SPACE FACE

A short comic+ about a lifelong love affair with the Goblin King

David Bowie, a gender-bending beautiful cosmic rock god/dess with mesmerizing eyes, stole my tender heart when I was only seven years old.

Nearly 40 years later, I still remember it like yesterday.

I was perched on top of my mother and step-father’s high-rise (to me) queen-sized bed with its dark blue quilted comforter watching The Labyrinth for the first time. I was half-entertained by the ogre puppetry, but it was Gareth, the Goblin King, who entranced me. His white spiky hair, skin-tight jumpsuits, his bad boy dance vibes. Damn. Dance Magic Dance.

Spellbound by the Goblin King for the movie’s 1-hour, 41-minute runtime, I waited for the credits to roll to see the true name of my true love.

“David Bowie,” I screamed as I tore down the stairs to find my mom.

“I am going to marry David Bowie,” I announced.

She didn’t have much to add.

“Okay” she said with an eye roll to follow.

The love only grew.

It grew so much that eventually I didn’t just want to be his wife, I wanted to be David Bowie. I remember my mom painting my face with a lightning bolt for my DIY late-’80s halloween costumes a couple years in a row.

“I am a rock star” I proudly told the candy-generous folks after they dropped treats into my bag at the doorsteps of their trailers.

In 1990 I moved again and started fifth grade at a new school. I quickly became friends with another “new kid” and before lunch, we’d already discovered our shared obsession with Bowie. She knew a lot about his wife Iman and caught me up to speed. We adored her while simultaneously being wildly jealous of her.

Together we made a zine that was equal parts Bowie worship and complete disgust for our Rush Limbaugh-loving, in-class nail-clipping teacher, Mr. Deturk.

By ninth grade, I had my first job at a movie theater and started strategically squirreling away my meager $30 paychecks. Half went in a shoebox under my bed to save for a car. The other half, minus what I spent on cigarettes, went towards carefully curating the perfect CD collection.

I don’t remember what magazine it was, but I found an article where the members of Supergrass listed their top ten favorite albums of all time.

This became my roadmap.

At the top was David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World, his third studio album, released in 1970.

The rest of my shopping list:

• Lou Reed Transformer

• J.J. Cale Troubadour

• Patti Smith Horses

• Led Zeppelin II

After listening to The Man Who Sold the World so many times that I eventually had to take the CD to CD World to have it professionally cleaned, I picked up his fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

I found my safe place.

If I was overwhelmed by the weight of adolescence, I put it on.

If my mom was in attack mode, I went upstairs and put it on.

If my heart was broken, I put it on.

If I’d spent a night experimenting with psychedelics, it was the opening track “Five Years” that somehow guided me back into my skin, time and time again.

Every word of that album is imprinted somewhere deep in my DNA.

I’m not much of singer, but when karaoke calls there are two songs I always choose: Air Supply’s power ballot Making Love out of nothing at all and Bowie’s Moonage Daydream.

I don’t read the screen.

I don’t have to.

I belt out each lyric to the rhythm of my lifelong love affair to the legend, David Bowie.