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Fight Club #3
Fight Club 3
A new movement has replaced Project Mayhem, and even Tyler Durden doesn't know how to play by these rules.
Marla Singer is about to deliver her second child, but the daddy isn't her husband--it's Tyler, who's very invested in his heir, and the world he'll inherit, as Die Off Industries plots to fine-tune mankind.
Bestselling novelist Chuck Palahniuk is back with his greatest creation, the sequel to the book that spent six months on the 2016 New York Times bestseller list.
Teaming once again with award-winning artists Cameron Stewart and David Mack, Palahniuk leads a full frontal assault of the culture, from online dating to weaponized STDs, as a strange picture frame opens a road to paradise. 2019's bestselling twelve-issue series is collected in one massive digital book.
Get in touch with your ugly side.
Collects Fight Club 3 issues #1-#12.
"Whether you've been a fan since the '90s or were hooked by the jump to comics, you'll want to see what comes next in this highly unpredictable saga."- PASTE MAGAZINE
" Fight Club 3 is everything that a sequel to a sequel should be. It elevates the dark themes of the novel and the first graphic novel to the next illogical, insanely violent step." - COMICON.COM
"Palahniuk's work takes some of our greatest shortcomings--insufficient or inadequate parenting, toxic isolation-- then magnifies and underlines them in fractured skulls and drunken vomit." - PLAYBOY
"Scabby and surreal." - DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD
"The first rule of the comic book incarnation of Fight Club is that it'll look good." - HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"Ambitious." - ADVENTURES IN POOR TASTE
"Trippy." - EVERYTHING ACTION
"The talent and care that went into this issue is palpable, from David Mack's cover to Nate Piekos' lettering... This book does not allow you to get comfortable." - COMICWATCH
"Stewart continues to do the Fight Club saga justice with his artwork...flies and all." - ROGUES PORTAL
"Bold...Palahniuk doesn't give us what we want here but rather what we need. Namely a story that makes the reader think not just about what's going on but also about their own expectations of the archetypes portrayed in the story; the flies buzzing on the page hinting at a character's intent; the name drop of "snowflake" for a caller I.D.; a subtle tattoo on the neck. All raising enough questions to leave us staring at every panel with the steely focus of a seasoned detective combing a crime scene for clues." - BIG COMIC PAGE
Marla Singer is about to deliver her second child, but the daddy isn't her husband--it's Tyler, who's very invested in his heir, and the world he'll inherit, as Die Off Industries plots to fine-tune mankind.
Bestselling novelist Chuck Palahniuk is back with his greatest creation, the sequel to the book that spent six months on the 2016 New York Times bestseller list.
Teaming once again with award-winning artists Cameron Stewart and David Mack, Palahniuk leads a full frontal assault of the culture, from online dating to weaponized STDs, as a strange picture frame opens a road to paradise. 2019's bestselling twelve-issue series is collected in one massive digital book.
Get in touch with your ugly side.
Collects Fight Club 3 issues #1-#12.
"Whether you've been a fan since the '90s or were hooked by the jump to comics, you'll want to see what comes next in this highly unpredictable saga."- PASTE MAGAZINE
" Fight Club 3 is everything that a sequel to a sequel should be. It elevates the dark themes of the novel and the first graphic novel to the next illogical, insanely violent step." - COMICON.COM
"Palahniuk's work takes some of our greatest shortcomings--insufficient or inadequate parenting, toxic isolation-- then magnifies and underlines them in fractured skulls and drunken vomit." - PLAYBOY
"Scabby and surreal." - DEADLINE HOLLYWOOD
"The first rule of the comic book incarnation of Fight Club is that it'll look good." - HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
"Ambitious." - ADVENTURES IN POOR TASTE
"Trippy." - EVERYTHING ACTION
"The talent and care that went into this issue is palpable, from David Mack's cover to Nate Piekos' lettering... This book does not allow you to get comfortable." - COMICWATCH
"Stewart continues to do the Fight Club saga justice with his artwork...flies and all." - ROGUES PORTAL
"Bold...Palahniuk doesn't give us what we want here but rather what we need. Namely a story that makes the reader think not just about what's going on but also about their own expectations of the archetypes portrayed in the story; the flies buzzing on the page hinting at a character's intent; the name drop of "snowflake" for a caller I.D.; a subtle tattoo on the neck. All raising enough questions to leave us staring at every panel with the steely focus of a seasoned detective combing a crime scene for clues." - BIG COMIC PAGE
328 pages, Hardcover
First published April 14, 2020
35 people are currently reading
2130 people want to read
About the author
Chuck Palahniuk
168 books132k followersWritten 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
August 8, 2022
You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.
Maybe being a beautiful and unique snowflake was all that was left in the magic hat for author Chuck Palahniuk. Renown for his transgressional fiction filled with dark humour, stark surrealism, and visceral social commentary, his novels have successfully shocked the world to the core, leaving only some in awe at his mindboggling creativity and the rest in revulsion at his outrageous imagination. Following the critically-acclaimed Fight Club novel, which hence spawned one of the greatest movies of all time starring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, novelist Chuck Palahniuk pursued his foray into this universe by exploring the visual novel medium with an unexpected exploratory sequel. Continuing down the same road, he revisits the Fight Club lore by breaking free from any storytelling boundaries as the universe he once owned ends up owning him in this latest sequel that will bring you to ask questions breaking the very first rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club.
What is Fight Club 3 about? I couldn’t give you a clear answer even if I wanted to. But here’s the only sense a space monkey could possibly squeeze out of it though: the story brings back the unnamed narrator who now goes by the name of Balthazar and presents a pregnant Marla Singer—unexplainedly awaiting her second child this time around—who is involved in a brand-new worldwide scheme that even the deranged Tyler Durden doesn’t know how to deal with. While Project Mayhem—which later became Rize or Die—is officially a thing of the past, a new movement entitled “Die Off” brings into play a whole pyramid scheme with a sexually-contracted virus at the heart of this disaster. Filled with murder and mayhem, the story now forces the binary personalities (Balthazar and Tyler Durden) to work together to solve this mystery before things escalate and has consequences beyond repair.
I am all in for complexity. I am all in for a challenge. I am all in for authentic, original, and unconventional. But… this… this… I am Jack’s raging bile duct. There is nothing rewarding or worthwhile in trying to elucidate this incomprehensible pile of nonsense. With almost no dialogue to accompany you in this twelve-issue rambling comic book, the reader is left to scrutinize each and every panel to decipher a hint of a story that could justify the somewhat metaphysical characteristics of this sequel. If there’s such a thing as extreme symbolism, novelist Chuck Palahniuk nailed it. Wacky, kooky, triggering, and at times disgusting, there isn’t a moment of respite for the reader to revel in ecstasy at a grasp of some understanding, despite the story arc’s desire to force the reader to create their own story through what they are able to interpret from each panel. If there’s one thing this sequel succeeded in making me feel, it’s the impression of truly being an all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world. And that’s not something I rejoice in feeling.
It might be easy to pardon the terrible mosaic of a structure behind this volume by appreciating the formidable work by illustrator Cameron Stewart and colourist Dave McCraig, but forgiveness is short when the reading experience cumulated to almost no satisfaction whatsoever amidst all the surrealism at play. Each issue begins with an original calendar format two-page illustration and continues on with a traditional square and rectangle panel structure that sometimes dares to overlap one another. There is also the superposition of realistic partial photography (e.g. flies, vomit, etc.) that never really serves many purposes but hinders the reader’s general reading experience. Besides the real-life sequences, most of the volume is also comprised of historical figures and events, dreams, illusions, and plenty of enigmatic and irrelevant characters, allowing artists Cameron Stewart and Dave McCaig to work their magic in bringing to life the sexuality, the taboo, and the insanity. But in the end, none of it could save this from writer Chuck Palahniuk’s unrestrainable creativity and love for stupefaction. I am Jack’s unimpressed cat.
Fight Club 3 is a kaleidoscopic catastrophe bidding on a plethora of symbolism to tell a story void of significance, direction, or vision.
August 10, 2020
I will always give Chuck a 5 because I consider him a mentor and friend. He almost certainly does not consider me a friend, and that's cool.
I went to a workshop with him for 3 months. Every week I flew from Denver to Portland to meet up with some really great people and work with Chuck and Lidia Yuknavitch.
I was thinking I'd go see him when he came to Denver this last April, but signings are weird. I never know what to say. And I've made an idiot out of myself more than once. And I was wondering if Chuck would remember who I was. Should I bring up that we were in the workshop together? Would that just be embarrassing? Would he not remember me and then feel bad for not remembering, which would make me feel bad because that's who I am? What did I wear to the workshops? Could I dress the same and maybe that'd cue him?
Then COVID happened, and the visit didn't, and I was spared the decision.
After working 12 weeks with him, I can say that he's a nice guy, and he knows a lot about writing fiction. Don't make the mistake so many others have of thinking that Chuck is Tyler Durden, because he's not. We paid...it was a small amount for the workshop, split between Chuck and Lidia. I don't know what Lidia did with her half, I think it went to charity, but I know Chuck sent his half to the Pixie Project, and animal rescue in Portland, which is also referenced a few times in Fight Club 3.
Fight Club 3 was pretty confusing for me. But I read it fast. And I think, like Fight Club 2, it's pretty heavy allegory that blends the fictions of Fight Club with Chuck's real life. It's interesting. It works. It warrants another more careful reading on my part.
I really think Chuck's works will make for interesting study someday. He leaves a lot of unresolved questions in readers' minds, and he talks a lot about reality as it is to him, not as he'd like it to be.
I was just reading something about The Matrix being allegory for the Wachowskis' transitions (from male to female? I'm not sure if that's how you say that correctly. I mean no offense). One of the Wachowski's confirmed this, which I think may ultimately hurt the movie's popularity in the long run. Not because people "don't want" a movie about that, but because left open, it can really be about anything. It could be about any eye-opening change that, once seen, can't be unseen. It can mean different things to different people, and it can also mean different things to the same people at different points in their lives. I think an ongoing critical debate would've kept that movie alive, given it new life with a completely new audience, and I think that there would've been a pretty good amount of debate of what the Matrix "really" means initiated by lots of different groups. But I think saying it's definitively about one thing or another means there's not much point debating it anymore. We can debate its effectiveness as an allegory for living as a trans person, but there's really no more debate about what it "really" means. Its intent is no longer debateable. Only its impact.
Chuck's works are different. They work on a simple, story level, but his place in the cyclical world of books and stories is mostly unexplained. His motivations for writing most of his books are stated here and there, but you'll notice he mostly talks about the germ of the idea and its development, not a "lesson" he was trying to share.
Anyway, this book is his most abstract, and I'll admit I had a harder time following it than I did any of his others. But I blame myself. For now. It needs a deeper dive. And I wonder if this is part of his legacy. Does writing some things that are a little more obtuse, alongside those things that are more direct, keep things interesting and relevant?
I went to a workshop with him for 3 months. Every week I flew from Denver to Portland to meet up with some really great people and work with Chuck and Lidia Yuknavitch.
I was thinking I'd go see him when he came to Denver this last April, but signings are weird. I never know what to say. And I've made an idiot out of myself more than once. And I was wondering if Chuck would remember who I was. Should I bring up that we were in the workshop together? Would that just be embarrassing? Would he not remember me and then feel bad for not remembering, which would make me feel bad because that's who I am? What did I wear to the workshops? Could I dress the same and maybe that'd cue him?
Then COVID happened, and the visit didn't, and I was spared the decision.
After working 12 weeks with him, I can say that he's a nice guy, and he knows a lot about writing fiction. Don't make the mistake so many others have of thinking that Chuck is Tyler Durden, because he's not. We paid...it was a small amount for the workshop, split between Chuck and Lidia. I don't know what Lidia did with her half, I think it went to charity, but I know Chuck sent his half to the Pixie Project, and animal rescue in Portland, which is also referenced a few times in Fight Club 3.
Fight Club 3 was pretty confusing for me. But I read it fast. And I think, like Fight Club 2, it's pretty heavy allegory that blends the fictions of Fight Club with Chuck's real life. It's interesting. It works. It warrants another more careful reading on my part.
I really think Chuck's works will make for interesting study someday. He leaves a lot of unresolved questions in readers' minds, and he talks a lot about reality as it is to him, not as he'd like it to be.
I was just reading something about The Matrix being allegory for the Wachowskis' transitions (from male to female? I'm not sure if that's how you say that correctly. I mean no offense). One of the Wachowski's confirmed this, which I think may ultimately hurt the movie's popularity in the long run. Not because people "don't want" a movie about that, but because left open, it can really be about anything. It could be about any eye-opening change that, once seen, can't be unseen. It can mean different things to different people, and it can also mean different things to the same people at different points in their lives. I think an ongoing critical debate would've kept that movie alive, given it new life with a completely new audience, and I think that there would've been a pretty good amount of debate of what the Matrix "really" means initiated by lots of different groups. But I think saying it's definitively about one thing or another means there's not much point debating it anymore. We can debate its effectiveness as an allegory for living as a trans person, but there's really no more debate about what it "really" means. Its intent is no longer debateable. Only its impact.
Chuck's works are different. They work on a simple, story level, but his place in the cyclical world of books and stories is mostly unexplained. His motivations for writing most of his books are stated here and there, but you'll notice he mostly talks about the germ of the idea and its development, not a "lesson" he was trying to share.
Anyway, this book is his most abstract, and I'll admit I had a harder time following it than I did any of his others. But I blame myself. For now. It needs a deeper dive. And I wonder if this is part of his legacy. Does writing some things that are a little more obtuse, alongside those things that are more direct, keep things interesting and relevant?
April 22, 2021
"I’m not your enemy. Not this time."
Fight Club is my favorite book. Everything about that book speaks to me on so many levels. After reading Fight Club 2, I was left feeling a little down because it didn’t hit me as hard as it could. So I didn’t get my hopes up really high for this one and after seeing other reviews, I really had zero expectations.
But this one was like a damn punch to the face and gut at the same time and it left me bruised and bloody in the pouring rain. G**Damn was this good!
We see what the future holds and everything looks grim. My favorite is that we see a backstory to Marla and Chloe! Talk about a complete mind-f**k. If you thought you knew it all, you better think again. You’ll never see any of this coming.
Fight Club 3 took us back to the original Fight Club. It brought back so many favorite parts of the original that I was giddy with excitement. This was bloody, severely graphic, and I loved every single damn page. This is the twisted Chuck we know and love.
Fight Club is my favorite book. Everything about that book speaks to me on so many levels. After reading Fight Club 2, I was left feeling a little down because it didn’t hit me as hard as it could. So I didn’t get my hopes up really high for this one and after seeing other reviews, I really had zero expectations.
But this one was like a damn punch to the face and gut at the same time and it left me bruised and bloody in the pouring rain. G**Damn was this good!
We see what the future holds and everything looks grim. My favorite is that we see a backstory to Marla and Chloe! Talk about a complete mind-f**k. If you thought you knew it all, you better think again. You’ll never see any of this coming.
Fight Club 3 took us back to the original Fight Club. It brought back so many favorite parts of the original that I was giddy with excitement. This was bloody, severely graphic, and I loved every single damn page. This is the twisted Chuck we know and love.
December 26, 2020
Gorgeous to look at, absolute nonsensical to read. Meh.
June 2, 2021
The Fight Club canon limps on. I’m sure 99% would be happier to have had it begin and end with the original novel and film.
September 22, 2020
Well, Palahniuk pulls the old bait and switch on the reader in this one. You think you’re getting a new take on Fight Club, and you get a semi plot that evaporates into a series of intriguing ideas. Is it any good you ask. Well it was better than Fight Club 2 and worse than the book. “ Project Mayhem” strikes again.
I would say that my main issue with Palahniuk is that I like his concepts, but he fails to tie them together into anything that could be called a narrative. That’s why the movie worked so well. The screen writing cleaned it all up while preserving his genius.
I would say that my main issue with Palahniuk is that I like his concepts, but he fails to tie them together into anything that could be called a narrative. That’s why the movie worked so well. The screen writing cleaned it all up while preserving his genius.
April 16, 2022
1/5 ⭐ | First time read | April 2022
Somehow it wasn’t as bad as the previous book, and yet I have no idea of what just happened, but with that ending I will be forever hunted by the possibility of a fourth book. God forbid.
Somehow it wasn’t as bad as the previous book, and yet I have no idea of what just happened, but with that ending I will be forever hunted by the possibility of a fourth book. God forbid.
April 9, 2020
Abandoned after 6 chapters. There's barely a story here to follow. The artwork is dope though.
July 17, 2020
Sooo... here’s my interpreted summary of fight club 3:
Spoilers:
Pregnant with Tyler Durdens child, Marla and the narrator become enveloped in a fatal std pyramid scheme that aims to depopulate the world so that their first son, Junior, can lead a new broken earth.
Meanwhile Tyler Durden, who is both Jesus and Satan, has caused war after war throughout history in order to distract God so he can get enough nuclear weapons to hold God hostage and give God a grandson, but unexpectedly this ‘messiah’ grandson turns out to be a girl.
Throughout, we see people being ‘saved’ from the death of the std by being led into paradise through picture frames. It is then revealed that every picture frame on every masterpiece in every museum has actually secretly been made from Jesus’ cross which Tyler unburied in 300 a.d.
Nazis then find the secret of these frames and that they can walk through into paradise, but it’s unclear what happens to them or why Tyler denies being involved until the very end.
...it ends with Tyler enslaving the narrator, Marla, every side-character, Hitler, Napoleon, etc... at his weapon factories within paradise to continue his capture of God and teach God to like his messiah granddaughter.
Oh and the first son, Junior, denies his role in the new world and instead climbs into the ear of the Abe Lincoln head on the Washington Monument with the help of his conscious, a stuffed penguin.
Other bits:
There’s also the narrator getting plastic surgery to look like Tyler Durden.
Marla’s parents being killed by the narrator’s father (who is possessed by Tyler Durden and convinces her parents to do furry role play so he can shoot them with a bow and claim it was a hunting accident).
aaaannnnnd the narrator infecting an entire church with the std by ejaculating on them as they lay their hands on him to pray for him... Yup.
The art, paneling, and colors are great though.
If this sounds like your kinda thing, check it out. My summary may not be the intended plot but all that stuff happens lol.
Spoilers:
Pregnant with Tyler Durdens child, Marla and the narrator become enveloped in a fatal std pyramid scheme that aims to depopulate the world so that their first son, Junior, can lead a new broken earth.
Meanwhile Tyler Durden, who is both Jesus and Satan, has caused war after war throughout history in order to distract God so he can get enough nuclear weapons to hold God hostage and give God a grandson, but unexpectedly this ‘messiah’ grandson turns out to be a girl.
Throughout, we see people being ‘saved’ from the death of the std by being led into paradise through picture frames. It is then revealed that every picture frame on every masterpiece in every museum has actually secretly been made from Jesus’ cross which Tyler unburied in 300 a.d.
Nazis then find the secret of these frames and that they can walk through into paradise, but it’s unclear what happens to them or why Tyler denies being involved until the very end.
...it ends with Tyler enslaving the narrator, Marla, every side-character, Hitler, Napoleon, etc... at his weapon factories within paradise to continue his capture of God and teach God to like his messiah granddaughter.
Oh and the first son, Junior, denies his role in the new world and instead climbs into the ear of the Abe Lincoln head on the Washington Monument with the help of his conscious, a stuffed penguin.
Other bits:
There’s also the narrator getting plastic surgery to look like Tyler Durden.
Marla’s parents being killed by the narrator’s father (who is possessed by Tyler Durden and convinces her parents to do furry role play so he can shoot them with a bow and claim it was a hunting accident).
aaaannnnnd the narrator infecting an entire church with the std by ejaculating on them as they lay their hands on him to pray for him... Yup.
The art, paneling, and colors are great though.
If this sounds like your kinda thing, check it out. My summary may not be the intended plot but all that stuff happens lol.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 9, 2022
Genuinely horrible.
With some supposedly bad books, you at least want to go through them slowly and analyze them for yourself.
There's nothing to analyze here.
It's simply fucking garbage.
Why was this created I have no idea.
I think it was intended to be bad, but that doesn't redeem it.
Look, I like Chuck's work (at least Fight Club and Consider This), but this is garbage.
I'll stick to the novels for now - they may not be as visual, but they certainly have to make at least some coherent sense.
Right?
With some supposedly bad books, you at least want to go through them slowly and analyze them for yourself.
There's nothing to analyze here.
It's simply fucking garbage.
Why was this created I have no idea.
I think it was intended to be bad, but that doesn't redeem it.
Look, I like Chuck's work (at least Fight Club and Consider This), but this is garbage.
I'll stick to the novels for now - they may not be as visual, but they certainly have to make at least some coherent sense.
Right?
December 21, 2020
What better to do when you're lying in bed for two days with horrible back pain? Well... read Fight Club 3 of course.
A comic that reads like a puzzle or like a dark stories card game; you try to figure out what happened, but there's no one to read the other side of the card and tell you if you're right. But maybe it's ok not to get the whole picture sometimes, to leave some questions unanswered and let your imagination poke into dark corners, I certainly don't mind.
How to describe the art? It's just an amazing example of thinking outside of the box, or the little squares that comics are made of. Stunning. But that's to be expected from someone with Cameron Stewart's resume.
The introduction was the perfect way to start this volume. After I started reading it, I was liking it more and more, so that after a while I got intrigued by who wrote it and I glanced at the name and... of course, Irvine Welsh, no one better to do it. I wanna thank the editor or whoever had the idea for it for making it happen.
I wanted to give this 4 stars at first, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's perfect in its imperfection. So I can't give it less than 5.
A comic that reads like a puzzle or like a dark stories card game; you try to figure out what happened, but there's no one to read the other side of the card and tell you if you're right. But maybe it's ok not to get the whole picture sometimes, to leave some questions unanswered and let your imagination poke into dark corners, I certainly don't mind.
How to describe the art? It's just an amazing example of thinking outside of the box, or the little squares that comics are made of. Stunning. But that's to be expected from someone with Cameron Stewart's resume.
The introduction was the perfect way to start this volume. After I started reading it, I was liking it more and more, so that after a while I got intrigued by who wrote it and I glanced at the name and... of course, Irvine Welsh, no one better to do it. I wanna thank the editor or whoever had the idea for it for making it happen.
I wanted to give this 4 stars at first, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's perfect in its imperfection. So I can't give it less than 5.
Read
January 11, 2024Palahniuk is playing with a few more interesting ideas regarding art and legacy and generational trauma, but even with all that, the book still felt both a bit thin and a bit convoluted, and I feel like we've maybe hit the point of diminishing return with this unnecessary (perhaps cash-grabbing) saga. I'm not hating on the book but am finding myself less invested as I go on. The ending is a setup for further, as yet unreleased, adventures, so we'll see where we go from here.
October 3, 2020
Another 'lackluster' turn out by Chucky. I was not a fan of Fight Club 2 and this is more of the "let's make a sequel that barely resembles things from the previous installment(s) but 'furthers' the narrative'...".
So, basically in this new installment, Tyler/Narrator (Balthazar) team together. Marla is pregnant and is the pivotal aspect of the work, and she is pregnant ...with Tyler's baby rather than Narrator's. (We've full gone out of realism now and are completely in a different realm of work, more spiritual, more supernatural, more non-reality than reality).
This time, to "remake the world" they are releasing a STD/plague that will wipe out the 'non-essentials' (for lack of better word) and prepare the world for the Messiah - Tyler's child.
Tyler is also now a ... ephemeral character, a timeless character, that has appeared to Balthazar as a child as well as to Marla as a child, and is more or less a recurring persona rather than an actual person or character or part of the Narrator's psyche.
It is interesting read about an epidemic/pandemic/STD plague during the COVID crisis, and I'm sure this was written/conceptualized long before COVID/coronavirus was even a thing, but still interesting life/art parallel.
I can't say this is very interesting though. Chuck seems to have some sort of fetish for a 'new world order' type story that he keeps going back to. Adjustment Day. This. Etc. And its.... just a trope at this point. "Ok, Project Mayhem is Rize or Die... is now Die Endeavors.... and they want to kill millions to create a world that is better for the next generation.... blah blah blah...."
Fight Club (original) succeeded because it was more than just a NWO type telling, it was original, and it was written at a different time, and when Chuck Palahniuk was fresh. Now.... its all played out... it doesn't work with our time... it's regurgitated.... it feels hackneyed. And for this, it doesn't even come off as inspiring or interesting.
Ok... so a recruit is supposed to get a 'million tallies'. Marla uses Chloe, a super sexed up old person who knows a sex club... and that gets her her tallies. Balthazar can slip into Tyler Burden to get his tallies up.
Meh.
The side-story of the cross being repurposed as a frame, and leading to a specialty afterlife, and that Tyler Burden is Jesus or a Jesus-like being, (a son of God, if not THEE God of Abrahamic religions), and that God is annoyed then when Tyler/Marla's child is a girl instead of a boy.... its just..... so..... "yawn" .... "meh"..... and feels like Palahniuk is trying to make MORE of his character than it really needs to be. Like Chuck fell in love with Tyler, and wants him to be a Jesus like character now and that he wants to 'subvert' expectations and have Marla be the focal point of this work, and she needs hit in the face to break the Tyler/Narrator facade (rather than the shot in the brain/cheek/head that was in the original book/movie) and that its a girl and not a boy for the new Messiah.
It.... just feels..... so hackneyed.... rushed.... and non-interesting.
And the introduction is such a piece of fan service and ass kissery by Irvine Welsh, that makes you think Chuck is the next coming himself and without him, literature would be ruined, worthless, and he's the only true storyteller left to humanity in the 2020s.... and yet, this is what we get then from him.
So, basically in this new installment, Tyler/Narrator (Balthazar) team together. Marla is pregnant and is the pivotal aspect of the work, and she is pregnant ...with Tyler's baby rather than Narrator's. (We've full gone out of realism now and are completely in a different realm of work, more spiritual, more supernatural, more non-reality than reality).
This time, to "remake the world" they are releasing a STD/plague that will wipe out the 'non-essentials' (for lack of better word) and prepare the world for the Messiah - Tyler's child.
Tyler is also now a ... ephemeral character, a timeless character, that has appeared to Balthazar as a child as well as to Marla as a child, and is more or less a recurring persona rather than an actual person or character or part of the Narrator's psyche.
It is interesting read about an epidemic/pandemic/STD plague during the COVID crisis, and I'm sure this was written/conceptualized long before COVID/coronavirus was even a thing, but still interesting life/art parallel.
I can't say this is very interesting though. Chuck seems to have some sort of fetish for a 'new world order' type story that he keeps going back to. Adjustment Day. This. Etc. And its.... just a trope at this point. "Ok, Project Mayhem is Rize or Die... is now Die Endeavors.... and they want to kill millions to create a world that is better for the next generation.... blah blah blah...."
Fight Club (original) succeeded because it was more than just a NWO type telling, it was original, and it was written at a different time, and when Chuck Palahniuk was fresh. Now.... its all played out... it doesn't work with our time... it's regurgitated.... it feels hackneyed. And for this, it doesn't even come off as inspiring or interesting.
Ok... so a recruit is supposed to get a 'million tallies'. Marla uses Chloe, a super sexed up old person who knows a sex club... and that gets her her tallies. Balthazar can slip into Tyler Burden to get his tallies up.
Meh.
The side-story of the cross being repurposed as a frame, and leading to a specialty afterlife, and that Tyler Burden is Jesus or a Jesus-like being, (a son of God, if not THEE God of Abrahamic religions), and that God is annoyed then when Tyler/Marla's child is a girl instead of a boy.... its just..... so..... "yawn" .... "meh"..... and feels like Palahniuk is trying to make MORE of his character than it really needs to be. Like Chuck fell in love with Tyler, and wants him to be a Jesus like character now and that he wants to 'subvert' expectations and have Marla be the focal point of this work, and she needs hit in the face to break the Tyler/Narrator facade (rather than the shot in the brain/cheek/head that was in the original book/movie) and that its a girl and not a boy for the new Messiah.
It.... just feels..... so hackneyed.... rushed.... and non-interesting.
And the introduction is such a piece of fan service and ass kissery by Irvine Welsh, that makes you think Chuck is the next coming himself and without him, literature would be ruined, worthless, and he's the only true storyteller left to humanity in the 2020s.... and yet, this is what we get then from him.
July 12, 2022
I hate Fight Club 3. I hate Fight Club 3. I hate Fight Club 3.
I truly wonder what went through the minds of executives to ask for Fight Club 3. Especially after Fight Club 2 came out and everybody hated it. Graphic novels don't take a long time to finish, but I still feel robbed of my precious time. I could forgive Fight Club 2, because at least it had an excuse. As in, the author was forced into writing it. So he, to display his dissatisfaction, completely butchers his own favourite child in hopes of not being asked to do this ever again. At least the second book tried to do something before giving up. I'm honestly surprised that Palahniuk didn't insist on misspelling the name as "Fait klub 3" to show right on cover how fucking lazy this all is. I could write a greater story after 3 nights of binge-drinking, not having slept for 52 hours straight, all while typing everything in mandarin, which is a language I don't speak. Fight Club 3 is downright offensive simply for the shock value. It makes even less sense, which was something I thought, quite frankly, to be impossible. I'm not even sure if having read this work somehow doesn't make me retroactively dislike the original Fight Club more. It's like the author is constantly trying to one up himself with how flat out retarded he could make the whole story, all while suffering from some kind of psychosis. Fight Club is about nihilism and modern men trying to find themselves in a meaningless world. Fight Club 2 (maybe) is telling us how meaningless our entertainment has become, when we needlessly sequelize everything. And now Fight Club 3 completes the circle. Because its sole existence finally proves to me that God is truly dead.
I truly wonder what went through the minds of executives to ask for Fight Club 3. Especially after Fight Club 2 came out and everybody hated it. Graphic novels don't take a long time to finish, but I still feel robbed of my precious time. I could forgive Fight Club 2, because at least it had an excuse. As in, the author was forced into writing it. So he, to display his dissatisfaction, completely butchers his own favourite child in hopes of not being asked to do this ever again. At least the second book tried to do something before giving up. I'm honestly surprised that Palahniuk didn't insist on misspelling the name as "Fait klub 3" to show right on cover how fucking lazy this all is. I could write a greater story after 3 nights of binge-drinking, not having slept for 52 hours straight, all while typing everything in mandarin, which is a language I don't speak. Fight Club 3 is downright offensive simply for the shock value. It makes even less sense, which was something I thought, quite frankly, to be impossible. I'm not even sure if having read this work somehow doesn't make me retroactively dislike the original Fight Club more. It's like the author is constantly trying to one up himself with how flat out retarded he could make the whole story, all while suffering from some kind of psychosis. Fight Club is about nihilism and modern men trying to find themselves in a meaningless world. Fight Club 2 (maybe) is telling us how meaningless our entertainment has become, when we needlessly sequelize everything. And now Fight Club 3 completes the circle. Because its sole existence finally proves to me that God is truly dead.
October 15, 2020
"Chuck Palahniuk was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think if he should!" - Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park
I kinda want to write an actual review, but I don't think Palahniuk is worth one for this book. Listen, I'm a fan of Chuck since the days of the first FC, and I've read everything he's done before and since but these graphic novels are not it. He gets two stars because at least the art is great.
I should have learned from FC 2, as that was a major disappointment, but I was curious to see how much worse the third could be. Turns out, even worse. Chuck just throws a bunch of random shit everywhere hoping his fans stick to it. But not me. You don't get a pass from me on this one, just like the one before. Please let this series Die Off.
I kinda want to write an actual review, but I don't think Palahniuk is worth one for this book. Listen, I'm a fan of Chuck since the days of the first FC, and I've read everything he's done before and since but these graphic novels are not it. He gets two stars because at least the art is great.
I should have learned from FC 2, as that was a major disappointment, but I was curious to see how much worse the third could be. Turns out, even worse. Chuck just throws a bunch of random shit everywhere hoping his fans stick to it. But not me. You don't get a pass from me on this one, just like the one before. Please let this series Die Off.
November 23, 2022
Its weird, its makes no sence. Its fight club and I love it.
July 13, 2023
LA NUEVA PRIMERA REGLA DE EL CLUB DE LA PELEA ES QUE REALMENTE NECESITAMOS HABLAR DE EL CLUB DE LA PELEA.
"Una historia en la que el arte lucha para seguirle el ritmo a un mundo real donde quienes tienen las llaves del manicomio se han vuelto demasiado vanidosos y sociópatas incluso para esconder su propia locura"
La tercera entrega de EL CLUB DE LA PELEA ha resultado ser MUY ATREVIDA. Chuck Palahniuk nos entrega lo que necesitamos y no lo que queremos. Una historia en la que es necesario indagar en cada viñeta para conseguir entenderla lo mejor posible.
La secuela de la secuela ha resultado fascinante.
"Una historia en la que el arte lucha para seguirle el ritmo a un mundo real donde quienes tienen las llaves del manicomio se han vuelto demasiado vanidosos y sociópatas incluso para esconder su propia locura"
La tercera entrega de EL CLUB DE LA PELEA ha resultado ser MUY ATREVIDA. Chuck Palahniuk nos entrega lo que necesitamos y no lo que queremos. Una historia en la que es necesario indagar en cada viñeta para conseguir entenderla lo mejor posible.
La secuela de la secuela ha resultado fascinante.
June 19, 2022
Had the strangest feeling that I'd read this before, despite having never logged it here. As that feeling dissipated about halfway through, chances were pretty good that I must've consumed this in single issues back in 2019. A search through my emails confirmed it, with some copy I delivered to my then-editor. As that publication got swallowed by another entity, and many of the older reviews went offline, I have no qualms about repeating some of it here.
Chuck Palahniuk’s comic book sequel to his cult novel was divisive - and that was pretty much the point. Messing with expectations and calling out the misrepresentation of his work in its various forms, Palahniuk’s darker middle-aged meta-crisis morphed Tyler Durden into an even more subversive and darker force than he ever was before. With this sequel to his comic sequel, the writer and his phenomenal art team of Cameron Stewart and Dave McCraig take a more leisurely but no less arresting journey into the 21st century version of these characters.
Palahniuk has referred to the concept of the “second father” in various interviews, and here he opens with suburban slump at its most sedate. Balthazar née Sebastian née the unnamed narrator are in a mid-winter malaise, visually represented by Stewart and McCraig as a fly-covered calendar of minutiae. His wife Marla is heavily pregnant with her second child, although Balthazar’s increasingly separate alter ego Tyler Durden may be the father. Balthazar is unable to secure a job as Tyler emerges to have his way with women he meets on the road.
It’s all wrapped up with fragments of a mostly dialogue-free story about pieces of adorable dog art that has people weeping with joy, Rize or Die militia shooting up a job fair, and a mysterious figure in a black trench-coat carrying a briefcase of Nazi gold. These pieces don’t necessarily all seem to fit together for the moment and that seems to be intentional. Palahniuk is in no hurry to give us any clues either, relying on partners in art to lead the reader to their own conclusions.
Yet what works as a mysterious introduction to a story - one that involves living memes, seemingly magical frames, furries and inherited madness - doesn't sustain a reader for long. Palahniuk claims to be using the language of comics to their fullest extent, although narrative thoughts barely hold together between panels as we leap from thought to thought. It's all in the name of feeding the surreal metatextual beast, of course, but it's painfully caught between too much at once and not enough to sustain 12 issues.
The discombobulating art is the star of the show, with the now experienced comics writer Palahniuk wise enough to step aside and let Stewart and McCraig do their magnificent thing. The devil is in the details: a painter is introduced via a series of tight panels (a thumb, an eye, a bit lip, a palette), Balthazar wears overlapping name tags, blueprint maps of a community center visually introduce another plot point, and the deliberately amateur dog art might be some of Cameron’s finest achievements.
As with the previous volume, Stewart and McCraig add an extra level of dimensionality by placing objects on top of and between the panels. Scattered pills are replaced initially with popcorn before panels are increasingly covered in flies. They crawl between frames, across faces, and into cleavage. It might speak to entropy and decay present in Balthazar’s closed world, but we all know what proverbially attracts flies. (The disturbingly tactile vomit Balthazar and legions of infected brings up are all over the pages).
McCraig’s color art adds yet another layer of meaning to every carefully placed panel, juxtaposing the whites and blues of Marla’s cold wintery home life with the warm reds, pinks, and oranges of the seedy barroom moments. In a complete contrast with the red hot and explosive passion of Marla and Tyler in the previous volume, McCraig throws a cold blue cast as we watch Tyler “nail the opening” (to paraphrase Marla). It speaks volumes to the disconnection Balthazar has to his ‘partner’ in chaos.
It might be that we've had a real world pandemic in the years since this was first published, but Palahniuk's version of chaos isn't quite what it used to be. Or it could just be that after years of lording over the edge, there just aren't any more buttons to push that can shock us in such an overtly surreal setting.
2.5 stars.
Chuck Palahniuk’s comic book sequel to his cult novel was divisive - and that was pretty much the point. Messing with expectations and calling out the misrepresentation of his work in its various forms, Palahniuk’s darker middle-aged meta-crisis morphed Tyler Durden into an even more subversive and darker force than he ever was before. With this sequel to his comic sequel, the writer and his phenomenal art team of Cameron Stewart and Dave McCraig take a more leisurely but no less arresting journey into the 21st century version of these characters.
Palahniuk has referred to the concept of the “second father” in various interviews, and here he opens with suburban slump at its most sedate. Balthazar née Sebastian née the unnamed narrator are in a mid-winter malaise, visually represented by Stewart and McCraig as a fly-covered calendar of minutiae. His wife Marla is heavily pregnant with her second child, although Balthazar’s increasingly separate alter ego Tyler Durden may be the father. Balthazar is unable to secure a job as Tyler emerges to have his way with women he meets on the road.
It’s all wrapped up with fragments of a mostly dialogue-free story about pieces of adorable dog art that has people weeping with joy, Rize or Die militia shooting up a job fair, and a mysterious figure in a black trench-coat carrying a briefcase of Nazi gold. These pieces don’t necessarily all seem to fit together for the moment and that seems to be intentional. Palahniuk is in no hurry to give us any clues either, relying on partners in art to lead the reader to their own conclusions.
Yet what works as a mysterious introduction to a story - one that involves living memes, seemingly magical frames, furries and inherited madness - doesn't sustain a reader for long. Palahniuk claims to be using the language of comics to their fullest extent, although narrative thoughts barely hold together between panels as we leap from thought to thought. It's all in the name of feeding the surreal metatextual beast, of course, but it's painfully caught between too much at once and not enough to sustain 12 issues.
The discombobulating art is the star of the show, with the now experienced comics writer Palahniuk wise enough to step aside and let Stewart and McCraig do their magnificent thing. The devil is in the details: a painter is introduced via a series of tight panels (a thumb, an eye, a bit lip, a palette), Balthazar wears overlapping name tags, blueprint maps of a community center visually introduce another plot point, and the deliberately amateur dog art might be some of Cameron’s finest achievements.
As with the previous volume, Stewart and McCraig add an extra level of dimensionality by placing objects on top of and between the panels. Scattered pills are replaced initially with popcorn before panels are increasingly covered in flies. They crawl between frames, across faces, and into cleavage. It might speak to entropy and decay present in Balthazar’s closed world, but we all know what proverbially attracts flies. (The disturbingly tactile vomit Balthazar and legions of infected brings up are all over the pages).
McCraig’s color art adds yet another layer of meaning to every carefully placed panel, juxtaposing the whites and blues of Marla’s cold wintery home life with the warm reds, pinks, and oranges of the seedy barroom moments. In a complete contrast with the red hot and explosive passion of Marla and Tyler in the previous volume, McCraig throws a cold blue cast as we watch Tyler “nail the opening” (to paraphrase Marla). It speaks volumes to the disconnection Balthazar has to his ‘partner’ in chaos.
It might be that we've had a real world pandemic in the years since this was first published, but Palahniuk's version of chaos isn't quite what it used to be. Or it could just be that after years of lording over the edge, there just aren't any more buttons to push that can shock us in such an overtly surreal setting.
2.5 stars.
June 23, 2020
Completist by nature, I figured I’ll just finish the Fight Club trilogy. I mean, wait, it doesn’t even go by that, it’s too renegade to use conventional jargon. So book three is actual known as a sequel to the sequel. Um…ok. Renegade indeed. In this volume Palahniuk essentially just rains down apocalypse upon the world, in his very own inimitable style. It read more confusing and jumbled up than book 2 and book 2 was practically meta, so that says something. It’s also completely viscerally disgusting, thus at last in that way it certainly hits the target of disturbing the audience profoundly. It has some nice art, it finishes the three act trajectory and Palahniuk stays out of this except for one brief mention, but it is still essentially a thoroughly unnecessary continuation of a great self contained story and it isn’t in any way what you’d call enjoyable reading. But that’s ok, because it is subversive. That’s the operative word here and the main theme of the fairly vitriolic polemic of just about all other fiction in the foreword provided by the great subversive himself, the author of Trainspotting. Mind you, he isn’t wrong, there are all too many trends that are followed above all other considerations, such as originality and variety. But covering pages upon pages in vomit and creating protagonists that read like antagonists isn’t what constitute subversiveness for me. Yes, I understand there’s more to these books than vomit, there is, supposedly, the satirizing of socials norms and all that, but it always seems to take the backseat to the wild and crazy party antics of the books. They seem more determined to flash than seduce, throw matches in trashcans instead of starting a fire, it’s more revolting than revolutionary. So yeah, didn’t work for me at all. But at least now it’s done.
June 25, 2020
Palahniuk is a strange man and he prove it yet again here. This just don't make sense, not even in the «this was weird but awesome» just the «what the f**k did I just read». Is there even a story here? I don't think, just a lot of nonsense craziness that goes on and is published for to reason, the first being the hype and fan base Palahniuk has and the second being the Fight Club name who is also a big seller. Read the original novel, watch the movie, but stop there, those comic sequels don't bring anything significant. Two stars, because the art was good!
March 27, 2022
This book went completely of the rails. It aimed for visual story telling but failed, was constantly very confusing, retconned previous books and went from realistic story into “people walking into a frame because there i another world” unrealistic. Combined with every chapter starting off with having to turn the book to see a calendar but not getting any story out of it. This is just a no from me.
December 30, 2019
The Insurgency, doesn't talk about the Insurgency.
The novelty of nihilism wears out after awhile.
The novelty of nihilism wears out after awhile.
Read
September 23, 20202020-09-19 Desrecomendación.
June 14, 2021
¡Qué desastre!
September 15, 2021
Too many drugs was involved, 2 stars is for the illustration only that is perfect but can't save it.
June 9, 2024
A ver, ha sido muy confuso todo. Primero que ahora el protagonista se llama Baltasar (que creo que es otra personalidad), luego que Marla está embarazada del hijo de Tyler, más adelante se mezcla con elementos del cristianismo...
Me gustó que se mencionara un poco del pasado de Marla (lo de sus padres, sus pretendientes, que Tyler estuvo ahí desde el principio, etc), y que lo de la ETS nueva era producto de un hombre que rechazó y se volvió loco. Pero más que nada es que parece ser que Tyler es el que maneja los hilos, siempre planeando y saliéndose con la suya.
El final no me ha convencido mucho ¿Resulta que Tyler era Lucifer y por eso llama a Dios cuando nace su hija? ¿Y el cuadro era una especie de portal al paraíso? Pero allí estaba gente de dudosa moralidad como Hitler y demás; también se supone que están muertos ¿No? Porque Cloe rejuveneció y todo.
Bueno, sí me ha hecho reír en varias ocasiones, pero todo se ha enrevesado demasiado para mi gusto. No digo que haya sido una mala lectura, sólo que no era lo que esperaba, tenía otras expectativas y el resultado no me agradó del todo.
Me gustó que se mencionara un poco del pasado de Marla (lo de sus padres, sus pretendientes, que Tyler estuvo ahí desde el principio, etc), y que lo de la ETS nueva era producto de un hombre que rechazó y se volvió loco. Pero más que nada es que parece ser que Tyler es el que maneja los hilos, siempre planeando y saliéndose con la suya.
El final no me ha convencido mucho ¿Resulta que Tyler era Lucifer y por eso llama a Dios cuando nace su hija? ¿Y el cuadro era una especie de portal al paraíso? Pero allí estaba gente de dudosa moralidad como Hitler y demás; también se supone que están muertos ¿No? Porque Cloe rejuveneció y todo.
Bueno, sí me ha hecho reír en varias ocasiones, pero todo se ha enrevesado demasiado para mi gusto. No digo que haya sido una mala lectura, sólo que no era lo que esperaba, tenía otras expectativas y el resultado no me agradó del todo.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2020
Easily the craziest book I've read. Palhnuik is a deeply disturbed person which is evident from his worka like Guts. This metasequel makes the world a lot more comicbook style and is quite short and paving a way for sequel. Art was quiet great and the more and more time goes Palhnuiks world view seem to be getting more entropic.
June 24, 2020
Had the potential to be as great as 2. But it just lost itself in the end. I didn't understand what happened in some of the later issues. Maybe a re-read will help (just like with 2). But overall... some good ideas and it's certainly... interesting.
Sadly, it feels a bit too creepy and even more disgusting now because of what Cameron Stewart did... yikes.
Sadly, it feels a bit too creepy and even more disgusting now because of what Cameron Stewart did... yikes.
September 27, 2021
“I am Jack’s deliberately confusing third part”
Right after the chaos and batshit crazy spectacle of the second installment in the now official “Fight Club Trilogy”, this time, things escalate in a rather different way. Marla Singer is-once again- pregnant, but this time it is Tyler’s offspring, not the Narrator’s. A new ‘Project Mayhem’ has been built, without Tyler’s support or awareness, meant to take down the privileged population with the release of a virus that is killing everyone who has a distinguishable “heart tattoo” in their necks. Tyler’s future baby is the Messiah and, well, we’re able to dig a little into Marla’s official backstory which, I have to say, is the highlight of this.
I honestly don’t know where to start with this. I read it, digest it (sort of), and accept it because, well, there is no other thing to do with the material. At this point, Palahniuk quit with the meta-pretentiousness and the complex dialogue-clouds displayed in his previous title (mostly benefit by Cameron Stewart), and in here, the story is more lineal, at least, when its not convoluted by the bizarre visuals and the odd themes displayed within each panel, interfering with the story and the progression this is meant to have.
It is a little easier to read, when it comes to following the events presented between chapters but, in the end, inevitably the whole plot loses itself near the end, almost the same way as the previous entry did, except, taking away the whole meta-commentary against the fandom of the film and the exposing of the events in the book, omitted from Fincher’s film. In here, it all explodes to a point in which the whole comic book ends up feeling rather a cartoon of the original concept behind Fight Club. It takes a certain effort to relate these graphic novels as sequels of the novel, since the environment, the characters and even the way the stories are written, they all feel like exaggerations and psychedelic parodies of what Palahniuk originally conceived. The funny thing here is, he attempts to make us feel as if this was the main goal of his iconic first novel. Tyler, Narrator and Marla, they all seemed to be heading this path, and, well as aforementioned, she received the most interesting treatment in the comic book with her backstory and all. It felt similar as what Palahniuk did with Sebastian being directly related to Tyler since childhood, and while that didn’t work in the second part, here, it actually adds certain weight to these two main characters and their relationship, since it links them directly in a clever way. As for the character of Junior, I never understood his role or even if there was a specific “importance” or clear role for him in all this, since the story kind of points at it, but nothing ever happens to him, at least, nothing that could benefit the climax or the conclusion.
The art department and the tone still delivers, but this time, the story goes into crazier corners, being way more gruesome and gory than the previous one, elevating even the kill count by the end, and I honestly don’t know how to feel about that, since violence has been a recurrent theme in the series, and in the novel and the film it was key to dig onto this world, but I never felt it as the main attraction, or even point of focus. Yes, this is called “Fight Club”, and yes, there are fights and violent moments, but nothing like in this third part, more specifically, the ending. As I said, there is a new ‘Project Mayhem’, and people are infecting the population in order to complete the failed plan Tyler attempted before, but now, it seems to be succeeding, since a lot of people are getting killed by being infected. It’s seeming to be interesting seeing one of ‘Mayhem’s’ plans being successful, but I’m not sure if this fits with the tones and the premise previously stablished. There is also a fantastic element in which there seems to be portals that represent “dead” of the characters entering in them, but, again, I don’t think Chuck had it clear when coming up with that idea, or at least, on how to deliver it, or even exploit it properly, since it works as a “point of convergence” in a certain plot-point, but I never felt it works.
Once again Stewart delivers, even if the story turns way too exaggerated for its own good, his style and looks still deliver, and Mack’s covers are a visual delight throughout the entire 12 chapters, so the art department is safe from the negative experience. I guess I need to revisit this to properly disclose it in the way that maybe Palahniuk intended, since he isn’t a bad writer at all, it’s just, he doesn’t know how to craft comics, at least, not in the proper way, or in one that justifies the existence of these two sequels. I guess I was glad I experienced it, and some ideas (as before) were interesting and attractive enough to make me not regret of the reading, but I still cannot see these as the “Sequels” of one of the best books written in the last 30 years. I feel disappointed, as I also feel intrigued as to where this concept came from, or even the general idea of a third part of a series that worked perfectly as a standalone, without the need of a randomly odd stretching.
Right after the chaos and batshit crazy spectacle of the second installment in the now official “Fight Club Trilogy”, this time, things escalate in a rather different way. Marla Singer is-once again- pregnant, but this time it is Tyler’s offspring, not the Narrator’s. A new ‘Project Mayhem’ has been built, without Tyler’s support or awareness, meant to take down the privileged population with the release of a virus that is killing everyone who has a distinguishable “heart tattoo” in their necks. Tyler’s future baby is the Messiah and, well, we’re able to dig a little into Marla’s official backstory which, I have to say, is the highlight of this.
I honestly don’t know where to start with this. I read it, digest it (sort of), and accept it because, well, there is no other thing to do with the material. At this point, Palahniuk quit with the meta-pretentiousness and the complex dialogue-clouds displayed in his previous title (mostly benefit by Cameron Stewart), and in here, the story is more lineal, at least, when its not convoluted by the bizarre visuals and the odd themes displayed within each panel, interfering with the story and the progression this is meant to have.
It is a little easier to read, when it comes to following the events presented between chapters but, in the end, inevitably the whole plot loses itself near the end, almost the same way as the previous entry did, except, taking away the whole meta-commentary against the fandom of the film and the exposing of the events in the book, omitted from Fincher’s film. In here, it all explodes to a point in which the whole comic book ends up feeling rather a cartoon of the original concept behind Fight Club. It takes a certain effort to relate these graphic novels as sequels of the novel, since the environment, the characters and even the way the stories are written, they all feel like exaggerations and psychedelic parodies of what Palahniuk originally conceived. The funny thing here is, he attempts to make us feel as if this was the main goal of his iconic first novel. Tyler, Narrator and Marla, they all seemed to be heading this path, and, well as aforementioned, she received the most interesting treatment in the comic book with her backstory and all. It felt similar as what Palahniuk did with Sebastian being directly related to Tyler since childhood, and while that didn’t work in the second part, here, it actually adds certain weight to these two main characters and their relationship, since it links them directly in a clever way. As for the character of Junior, I never understood his role or even if there was a specific “importance” or clear role for him in all this, since the story kind of points at it, but nothing ever happens to him, at least, nothing that could benefit the climax or the conclusion.
The art department and the tone still delivers, but this time, the story goes into crazier corners, being way more gruesome and gory than the previous one, elevating even the kill count by the end, and I honestly don’t know how to feel about that, since violence has been a recurrent theme in the series, and in the novel and the film it was key to dig onto this world, but I never felt it as the main attraction, or even point of focus. Yes, this is called “Fight Club”, and yes, there are fights and violent moments, but nothing like in this third part, more specifically, the ending. As I said, there is a new ‘Project Mayhem’, and people are infecting the population in order to complete the failed plan Tyler attempted before, but now, it seems to be succeeding, since a lot of people are getting killed by being infected. It’s seeming to be interesting seeing one of ‘Mayhem’s’ plans being successful, but I’m not sure if this fits with the tones and the premise previously stablished. There is also a fantastic element in which there seems to be portals that represent “dead” of the characters entering in them, but, again, I don’t think Chuck had it clear when coming up with that idea, or at least, on how to deliver it, or even exploit it properly, since it works as a “point of convergence” in a certain plot-point, but I never felt it works.
Once again Stewart delivers, even if the story turns way too exaggerated for its own good, his style and looks still deliver, and Mack’s covers are a visual delight throughout the entire 12 chapters, so the art department is safe from the negative experience. I guess I need to revisit this to properly disclose it in the way that maybe Palahniuk intended, since he isn’t a bad writer at all, it’s just, he doesn’t know how to craft comics, at least, not in the proper way, or in one that justifies the existence of these two sequels. I guess I was glad I experienced it, and some ideas (as before) were interesting and attractive enough to make me not regret of the reading, but I still cannot see these as the “Sequels” of one of the best books written in the last 30 years. I feel disappointed, as I also feel intrigued as to where this concept came from, or even the general idea of a third part of a series that worked perfectly as a standalone, without the need of a randomly odd stretching.
July 17, 2020
EU SABIA!!!!!
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