea how to end it. I mean literally gives up as we can see him in the book itself!

Palahniuk writes himself into this story, patting himself on the back for the impact Fight Club has had on pop culture from Pint Clubs to Film Clubs to Bite Clubs. He even heads up a small writing workshop called Write Club! And while I thought it was a weird quirk that he made cameos throughout, I had no idea the finale was going to be about Chuck talking about what a mess the ending was and how much the fans would hate it.

“The fans” literally appear en masse to complain about the shitty way he ends the story – he’s already aware of the reader reaction to this garbage! And then Tyler shoots him in the head because why the fuck not, he hasn’t got any idea what he’s doing anymore. I was reminded why I haven’t read any Palahniuk since Lullaby in 2002 - whatever talent this guy had has long since disappeared. Maybe he’s lamenting that fictional creations always outlive and eclipse their creator? I can’t imagine Fight Club 2’s point would be so banal but then again the author has turned into a hack so it might be.

The first Fight Club captured the zeitgeist and gave pop culture the iconic Tyler Durden. More than that, it told a great story perfectly. It had so many great scenes like making soap in that derelict house, the first fight outside the bar (“You hit me in the ear?!” – which is also trotted out again in this book too) – there are too many to list. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to say anything bad about it, it’s so compelling and original!

The second Fight Club should be called Cash-Grab Club – it’s Palahniuk cashing in on the book that made his career, especially seeing that the books he’s produced since have had less and less impact on anyone but the loyal few of his readership. He’s trying to be relevant by returning to the well but he’s got nothing. Nothing to say, nothing new to add – nothing new that’s worth adding, I should say – and no clue as to what to do with his characters. There aren’t any great scenes in Fight Club 2, no great characters, no great lines, just a retread of old favourites – fan-service and nothing more. It didn’t need to have the same impact as Fight Club but it could’ve been more fun than this and it wasn’t, it was instead a really disappointing, lazy load of crap.

The first rule of Fight Club 2 is you don’t bother with it.
The second rule of Fight Club 2 is you wish Chuck Palahniuk hadn’t bothered with it - re-read the original instead.
The third rule of Fight Club 2 is someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, then they probably disregarded the first rule and read the book.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, let me cut to the chase: I really hated this book, recommend you do NOT read it, and I wonder how a writer such as Brian Bendis could have written a blurb for it. I can imagine drinks were exchanged and/or there are close personal friendships involved. Sure he knows Dark Horse and the artists! You have an internationally famous writer, legendary author of the Fight Club—a book, to be clear, I only now just read, and loved, found edgy and sharp and darkly funny and socially insightful—with art by Cameron Stewart, great experimental covers by David Mack, colors by the legendary Dave Stewart, Dark Horse in charge. A comic book makes sense for the nature of the Fight Club world, right? Theoretically it made sense to me, anyway, and the look of it is, if you squint a bit, all right, smart people helped shape its look.

But it’s—as Sam Quixote might say—I’ll see what he said—is unbelievable crap.

The unnamed narrator of Fight Club is now given a name, Sebastian, for some reason, and it is ten years after the events of the first book, and it’s not Ikea furniture, but he is now living with Marla, and their kid, in the suburbs, a mundane life. He needs Fight Club, and Chuck needs the cash.

The Tranquility Gambit: “I’m not me.” “I’m not a man.”

So, for nostalgia’s sake let’s make a Fight Club 2, and in the story let’s revisit everything we liked about the original, because we have zero new ideas to bring to this new project. We still have cancer support groups to go to (ha, that was a good one, let’s do it again!), and now a Progeria syndrome support group for children who prematurely age. Tyler still or again has insomnia. Let’s have Marla, who becomes unfaithful because Tyler is taking pills for his insomnia and can’t . . . achieve erection. . . smash Sebastian in the face many times.

“I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”

Remember that phrase? I do, since I just read the book, and I knew it without even reading he book or seeing the movie, because it became a cultural meme, but the point of this book is like a mixed tape, to resurrect for all the angry punks who initially found a reason to guffaw at this book every great line they used to love in that book. Let’s put on Clash or Dead Kennedys album and read Fight Club 2. Or no, let’s buy another copy of Fight Club. Because it’s not a sequel, it’s a Fight Club lovefest where the love is all about—wait for it-- Chuck Palahniuk himself, not you, the reader, who deserves real insight and great writing.

It’s post-9/11, it’s ISIS time, we need some insight into a randomly violent terrorist world now, yes, so let’s reveal the relevance of and resurrect the idea of Project Mayhem but say nothing new about it!

So Fight Club is now a staple of Gender and Women’s Studies courses. It helped form the area of Masculinist studies. So what new thing can we say about men in the new century? We get bland unoriginal drivel such as this: Men are now “A generation of apprentices without masters.” Men need men to guide them and don’t have that, wah! Tell us something new, Chuck!

Chuck is in a writing group, and a famous writer now, so let’s go all postmodern and put Chuck IN the book—he’s a famous writer now, so it will enhance the sales of the book to put yourself in it, Dark Horse urges him!—and what’s more, what the hell, let’s put the actual writing group IN the actual book! Clever, right? Literary! Or making fun of the literary, even better! Have—and this is the (supposedly) Really Edgy Hilarious part—have The Women in the writing group comment on the profane writing!? Amazing? Amazing crap, you mean! Stupid!!

It sort of looks like the point of the book visually is to approximate The Preacher series for insights into male outrageousness, but it pales in comparison, it’s just regurgitation. Nothing new, nothing going on here of any originality, move along, folks. I was so annoyed at it and have wasted too much time already on it. It has actually made me rethink whether the original was as good as I thought. It has actually made me like Fight Club less! Augh!!!

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't read it. Just don't read it. It's obviously Palahniuk's attempt to implode his biggest franchise because he's sick of the inane questions and overt devotion of it's fans.
Never mind that he writes himself heavily into the plot line, the writing is poor compared to his normal works, and the plot is more desperate than thought out.
The story is often challenging to follow at best and often literally unreadable as often the dialogue is covered by things. As if to say "here is some dark, ominous, and philosophical B.S. but I'm too lazy to actually write it out."
Simply put: awful.

[Carlos De Eguiluz · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75

Antes de decidirme a siquiera comprar esta novela gráfica, me cercioré de leer algunas de las opiniones de los usuarios de Goodreads. Muchos dijeron que era una porquería, que quisieran arrancarse el recuerdo de su mente y quedar con la idea de que tan sólo hubo una novela. Sin embargo, decidí que al demonio, que iba a leerla y a formarme mi propia opinión. Y justamente eso fue lo que ocurrió.
Muchos calificaron esta belleza con una estrella, y lo entiendo, les juro que lo entiendo. Comprendo que no se sigue exactamente la misma temática de "Fight Club", pero entiendan, esta historia es más que un intento de continuación, es una burla a la frustración ante el trabajo de Chuky-bebé hecha por el mismísimo Chucky-bebé. Y no pueden decir que no lo vieron venir desde el principio, porque vaya que era evidente.
Tocando otro tema, el arte es precioso. Estoy obsesionado con la calidad del trabajo de Cameron; y su recurrente discrepancia e intervención con Chuky convirtió su parte en algo hermoso.

Ahora, la reseña:

Tras diez años de matrimonio con quien ahora conocemos como Sebastian, Marla Singer se ha cansado de su vida y de su siempre medicado esposo. El sexo se ha vuelto aburrido y casi inexistente, ahora tienen un hijo y todo rastro del glorioso Tayler Durden ha desaparecido de la faz de la tierra. O bueno, al menos hasta que Marla decide jugar con las pastillas de su esposo para intentar tener un poco de acción con el viejo Sebastian, o más bien, con Tyler, el psicópata que gobernaba la mente de Sebastian durante la primera novela.

A mi parecer, creo que fue bastante buena, me reí, abracé mi copia cuando alguno de los antiguos personajes aparecía —Angel-face, Chloe y Robert Paulson—, aprendí cosas dadas mis investigaciones y la esencia de Chuck permaneció, lo cual, al final de cuentas, es lo importante —o al menos para mi—.

Lo mejor de la novela, acorde a mi perspectiva:

1.- THE WRITE KLUB
2.- Los niños con Progeria.
3.- La participación de Chuck en su propia novela.

"Trought childhood people tell you to be less sensitive. Adulthood begins the moment someone tells you, "you need to be more sensitive."

"With insomnia, everything feels like a copy of a copy of a copy."

"Studies conducted by the United States Militay prove that what women fear the most is physical pain, what men fear the most is being humiliated, losing social status, public ridicule."

"Why do we love the people the most the moment after we hurt them?"

"After decades in school... they have no teachers to please. No place to be. This is when you'd go buy a sofa. Or you start a cult."

"—My dad has money. I want something more valuable than money.
—After two decades in school, now I want to learn something about myself.
—I want to build up a treasure inside of myself. Nobody can steal it. No governament can ever tax it away."

"I've done the disability thing. I've done the medical marijuana thing. But I could never get high enough to forget that I'm alive and getting older."

"—In case we die, I have a confession.
—What is it, honey? Did you steal a candy bar?
—I'm not eleven years old.
—You're younger?
—I'm like you!
—How?
—OLD AND DECREPIT!"

"No one care about a dying adult. But a dying child..."

"The more I fool people into loving me... the more I hate myself."

"Support groups bring me love I'm not obliged to reciprocate."

"What did catholics in 1963 have instead of divorce...?
Martyrdom."

"Not all headshots are fatal. Some headshots aren't even headshots."

"I've been dying for so long that real death feels like a relief."

"We are, each of us, ideas that fight for our own surivival."

"Human beings don't cultivate ideas. On the contrary, ideas cultivate us."

"Fictional characters can survive their readers."

"It's time to die a hero's death."

"A sociopath will sleep with anyone to gain her allegiance... or his."

"I want you to hit me as hard as you can, daddy..."

"History is dead..."

"—The ending sucks.
—So does life."

"We make our lives into stories--and stories into our lives."

"Ideas ar real. We are not."

RIZE OR DIE. TYLER DURDEN LIVES!

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is bad. Actually bad is an understatement. It's a confusing piece of gutter trash. The plot is almost incomprehensible. It takes place 10 years after the end of the movie and now Sebastian and Marla are married with a son. Marla has been replacing his drugs with placebos and Tyler has reemerged. Tyler's kidnapped his son and Sebastian goes undercover with Project: Mayhem to find him. I'm not really sure how that works since Tyler knows exactly what he's doing. Cameron Stewart's art is terrible. Every character looks the same. Once Sebastian descends into Project Mayhem, good luck trying to tell the characters apart. They're all white bald men that could be clones of each other. Stewart's not a good enough artist to differentiate between the characters. I couldn't even tell which one was our main character. Marla's running around with some kids that have progeria in Africa for some unknown reason. Chuck also makes an appearance in the book to make it more meta and incomprehensible.

Received an advance copy from Edelwiess in exchange for an honest review.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What was I thinking when I felt trepidation upon seeing this title creep into my life? That it would be nothing more than a cheap cash-in on Palahniuk's crop? That I'd be wasting my time?

Oh, silly me.

Sure, it picks up a decade later with our MC and Marla with a kid and a picket fence, but don't let that fool you. Tyler never died. Ideas always pick up followers. It's never the other way around.

Remember, the original Fight Club started under a veneer of normalcy, too, and it got really fucked-up. Well, just so you know, this does too. You might say it's taking the franchise to whole new places.

I was sooo thrilled to learn that Cloe never died. What a trip.

So if I were to rank this little gem with other great titles out there, I think I can easily place it proudly in the Saga field, with a bit more blood and queasy notions than that esteemed title. Yup. Fight Club 2 is good. Very good.

I may be biased. I loved the original, too. The only way to prevent a sequel from feeling cheap is to go much farther and break new ground. And this definitely does. Hooray! :)

Want a match? How about a free couch?

[Fabian · Rating 3 out of 5]

How does the nihilism of my favorite movie in high school translate to today? And yeah, this is actually an exercise in gauging personal growth. Like, the craziness that Palahniuk made famous, the meanness mixed with comedy, the violence creating a whole subculture--does it have a place in our world, &, more importantly, a place in MY own life?

Well, at least it wasn't a novel. (A sentence I've never ever uttered.)

But after reading several other novels, apart from "Fight Club," I know that Palahniuk is not my cup of tea. He is outrageous. His novels are ideas made for the average high school to ooh and aah at. Like, mental illness! Cigarettes! Physical deformities. All these interesting topics of yore. Now, they've all lost their taboo quality...

...but it is re-found in comics form! Yeah, to continue the nonsense of Tyler and Co., we needed a visual piece. I KNOW that were FC2 a novel, I would not have picked it up. But with the visuals, well, it makes it less ridiculous.

[Kim Oja · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea what just happened, but I don't think I liked it.

[Ashley Daviau · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely nowhere NEAR the masterpiece Fight Club was and still is but I still thought it was pretty damn great! It was weird and wonderful and full of the ridiculousness we’ve all come to expect from Palahniuk now. I think the story lends itself really well to the graphic novel medium, it’s like the two were meant to be together! I loved being able to see everything drawn out as I was reading the story, it was such a unique and enjoyable experience, I felt like I was watching the movie on the big screen. My only minor complaint is that some parts were a little too weird even for me, I’m kind of puzzled as to why they were even there!

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why, in the name of everything beautiful, would you even want to write a sequel to the most transcendent, zeigeist-defining novel of the last twenty years?

Why would you reopen something perfect? Something that DEFINED MY LIFE in and out of books, Mr. Palahniuk?

Turned out he had a pretty great reason: Tyler Durden's been casting a shadow on his entire career as a storyteller and no matter how productive and creative he could get, FIGHT CLUB was just something he couldn't get over creatively as long as he didn't reopen it. Tarnish it. Make it a little more imperfect and real. So it's with great reverence and respect for his audience that Chuck Palahniuk moved Fight Club to another medium and created the human reflection of the idol that passed him by.

FIGHT CLUB 2 is not much of a sequel as it is a creative conclusion to a conundrum that defined a generation. Palahniuk says something every important in this book: we don't cultivate ideas, it's ideas that cultivate us. Tyler Durden is an idea. He is not real. What he wants is not real and impossible to achieve without great suffering, so how does one goes on with his life governed by ideas that will inevitably let him down? That, you'll have to read FIGHT CLUB 2 to know.

I really liked the book, yet it neither made my year or crapped on everything I stand up for. I give it 5 stars for pure boldness, but I WILL shave a star if there ever is a Fight Club 3. But it's great. If you've grown around FIGHT CLUB like a kudzu vine the way I did, you'll appreciate that book for what it is. Kudos, Mr. Palahniuk. You can now put Tyler to rest.

[Sud666 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Do you ever wonder how some people, usually possessing outsized hubris and lack of self-awareness in terms of general creativity of story-telling coupled with the underlying desire for more money/adulation/fame (take your pick), take a wonderfully fresh and unique idea and then beat it to death? (No pun intended). Take, for example, "The Pirates of the Caribbean" or the "Matrix" movies. Had they just been a one-shot-then IMHO they are both excellent. Their sequels are less so. Sadly "Fight Club" has now joined that sad list.

The original "Fight Club" was a very unique and interesting movie. It is one of my favorite movies and actually did have an interesting deeper meaning to us in the Marines (How much do you TRULY know about yourself, till you FIGHT?). Now many years removed from the Corps and waddling about in civilian society I came across this book at the used bookstore (How apropos, right?) So Fight Club 2? Lacking in the originality of the original, it is merely a re-hash repackaged with new events and new characters being used to mislead the average reader with something truly fresh and new. It isn't.

Apparently the premise is that the protagonist of the original, he calls himself Sebastian, after the end of the first story banished Tyler Durden (suppresed his id, if you will) and married Marla Singer (why?!! For God's sake I understand the sex, but why, why, why would you MARRY this psycho-human cancer?!!). Ugh. So after this feat of brilliance and some pills and head-shrinkers-he has found normalcy. He even has a son. But..ummmm..he married Marla Singer. So, as with reality, if you marry poorly your life is likely to end up poorly. Sorry, it's true. Sebastien finds this out as well. Marla is unhappy. She loved the sex with Tyler Durden, not Sebastian's more beta-male, more "evolved" type of man. So she starts changing out his meds with placebos. Guess who is back?

Then it deloves into a mediocre story of the son being kidnapped by Tyler and an even more piss poor concept of Tyler not as a disassociative part of Sebastian's pysche (rather cool) to Tyler Durden becoming some Edgar-Allen-Poe-like "meme" that passes throughtout Sebastian's anscestral heritage as an entity that exists independant of the individual's psyche. Oh. My. God. That is fucking dumb and intellectually lazy. Seriously? You turned a brilliant self-aware alter-ego into a fucking horror movie trope? I am not buying it. But here is what I am buying. Chuck Palahniuk, the voice for the casting off of normal behavior and thought- a rejection of the capitalist/materialist/consumerist/commercialized "society" of the civilian world, is something of a hypocrite (but aren't most modern artists when you TRULY get down to it?). He cares about money and would like some more of yours. So here, buy Fight Club 2. He cares about what people think (adulation/fame/ comic-con kudos, etc) so he will bastardize the unique vision of the original to create a silly second-rate version of the original story with a token "new" addition of the son and turn Durden into a trope so that he may appear on a Goodreads or an Amazon review, thus causing people to buy more of this book (thus fulfilling his original premise of more money in the first place). Well done Chuck, Adam Smith would be proud. Now should you read this? Um sure..why not? Throw Chuck a few bucks. But I suggest we wait a few months or years and as soon as the brilliantly creative minds in Hollywood "discover" this story-it'll be a movie. Then you can watch Fight Club 2! Oh and Chuck will be happy because he will have made a few more bucks. Good Job. 2 Stars. It's an "meh" story at best. Read it if you want to or not. I care not. Only Chucks does.

[Brandon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Fight Club 2 picks up ten years after the events of the original novel.  Marla and the narrator - now going by Sebastian - have started a family.  Nowadays, the aforementioned Sebastian is heavily medicated due to the events of the first book.  However, in need of a “good lay”, Marla begins switching up her husband’s medication with sugar pills hoping that the man she first loved returns to form.  As you can imagine, things go pear shaped pretty quickly.

I don’t even know where to begin with this.

This was bad.  Really, really bad.  It flat out sucked and I hated it.

I’d honestly like to know if anyone was even asking for this.  For starters, the original Fight Club is a pretty damn good novel.  It’s a great standalone story that kick started Chuck’s career and launched him into literary super stardom.  Since this novel, he’s written some pretty compelling stuff like Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke and Lullaby - so why go back to the first novel?  Was it money?  Were his fans asking him for this?  It certainly wasn’t because he had a good idea for a story because this was awful.

I think the end of the book is where I completely lost my patience.  I understand at a base level what Chuck was going for, but it felt self-indulgent and gross.  This was so far off from the original book that it felt almost like a parody - and maybe that was what Chuck was going for.  It just felt so deeply and wholly unnecessary.  I hate that I even finished it.

In terms of a level of expectation I had going in coupled with the constant meta bullshit storytelling, this might be the worst book I’ve ever read.

[Emily B · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars for the first half alone. I loved being back in the the world of Tyler Durden and it had a great look and feel. However, the rest let it down for me.

[Rustler O. Jimmies · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a huge fan of the first Fight Club and a fan of graphic novels/comic books in general, I was incredibly excited to get my hands on a Fight Club comic book. I was even more excited to read the sequel to one of my favorite stories of all time. I'd heard nothing about it until a few weeks ago, which confused me a little bit. For the life of me I couldn't figure out why no one was talking about this book. Suffice it to say that when I got my copy I figured it out pretty quickly. Even as a fan of Fight Club, this was a painful story to read. I'm going to try to go as in-depth as I can, but first I need to get my emotional outburst out of the way:

This book is garbage. Complete unadulterated crap. Avoid it at all costs if you enjoy a well written story that stands up to even light scrutiny. Avoid it if you are looking for a narrative that is engaging and easy to follow. Avoid it if you enjoy a plot that does not feel completely contrived.

Avoid it if you were looking for a worthy sequel to Fight Club, and not an irreverent bastardization of its characters, plot, and ideas.

Alright, now I can get down to brass tacks. Word of warning - I am going to be venturing into what some might call spoiler-y territory in this review. If that is turning you off from reading the rest of it this, I implore you to reconsider. This is one of the few cases where I believe having something spoiled for you is a better alternative to experiencing it. Help me potentially save you $20 and a lot of buyer's remorse.

- The plot is almost impossible to follow. And it's not deep or thought provoking in a way that would excuse this, either - it's just poorly put together. Numerous times I would turn the page and have to check the page number to make sure it was correct, because I was always feeling like I was missing something. It's just not cohesive.

- Character dialogue frequently feels out of place. For example, when Marla is looking for her son, she asks Tracy (the babysitter, who she just happened to run into, I might add) where he might be. Tracy responds to this urgent question by saying "You broke a nail". How is that even relevant? And it's left at that. Marla - the woman frantically searching for her kidnapped child - did not follow up at all. And another time, closer to the beginning of the book, Sebastian (the main character) comes home to find Tracy wielding a knife and on the phone with 911 - apparently afraid that he was some sort of burglar. Sebastian responds to this situation by saying "I'm not a man" - a statement which is not only unhelpful, but also completely inaccurate. My favorite part about that interaction, though, is that it implies Sebastian had never met the babysitter he was presumably paying to look after his son.

- The art is beautiful, but it very frequently gets in the way of the already-struggling dialogue and plot. And I don't mean symbolically - the art literally gets in the way of the story. Every other page has some unnecessary overlay of pills, rose petals, or sperm that covers up parts of the dialogue or narration. And like I mentioned already - those are bad enough as it is. They don't need any help at being awful. There's one page that's entirely covered in blood. And it's not just a blank page covered in blood - you can clearly see at least three panels at the top with art in them. That's a part of the story that just can't be read. I mean, I get that it was probably an artistic choice that means something on a deeper level, but it just comes off as unnecessary and frankly a bit pretentious. At the very least it makes actually reading the book more difficult and in some cases impossible.

- There are moments when the book clearly attempts to ride on the coattails of the success of the first book and movie, and they are absolutely unbearable. The most egregious of these offenses, in my opinion, manifests through Robert Paulson. The beloved character (canonically dead) frequently returns as some sort of stupid half-folktale-half-zombie. Multiple times in the story he either appears or is summoned by a group of people screaming "HIS NAME IS ROBERT PAULSON". I kid you not, a group of men in Project Mayhem literally throw their heads back and shout this phrase with their mouths agape à la Charlie Brown. I don't think I've ever cringed so hard at a comic book. The book makes various appeals to the fact that the first one was a cult classic, and recycles its memorable moments and inside jokes in a way that is not endearing - it's embarrassing. It's like Palahniuk is acknowledging that the story can't stand on its own two feet, so he resorts to pandering to fill in the gaps.

- Palahniuk wrote himself into the book. I considered putting this point first, because I feel it's the most important, but I decided it would be better to build up to this, because it is by far the most awful of this book's many sins. It's one thing to start an irreverent series that raises a big fat middle finger to classic storytelling conventions. That's a perfectly fine thing to do, and while it can be difficult to do right, it can give rise to some truly enjoyable reading/watching experiences when executed well (see also: Deadpool). It is another thing entirely to adopt that attitude after the first novel which did not employ that writing style. Palahniuk was already treading on thin ice when he decided to add in this bullcrap plot device, and his implementation of it is the metaphorical equivalent of doing backflips on said ice wearing jousting armor. Every forty pages or so, he and a team of writers (known as the "Write Club" - more of the embarrassing pandering) are shown discussing the events of the book as they occur. But that's not where it ends. The characters call him for plot advice multiple times, adding to the already-forced feeling of the narrative. At one point, Marla even shows up in-person, demanding that she be told where her son is. One of the other members of "Write Club" remarks that the situation was "bordering on being too meta", to which I would reply that no, it's not bordering. It passed bordering on being "too meta" when Palahniuk mentioned himself in the book the first time. When Marla arrived to talk with Palahniuk, it ceased to be a successor to one of my favorite stories. It became a poorly written, ill-conceived, worthless excuse for a fanfiction.

All told, this is probably the worst officially published thing I've ever read. I wish I had done more research and not been swept up into the hype. I wish I hadn't let the rose colored glasses impair my judgment. I wish I had not purchased or even read this book. Please do not make the same mistake I did, because it's honestly affected the way I look at the original Fight Club, and not in a good way.

Stay away from this cash grab.

[Jim Ef · Rating 2 out of 5]

3.7/10
No, no no no no no no

Τι ήτανε πάλι και τούτο. Βλέπω θα βγει Fight club 2, μμμ σε κόμικ κιόλας και μάλιστα από τον ίδιο τον Παλάνιουκ και λέω εδώ είμαστε. Αγοράζω ένα ένα τα τεύχη και μόλις έχω και το τελευταίο στα χέρια μου, ξεκινάω το διάβασμα.

Η αρχή καλή, δέκα χρόνια μετά το όλο σκηνικό του πρώτου βιβλίου, Ο Σεμπάστιαν και η Μάρλα είναι παντρεμένοι και έχουνε ένα γιο. Δεν πάνε όμως καλά τα πράγματα στην σχέση τους, και οι δύο έχουνε θέματα… πολλά. Ο τύπος πάει για θεραπεία σε ψυχίατρο ..οκ, η τύπισα όμως άρχισε να βαριέται και σου λέει, γιατί δεν αντικαθιστώ τα χάπια που κρατάνε τον Τάιλερ έξω από το παιχνίδι με placebos, για να τον φέρνω κρυφά τα βράδια για ολίγον τι σεξ ? Σιγά, τι το κακό μπορεί να γίνει? Αλλά να που κόντρα σε κάθε λογική ο Τάιλερ δεν επιστρέφει μόνο για αυτό. Μα κάλα ποιος θα το περίμενε.

Όσο εξελίσσεται το σχέδιο του Τάιλερ τόσο χειρότερη γίνεται και η πλοκή. Ρε Τσάκ, ρε μάστορα, μια απλή συνέχεια θέλαμε ρε αγόρι μου, τι στο καλό είναι αυτά τα πράγματα. Meta πήγες να το κάνεις, ομελέτα έκανες στη τελική. Κρίμα

Κάτσε να πούμε και κάτι θετικό. Τα πολύ ωραία εξώφυλλα στα τεύχη 0 και 1.

[Cassandra Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

ORIGINALLY POSTED: http://bibliomantics.com/2016/03/31/m...

While it’s not quite the original Fight Club, this graphic novel sequel definitely takes advantage of the visual medium. Thought the book was weird? From overlying graphics that block out text bubbles to Chuck Palahniuk appearing as an actual character and the reveal that Tyler Durden is more than the Narrator’s alter ego, this may be Palahniuk’s weirdest work yet.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

That very strange time in the narrator's life? It never ended. Surprisingly - or, actually, UNSURPRISINGLY - Marla stuck around.

Clever self-aware narrative and killer artwork

No who wants to hit me?

[Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be 2 stars were it not for the tremendous efforts of Cameron Stewart and David Mack. The work that went into this art was worthy of that extra star. It's not quite The Tragic Comedy of Mr. Punch level art but it is gorgeous and full of hidden gems. I appreciate how much work went into that aspect of this book.

That being said, I have no clue what happened in this book. I don't mean Clean Room levels of "what the fuck?" where you still have some idea of what's happening but you don't have all the answers. With this book, I basically have no answers. It's kind of confusing and I question the reason this book was created in the first place.

There's a panel where a character says "this isn't cute anymore" and it speaks volumes about this entire book. There was a Screen Junkies Movie Fight's question "What scene, if added to the end of a film, would ruin it's ending?" Or something like that. This is an example of too much of a good thing. Fight Club had a perfect ending. Or at least the film did. I read the book so long ago that I don't really remember how it ended. Fight Club is one of the few cases where the film was actually better than the book.

Anyway, the plot (if we can even call it that) is life (after the events of Fight Club) has not been kind to Marla and the Narrator. Marla misses the man she fell in love with, Tyler. The Narrator is back to the type of life he rebelled against in the first place. Palahniuck took the writers' most tired plot device and handed them a baby. This poor tyke is being raised by 2 of the most self centered, insane assholes in fiction history. The action (I guess) kicks off when Tyler returns.

The purpose of the jumbled story telling is to portray the Narrator's jumbled mindset. I think.

The purpose of the elderly support group members flying out to war torn countries was to show a different kind of violent catharsis. I think.

The fourth wall breaking was Chuck's way of saying that this story was made for him. I think.

It's all a little... pointless? It's an ending we didn't need and I'm not sure why he wrote this? Perhaps he was tired of pretentious douche bags trying to be Tyler Durden and missing the point of his book?

I really think Fight Club, the original work, would be a great graphic novel. Of course it would be redundant but it would be better than this.

I can't really recommend this. Sad, because the art is quite impressive.

[Rod Brown · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh, look, it's my first crap book of the new year.

You rarely see a creator so determined to crap all over his fans, his creation, himself and storytelling in general.

Wretched.

[Amanja · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the spoiler free review for Fight Club 2, a graphic novel sequel to Fight Club, the book AND the movie. If you would like to read the spoiler full review and really dive into my rant about this bizarre insult to readers everywhere please visit https://amanjareads.com/2020/04/03/fi...

Usually I keep things a little moderate, language wise, for my reviews. Well here's your warning, Ima be cursing in this one.

I'm going to assume that you're already familiar with Fight Club, either the book or the movie. You must be, how could you have missed it? Have young people not reached the Fight Club phase of their youth yet?

This sequel assumes that you are familiar with both the movie and the book, they are mostly similar except the endings are quite different and somehow this graphic novel picks up where both of them left off. Doesn't make sense? Well, neither does anything that happens in this one.

Back when I was a teenage edge lord Chuck Palahniuk was my god. He writes these ridiculous, offensive, grotesque, over the top books that I used to love. I had already thought that I'd outgrown him but I decided to give this graphic novel sequel to Fight Club a shot.

It started off okay. I went in with a very low bar after having rewatched the movie a few years back and finding that it maybe doesn't hold up as well as I would have liked.

It starts with the narrator, who now has the name Sebastian, married to Marla who is insanely bored and still going to support groups. Sebastian is overmedicated to keep Tyler Durden from rearing his handsome destructive face around but Marla is trying to lure him out.

About 30 pages in it jumps the shark harder than any shark has ever been jumped and then it throws dynamite into the shark's mouth, laughs at all the bystanders now covered in shark guts, and then flings it's own feces all over them for good measure.

You should definitely read the spoiler full version of this review to see all the ways that this book is loaded with absolute horse shit insanity that goes so far from being fun it becomes a confusing assault to your well-being.

Don't worry about the spoilers, you won't believe me anyway.

The biggest problem is that Palahniuk felt the need to insert himself into the book as a meta character dripping with so much narcissism I'm pretty sure the pages are sticky with his own ejaculate.

He not only praises himself as the all mighty writer of Fight Club but then proceeds to insult everyone who ever loved it. Not metaphorically, not subtly, directly and with malice.

In short, it's an awful awful story that is as confusing as it is personally offensive. It's bad on purpose and thinks you're stupid enough to take it.

I must say there is one shining positive that this book does contain. The cover art was all done by the incomparable David Mack. It's beautiful and if this book wasn't otherwise a pile of shit covered in garbage I'd hang it on my wall.

Unfortunately, that is not enough to bump this up past a one star review.

I made a deal in the spoiler full review and I'll make the same one here. If you like my angry rant review of this horrible book let me know in the comments and I'll find the third one to read and review for you as well. I'll suffer in your place!

[Artemy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the original Fight Club book about seven or eight years ago, so I don't remember all of it that well. I remember liking it a lot though, it was a perfect book for my teenage rebellious brain. So I wanted to give this comic book sequel a read, especially as I heard a lot of good things about it. And I can confirm, it is an enjoyable book that is true to its predecessor. The story also takes full advantage of the medium, generally relying more on show rather than tell. It was surprising to see that Palahniuk feels so confident and reads so fresh in a graphic novel format.

There is this thing in the book with various objects (mostly pills or rose petals) that are kind of lying upon the page, obstructing the view of speech bubbles, faces, objects and such. This is close to a Grant Morrison level of intrusion and breaking the fourth wall, in my opinion. And speaking of Morrison and his signature moves, Chuck Palahniuk is himself present in this story as a character, writing the story as it happens. Yep. It's better than you think, too. Honestly, I loved all of this, but many people probably might not.

And speaking of graphics, the artwork by Cameron Stewart looks great! It fits the tone of the book and communicates character emotions perfectly. He doesn't explicitly try to go for the movie look of the characters, but they are recognizable enough to not be confusing. And the gorgeous covers by David Mack, one of my favourite artists ever, is icing on the cake, making this book visually flawless.

I had a bit of a problem with storytelling, though. The events feel a bit too disjointed at times, leaving me confused about what actually happened. I realize that it is a deliberate choice to write the book that way, though. I also have to say, it's probably worth it to re-read the original novel before picking up the sequel. As I said, I read it a long time ago, so I had a hard time remembering some of the plot points that are used and built upon in this book.

Otherwise, it's a great comic and a great sequel to the legendary novel. A surprise, considering how many sequels to such big titles end up sucking balls. Recommended to anyone interested and familiar with the original.

[Rodrigo · Rating 2 out of 5]

NO ME HA GUSTADO. Demasiados psicotrópicos se han metido los autores, me han gustado los dibujos no así la historia.

[AleJandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 Infectious Mental Virus STARS

Que historia tan absurda, pero el final es una obra maestra. El autor burlándose de sus “fans”, satirizándose a sí mismo, a sus protagonistas, y siéndole fiel a su arte.

Bravo Mr Palahniuk.

"I refuse to give readers an uplifting faux experience engineered to comfort them and perpetuate the Sociopolitical and Economic Status Quo."

Este libro es maravilloso porque nos muestra a un autor fastidiado de como su arte ha sido tergiversado, y vamos que no lo culpo.

La historia de The fight Club, tiene como primicia hacernos reflexionar del tipo de vida que lleva esta generación, basada en consumismo y superficialidad.
Y después de que salió la adaptación cinematográfica, su historia se convirtió en exactamente eso, un producto de comercialización. Se termino convirtiendo justo lo que criticaba. Muy, muy irónico, y triste a la vez. Así que entiendo la frustración del autor por ver en lo que han convertido esta historia, y sus personajes.

Todo mundo se enamoró de Tyler Durden, hombres y mujeres por igual. Al ver la película era imposible no hacerlo, que llegamos al punto de perder el verdadero mensaje, Tyler siempre fue un extremista, y sus métodos no son algo que deban ser idolatrados

Pero hablemos de la historia de El Club de la Pelea 2.

SPOILERT ALERT
📚 SINOPSIS HONESTA:
Sebastián tiene un virus mental, que le provoca el desarrollo de un alter ego, Tyler. El alter ego ha sido pasado por generaciones en su familia, y ahora está tratando de apoderarse de su hijo, para cumplir su plan de destruir a la humanidad.

Así es queridos amiguitos, Tyler Durden no es resultado de un desorden de personalidad. En realidad, él es un virus, una especie de enfermedad genética, pasada de generación en generación a los hombres de la familia de Sebastián, y en esta historia lo vemos brincar de Sebastián a Junior, su hijo.

Al “final”, Tyler cumple su plan y mata a toda la humanidad.

Pero Chuck rompe los parámetros de su historia se mete a la novela y nos muestra de frente lo que siente referente a Tyler y sus seguidores.

Mi parte favorita:

Aunque sin duda lo mejor de esta novela, son los gráficos, de las mejores Novelas Gráficas que he visto. Cada detalle está perfectamente cuidado, los colores y lo original de las imágenes es sorprendente.

[Jesse A · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting idea, going all meta with fight club. The execution was somewhat lacking. Had good parts and dull parts. Probably unnecessary.

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 4 out of 5]

شنیدن خبر اینکه نسخه دوم کتابی که باعث شد زندگی من کاملا تغییر کنه جزو بهترین خبرهایی بود که توی زندگیم شنیدم. شاید همین کافی باشه برای اینکه این اثر رو از دست ندین. راستش قبل از انیکه بخونمش فکر میکردم و احتمال میدادم که کمی ناامید بشم، فکر میکردم شاید احتمال اینکه اثری با قدرت اثر قبل باشه کمه، اینکه شاید افسانه فایت کلاب رو کامل نکنه، البته طعنه آمیز بودن کلمه "کامل" مشهوده!
بعد از اینکه خوندمش دیدم که کاملا در حد نسخه اولشه، این دوباره با اثری کاملا اُرجینال روبرو هستیم، اینکه با ایده جدیدی روبرو هستیم و صرفا ادامه داستان قبل نیست، صرفا نسخه دوم نیست فقط برای اینکه نسخه دوم باشه! فقط برای اینکه تبلیغاتی باشه. جزو آثاری هستش که با اینکه نسخه دوم یک اثر هستش، به خودی خودش کاملا استند اِلون محسوب میشه و همچنین افسانه فایت کلاب رو کامل میکنه، در واقع قدرتش اونقدر زیاده که از اثر اول هم فراتر میره. اگه از اثر اول خوشتون اومد، تحت هیچ شرایطی این اثر رو از دست ندین. در ضمن چاک اعلام کرد که فایت کلاب 3 هم در راه خواهد بود. خبر به این خوبی تا حالا شنیده بودین؟
“Ideas breed us”

[Alejandra Arévalo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Estoy profundamente decepcionada de todo lo que encontré en este libro. Su intención parecía buena: la metaliterariedad, la ridiculización de la idolatría y la vanidad, la burla al one hit wonder pero todo eso pobremente ejecutado casi comprobando que lo único que buscaban era una venta ridícula de libros y, además, contradiciendo toda la filosofía del primer libro que hace una fuerte crítica al consumo. ¿Querría comprobar el autor que sí, que íbamos a leer su mierda? Bueno, pues ya ganaste, Chuck.
Entiendo que Palahniuk tiende a ridiculizar y exagerar situaciones pero esto ya caía en lo inverosímil.
No ahondaré más porque esto no merece mi tiempo, pero definitivamente una regla del club de la pelea debería ser Nunca más hablar del Club de la pelea y MENOS hacer una secuela que compite con la tercera parte del Padrino.

[Meem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was cute. I think Chuck realised that a sequel couldn't measure up to the original (and he made cameos through out to make sure that we knew that he knew it) and chose to keep it simple and make this funny. Those expecting either a repeat or a reboot of the classic are going to be disappointed. The themes previously explored are here but that's it. Nothing new is highlighted, propounded or critiqued. There isn't any fresh subversive idea at the heart of Fight Club 2. I still liked it, though. The story was fun to read and the artwork was cool.

Smh, there's going to be a Fight Club 2 movie with the same cast as before. :'( STOP MILKING! -_-

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am Jack's disappointing sequel.

Chuck Palahniuk follows up his Fight Club novel (slightly different than the movie) with a comic series collected here. Our protagonist (here named Sebastian) is 10 years older, married to Marla Singer and father to a precocious little child. He's popping pills and living in a haze, doing whatever employed, middle aged white guys do in these sorts of stories.

It's Fight Club. But older! It's the movie except everyone knows the twist about Brad Pitt and Ed Norton before it even begins.

And of course Tyler's been busy. The grass roots Project Mayhem has globalize into Rize or Die (which is either a brilliant nod to the bro culture spawned by the movie, now commercialized and brought to you by Axe body spray, or just patently lazy)

it's the same question I ask when Chuck Palahniuk appears in the comic wrestling with how to move the story forward. By the time he breaks the fourth wall and gives up any responsibility for a singular narrative ending I'm pretty invested in lazy.

[Esteban Forero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hay personajes que se instalan como parásitos en la memoria de sus lectores. Tyler Durden es uno de esos que se multiplican a fuerza de memes, reproducciones culturales de nuestros digitales días. Quizás por eso Palahniuk intentó estirar su existencia en otro libro dispuesto en un formato más comercial.

Esta novela gráfica intenta racionalizar la existencia psiquiátrica del doble creado en la mente de un Sebastian (que en el libro tenía una fortísima carga simbólica de anonimato); un doble que la película de Fincher ha personificado con el rostro de Brad Pitt y la astucia filosófica de un… ¿Vaneighem? ¿Zizek? ¿Chomsky?

El resultado es un “metarrelato” donde hasta el mismo autor aparece como personaje, junto a un equipo de lectoras amigas suyas que, como otros lectores fanáticos, participan en la orientación de una trama más o menos cómica donde el mundo tal y como lo conocemos, no cambia.