Finals first appeared in 1999 as a Vertigo mini-series. The reissue as a 100-Page Special only points up its prescience.
The story follows a group of seniors as they near graduation at Knox State University, which is one of the more unusual institutions of higher learning you’re ever going to run across. The school’s philosophy is summed up in a message from the President, Michael Woolrich: “Strength through study.” In Woolrich’s universe, this means “The strong students prevail, and the weak are chewed up and excreted by the strong.” The story follows five students: Nancy Bierce, a Comparative Religions major who has, as her senior project, founded a cult; Wally Maurer, Film Studies, who has been goofing around and not gotten any filming done on his “extreme cinema verite” project; Dave Oswald, Criminal Justice, who robs convenience stores as his project; Tim Pike, Theoretical Engineering, who is building a time machine; and Gary Skelton, Anthropology, who decides to move into the back yard and devolve. There are no holds barred in this one as everyone moves more or less inexorably to completion of their projects — one way or another.
The story line is convoluted, the humor raucous — and it is very funny, and as far as I’m concerned overtly satirical. The way situations escalate divorces the whole thing from reality — one hopes. The overall tone is pretty savage — if you back up a step and look at what these people are actually doing.
Jill Thompson’s drawing is apt — a sort of sketchy comic style that reinforces the raucous quality of Will Pfeifer’s script. Rick Taylor has applied bright cartoon colors that serve to reinforce the fantasy aspect of the story.
I said “prescience.” On reading this, I was struck by the degree to which Woolrich’s espoused philosophy could be taken as a satirical view of the corporate world view that we see more and more overtly displayed today. Call it “Dr. Strangelove, Inc.”
(Vertigo, 2011)
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