SEAGUY 559
Seaguy is a non-powered superhero who wears a scuba suit. He is accompanied by
his sidekick Chubby Da Choona, a talking, fl oating, cigar-smoking fi sh who wears a
sailor’s hat. Th ey both live in New Venice, a Florida-style location set in the near future
(some 50 to 70 years into the future, according to Morrison), full of color and energy.
Seaguy and Chubby spend their days watching TV, specifi cally Mickey Eye, a charac-
ter who has a television show and seems to be a twisted, panoptic version of a Mickey
Mouse type icon, and is a disturbing looking eyeball with two legs and one arm. Th ey
also visit Mickey Eye’s theme park on a daily basis. Seaguy also plays chess with Death,
who is depicted in this series as a skeletal gondolier. Other characters include Old
Seadog, Seaguy’s mentor, and Doc Hero, a former superhero who is now compelled to
continuously ride a Mickey Eye tilt-a-whirl, having lost the power of fl ight.
At the start of the fi rst volume, Seaguy is consumed with the desire to have adven-
tures and to be noticed by She-Beard, a warrior woman with facial hair who desires a
mate but requires him to beat her in combat. However, the age of superheroes is over
and Seaguy is fi nding it impossible to even get noticed by her. His boring existence
changes when he discovers that a popular new food called Xoo has achieved sentience,
and he feels compelled to protect it from forces who are after it. He also hopes to be
fi nally noticed by She-Beard as a result of this. In addition, Moon rocks are falling to
Earth in the form of small meteorites, which is made even more strange due to the fact
that they are covered in hieroglyphics, with one such rock having the American fl ag
embedded in it (as planted by astronaut Buzz Aldrin). All of this occurs in a world
where, at some point in the past, the superheroes have triumphed over evil and have
retired, after beating a supervillain called the Anti-Dad.
Series two, Seaguy: Th e Slaves of Mickey Eye, built upon the cult reputation of its
predecessor, and was critically acclaimed in the comics press. It opens with Seaguy, who
has retained no knowledge of what happened to him in series one due to the psycho-
logical manipulation he was subjected to at the end of series one; this is reminiscent of
what occurs to the protagonists in the novels 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, by George
Orwell and Anthony Burgess respectively. Th e second series is darker in tone than the
fi rst, a more somber echo of the predominantly joyful tone of its predecessor. Chubby
has been replaced by Lucky the parrot, and Seaguy has no initial memories of his friend,
although Chubby seems to invade his consciousness throughout the series.
Mickey Eye now dominates the landscape and Seaguy struggles to cope with life.
Seaguy escapes from an institution where he has been incarcerated due to the inter-
vention of Tree Guy, Pea Guy and Th ree Guy, three super-powered heroes who have
been inspired by Seaguy. He is then given a new identity, that of El Macho, a “bull-
dresser” who has to dress bulls, not kill them like a matador. He also has to deal with
the impending marriage of Seadog and She-Beard and the growing power of Mickey
Eye during the course if this second series.
Morrison has called Seaguy his attempt at a Watchmen-style series in conceptual
terms, not in plot or characterization. He is laying down his core beliefs regard-
ing the superhero concept, and he has noted that the third volume will bring these
