Sleeper Season Two – What’s love got to do with it?

By Jason McClain (@JTorreyMcClain)

This feels strange to say, but Sleeper: Season Two is one hell of a love story.  I thought that after first thinking about what to write about this graphic novel, and now after writing about my favorite fantasy movies, I think I’m just trapped in an endless love loop.  (No, this doesn’t have to do with continually listening to the Lionel Richie and Diana Ross song.)

So, how does a story about people that need to hurt themselves or hurt others in order to get by in their daily lives have anything to do with love?  Well, I think my contents of my question just answered my question.

Sometimes you have to put yourself out there and make yourself vulnerable.  The downside is that you could get rejected. So as the fear creeps inside you, you avoid even the specter of vulnerability.  You deprive yourself.

On the other hand, maybe you ridicule and laugh at everything that has even a touch of romance to make what you’re missing seem small, silly and unimportant.  PDA is gross.  Going to movies is stupid because you can’t talk anyway, so why does everyone do it?  “Sally and Linus, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G” had to be one of the first rhymes we learn to mock our fellow elementary schoolers.  Some people never grow out of that.

What makes this a love story?  There’s a guy.  He loves a girl, even though she isn’t good for him.  There are two girls, both of whom love a guy even though he isn’t good for them.  The guy tries to protect both of the girls.  They all try to figure out how to make it work.

Sleeper isn’t a comedy like the fantasy movies though.  If it isn’t a comedy, you can probably guess what it is.  If you can’t, I’ll give you a hint beyond what you’d see on two masks that hang in every drama student’s room.  Think Romeo and Juliet, with super powers and double crosses and adventure and great sidekicks and chess and origin stories told in third person and world domination.  (I know. All of that sounds so awesome.)

I guess, I’m saying that I really like the style of these Sleeper stories.  It surprised me the direction that they went and contained a great depth of plot.  As a person that doesn’t read things more than once too often, I’ve now read this three times in less than a year.  I guess that proves I’m just a romantic.  Though with “Sleeper: Season Two” as proof, at least I can pretend to have an edge.  Ladies dig a guy with an edge.