Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts : Matt MacFarland’s “More Seasons Of Gary”

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Owing to my previous positions as lead critic at the comics website SOLRAD and board member of its parent entity, Fieldmouse Press, I wasn’t comfortable with the notion of reviewing Matt MacFarland’s comics before, given they frequently run on said site, but now that I’m a purely “solo act” again, I have no ethical reservations when it comes to opining on his work, and so I was happy to receive a copy of his latest 48-page mini, More Seasons Of Gary (Zines & Things, 2021) and give it a thorough going-over. Admittedly, I’d already seen some of this stuff, but that’s okay — reading them one strip at a time online is an entirely different experience to reading a print collection of them, and in this case that distinction works to MacFarland’s advantage because this is material that is best consumed in its entirety rather than piecemeal.

Strict formalist work tends to be that way, I think, and in MacFarland’s case in particular his adherence to a classic four-panel grid is absolutely unwavering — he’s clearly quite comfortable with the pacing inherent to such a format and well-versed in its unique storytelling properties and capabilities, so credit’s due him for knowing both what he wants to do and how to best go about achieving it. Finding your footing is a taller order than it sounds on paper, and MacFarland’s not only found his, he’s also committed himself to it. Sub-dividing his strips according to the seasons of the year, as the title of this comic implies, represents a further layer of logical and artistic stratification that, again, he wrings maximum efficacy from, and this also holds the key to why reading these strips in collected form, one after the other, is the way to go — there’s an narrative fluidity that’s part and parcel of MacFarland’s overall framework that’s lost when you’re absorbing his material in scattershot, one-at-a-time fashion.

Anyway, MacFarland’s now-late father, Gary, is the subject of these strips — or, more specifically, the artist’s relationship with his father is — and in that respect he’s not doing anything “new” per se, but so what? The list of cartoonists who have mined their own past, and that of their family, for their best and most resonant material is a long and distinguished one. Efficacy is of primary concern here, as well as overall sequential narrative literacy, and on both of those scores this comic stands as an excellent representative example of graphic memoir done right. Autobio as a de facto “genre” is well past the point where it’s gonna “blow your mind” or whatever, so it’s just as well MacFarland isn’t concerned with trying to do so : his concerns lie far closer to home, as well they should, and there’s a real sense that what he wants to do here is to utilize memory as a tool for achieving a better understanding of both who his father was and what, at the end of the day, the guy meant to him.

Tonally, it’s fair to say MacFarland adds a dash of humor to most of these strips, but it tends to be exceptionally dry and sometimes even borders on the dark — but that’s also the case for many of the reminiscences contained herein, particularly those directly related to his dad’s struggles with the bottle and his parents’ divorce. If this is all starting to sound a bit “warts and all,” well, that’s because it is, but it’s in no way reductive or overly-simplified on the one hand, nor awash in cloying sentimentality on the other. The picture of Gary that emerges is complex, multi-faceted, and at times overtly contradictory, but that’s the case with almost anyone — at least anyone remotely interesting — and the degree to which MacFarland resists the “easy out” of character and emotional uniformity here is admirable. It’s no small task to look at oneself or one’s parents honestly and without flinching — I know I’d never wanna do it — but admitting no one is even close to perfect is only step one in this journey. Finding peace with those imperfections is considerably more difficult than merely accepting them, after all, and while it would be a reach to say some sort of catharsis is achieved by this comic’s end, that’s mostly Hollywood bullshit anyway : all most of us can hope for when it comes to saying goodbye to a loved one is a sense that the things that can come full circle have done so, and that those that can’t are okay remaining forever incomplete. Such is life — and death — and MacFarland’s skill with regard to narrative authenticity really comes though in his book’s final pages, when he’s absolutely counting on it most.

“I dunno, man, sounds kinda heavy” is a fair enough reaction to have at this point, particularly if you’re reading this while high (hey, I know my audience), but it’s not just or only heavy — it’s no stretch at all to say that these strips run the same emotional gamut that life itself tends to, and in certain key instances, while the seasonal demarcation always prevails, strict chronology is temporarily shelved in favor of thematic and tonal linkages between events and occurrences. That probably sounds more confusing than it actually is — assuming it even sounds confusing at all — but it strikes me that this is pretty well in line with how our minds tend to operate : more often than not, we mentally organize things based on how they made us feel or what was going on rather than when they happened, and in that respect, not to get too grandiose or anything, we free ourselves from time’s unyielding (and, according to most quantum theorists at any rate, largely illusory) linear trajectory. This comic works in much the same way our actual memories work, and you need only consult your own memory for proof of that which I speak.

All that being said, as a matter of pure practicality there may be no trickier task in today’s comics landscape than producing a work of memoir or autobio that well and truly stands out from the crowd. MacFarland, however, has managed to do precisely that with this one — and I seriously doubt I’d have said that if I hadn’t read these strips in succession, collected between two covers. I highly encourage you to experience them the same way, even — maybe especially — if you’ve already read some, most, or all of them in serialized form online.

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More Seasons Of Gary is available for $7.00 from the Zines & Things website at https://zinesandthings.com/shop/msog

Also, this review is “brought to you” by my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics for as little as a dollar a month. Subscribing is the best way to support my continuing work, so I’d be very appreciative if you’d take a moment to give it a look by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

Intriguingly Mixed Signals : Isaac Roller’s “Transmissions From Dreamtown”

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

The recent resurgence of so-called “solo anthology titles” or “single-creator anthologies” has been a welcome development for those of us who literally grew up on comics of that nature (Yummy Fur, Eightball, Dirty Plotte, Neat Stuff, etc.), but there’s no doubt that this latter-day veritable onslaught of them has been a mixed bag — which is rather the point of anthologies in general, I suppose. And yet many of the newcomers to “the scene” are often a mixed bag, conceptually and qualitatively, in and of themselves, as well, irrespective of the broader comics landscape in general. This shouldn’t be terribly surprising — people tend to forget, but not every strip in Eightball was a winner, especially in the series’ early going — but it also shouldn’t be viewed as a negative : seeing a cartoonist finding their footing, establishing their voice, or whatever other cliche you’d like to use in place of “figuring their shit out” is often a damned interesting thing to have a front-row seat to, and one would do well to keep that in mind as we delve into New York-based artist Isaac Roller’s self-published Transmissions From Dreamtown.

Roller’s been at this for two years now, producing four issues to date, and while it wouldn’t be quite accurate to say the trajectory of them has been uniformly upward, the general character of his series is such that things appear to be moving in the right direction on the whole, and he seems quite comfortable with the de facto “self-apprenticeship” that is learning on the job with no boss to tell you what to do — which, for the record, is not the same thing as fumbling your way forward in the dark. It’s a tricky business, this whole “following your artistic instincts for good or ill, wherever they may lead you” thing, and in a manner not entirely dissimilar to that of Brian Canini, whose work we’ve discussed on this site several times in the past, Roller doesn’t seem particularly anchored down to any one way of doing things — tonally or aesthetically.

Perhaps the best example I can give of this is the third issue of this comic, which makes an abrupt detour from the urban hustle and bustle of the first two installments to tell an extremely satisfying self-contained tale set in BF Alaska, where wooly mammoth meat has become the new *haute cuisine*, and Roller adopts a more clean-lined art style with clear roots in classical cartooning as opposed to the deliberately “rough around the edges” look of numbers one and two in order to more effectively communicate the needs of this particular narrative. The fourth and more recent issue, focused on an alien visitation, returns the focus to the big city, but with the more refined aesthetic approach of number three — so, yeah, you can see him pretty clearly figuring out not only what he wants to do, but perhaps even what sort of cartoonist he wants to be. That doesn’t always make for a “smooth” reading experience, granted, but it does make for an *exciting* one — after all, any new comic in this series could be about literally anything at all, and may even *look* completely different to what’s come before.

Does this make roller a genuine artistic chameleon by default? Possibly, but there is a definite unifying overall sensibility in terms of his page layouts, spot use of wash effects, and the like that clues you into the fact that these books are all made by the same person regardless of the obvious differences that are front and center. I’m not sure he’s fully committed to any one “path,” so to speak, but he appears firmly committed to discovering one, and that means everything’s still on the table and the future of this comic is well and truly wide open.

One thing Roller is clearly getting a firm handle on is using his stories to communicate a distinct authorial point of view, usually via allegorical means, and he’s got a really good balancing act going there — he’s not subtle, nor does he clobber you over the head with his messaging, and threading that needle is, more often than not, the mark of a natural storyteller. Some of his subject matter is specific not so much to him personally but to the artistic community as a whole (issue two’s primary focus is on the physical handling of art), while other things he’s expounding upon are more universal in nature (the aforementioned third issue has plenty to say about man’s exploitation of the natural world *and* the nauseating excesses of so-called “foodie culture”), but there’s a definite sense of passion underpinning all of it that can’t be faked and makes for enjoyable, if again occasionally uneven, reading. It’s earnest stuff, to be sure, but *naturally* earnest as opposed to *self-consciously* earnest, and that makes all the difference right there.

Just to remove any doubt, then, I *absolutely* recommend this series — and Roller’s work in general. I have yet to read his pandemic diary comics collection ***My Plague Year***, but I did come across some of his stuff in ***Clusterfux Comi***x (another title that’s due for a review on here soon) and found that to be engaging, as well. It’s too soon to say whether or not we’re witnessing the emergence of the next great cartooning talent or what have you, but seriously — who the hell cares? I’m plenty interested in seeing Isaac Roller become whatever sort of cartoonist he *wants* to become, and there’s no question in my mind that he’s committed to putting in the work necessary to establish a true *auteur* sensibility and methodology. Art is a process of experimentation, of trial and error, and the truly determined artist in never content to rest on his or her laurels. How much of the transformation happening before our eyes with this particular artist is down to an evolutionary process and how much is down to simple restlessness I couldn’t really say, nor does it necessarily matter all that much : as long as Roller doesn’t stand still, I’ll be interested to follow him wherever he’s going.

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Issues 1-4 of Transmissions From Dreamtown are available from Isaac Roller’s website at http://www.isaac-roller.com/shop

Also, this review is “brought to you” by my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics for as little as a dollar a month. Subscribing is the best way to support my continuing work, so I’d be very grateful if you’d take a moment to give it a look by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

So — Wuzza “Buzza Wuzza,” Anyway?

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

The short answer to the question posed by the headline of this review would likely be “a self-published comic by cartoonist Jeff Ralston (or, as he credits himself, Buzza Wuzza, which also happens to be both the series’ title and the name of the anthropomorphic cat who is its nominal “star”) presented in a generously over-sized magazine format,” but that’s really only scratching the surface. It’s quite clearly a labor of love, perhaps with emphasis on the *labor* : Ralston produced no less than *19 issues* of ***Buzza Wuzza Comics And Stories*** during the recent pandemic-engendered lockdown, and unlike any number of artists who are understandably happy enough to send yours truly a comic or two for purposes of reading and reviewing them, he actually went so far as to send me *all 19* of his comics this past August. Hence the still-inexcusable delay on my part in getting this analysis/appraisal written — that’s a big ol’ pile of comics to read, and I never like to half-ass anything. If Ralston wanted me to read ’em all, then read ’em all I shall — and did.

Early on in said reading, though, it became apparent that tackling these in small chunks was the way to go — Ralston has created an idiosyncratic world unto itself here, where only his own made-up-on-the-fly rules apply, and given that none of the strips he’s put pen, ink, pencil, brush and occasionally even magic marker and collage cut-out to have carried over from issue to issue, there was no need to worry about my always-tenuous memory failing me altogether or, less drastically, requiring some sort of jolt or kick-start to get back into the flow of things. Issue, say, 12 is every bit as accessible as issue one, and there’s a kind of beautiful simplicity to that which should appeal to anybody out there either bored to tears with, or simply seeking respite from, long-form comics narratives. Complexity is great and all, but who needs it all the fucking time?

Which, come to think of it, isn’t a bad segue into a discussion about Ralston’s art. By and large this is agreeably simple stuff, done with no particular concern for the trappings of visual sophistication, and while I’m not sure this is down to this being as “good” as Ralston can draw or a deliberate stylistic choice on his part, it doesn’t really matter : what he’s come up with, by dint of either decision or default, is an immediately accessible and utterly cohesive visual language that doesn’t necessarily “impress” per se, but intuitively *feels right* for the kind of vaguely absurdist humor strips that are, it’s fair to say given the large sample size at my disposal, his stock in trade. Ralston’s ensemble generally partake in what can loosely be described as “madcap adventures,” and as such it helps to not only have them delineated in a kind of free-for-all scrawl by the artist, but also to be in the right frame of mind yourself to absorb this kind of intellectually non-taxing stuff — for my own part, I found reading an issue to cap off a long day at work was the way to go, and while that may sound like me damning this entire project with faint praise, I assure you it’s not : after all, who *can’t* use a couple stupid laughs after eight or more hours of workplace drudgery?

And so it is that Ralston can accurately be said to be more concerned with doing a particular thing and doing it reasonably well than he can be “accused” of being too overly ambitious. Issue 11 breaks the mold by being a prose and mixed-media affair, and it’s plenty interesting as a one-off, but there’s a definite sense by the time it’s over with that Ralston is perfectly content to return to regularly-scheduled programming for his next installment, and I have a hunch most readers will be on board with that decision, as well : when you’re in a bit of a creative groove, after all, there’s no need to rock the boat too terribly much, and by that point in the series it’s plainly obvious that such a groove has, indeed, been achieved. If I can level any specific criticism at this comic as a whole it would probably be that it boasts little to no progression, either in pure storytelling terms or in terms of the methodology behind the creation of said stories, but again, I should stress that I don’t have a huge problem with that given the project’s aims, which strive for a kind of tenuous balance between unpredictability and consistency, with Ralston more often than not succeeding at delivering both.

Anyway, characters come and go from the revolving door of Ralston’s imagination according to their utility to each issue’s particular story (or stories), but it’s a pretty damn likable bunch of animals (Buzza Wuzza, Judy Moon, Clancy The Cop, Dr, La Paz, Wuv Bunny, Messy Rabbit, Smokey The Cat) and people (Pal, Stressy) as well as the occasional ghost, robot, monster, and devil (among others) that populate the series’ core cast, and if you wonder what all they get up to beyond “hijinks ensue,” it’s generally stuff like going to Mars, solving mysteries, fighting crime, playing in shitty bands, visiting Stonehenge, serving in combat, going to jail, etc. — in other words, yeah, “hijinks ensue.” My favorite issue is of the bunch is probably #17, a full-length story called “Friends Of The Library,” but on the whole each installment isn’t too far removed from every other in terms of both overall tone and overall quality. I’m not sure if Ralston took much by way of breaks when writing and drawing these things, but they very much feel the end product of an artist who got a head of steam to do something quite specific and stuck with it until he’d done everything he wanted to do within the parameters he’d set for himself.

Which wouldn’t, I suppose, necessarily preclude Ralston from spinning more yarns set in his little de facto “universe” should he feel so inclined — after all, “just kinda doing whatever” is about as open-ended as premises come — and I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to checking out more if he makes more. These aren’t comics that will turn your world upside down or anything, but they *will* entertain you, especially if your sense of humor is just a touch off-kilter, and despite what the self-styled “intelligentsia” out there may tell you, there’s nothing at all *wrong* with cartoonists who want to entertain their readers. In fact, it’s a pretty damn noble goal in our increasingly dark world.

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There doesn’t seem to be much by way of distribution for Buzza Wuzza Comics And Stories, but interested parties are directed to contact Jeff Ralston directly at buzzawuzza1@yahoo.com if you’d like to order up and issue or two — or even all 19, I suppose.

Circle Of Life : Mike Freiheit’s “Go F❤ck Myself : The F❤ckpendium”

Posted on December 1, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

While one could argue that the prospect of seeing a cartoonist “work through their shit” on the page is something that *should* have played itself out a long time ago, I’m not too self-consciously cool to admit that such exercises still hold some appeal to me, especially when they’re approached in a unique or novel manner. Mike Freiheit’s latest, ***Go Fck Myself : The Fckpendium*** (Kilgore Books, 2021), however, is something that’s well beyond merely “unique” or “novel” — it’s downright *ambitious*, in that it offers a reasonably detailed analysis of problems and challenges, both personal and societal, that hold us back by dint of their repetition throughout history. Oh, and just for good measure, he posits (not without justification) they’ll continue to haunt us well into the future, too.

I should, I suppose, be clear here — by “us,” I’m primarily referring to Freiheit himself, since he’s his own subject here, but much of the self-doubt, self-loathing, guilt, anxiety, and fear that serve as constant stumbling blocks for him are felt, to one degree or another, by all (or at least almost all) human beings, so for a book ostensibly rooted in autobio, it’s fair to say this one has a borderline-universal appeal. Provided, of course, that comics of this nature even “appeal” to you in the first place.

I’ve gotta say, though, that there’s literally no reason why this one *shouldn’t* — Freheit’s artistic sensibilities are pretty damn populist on the whole, and while he spends an awful lot of time putting his flaws under the microscope, he doesn’t appear to actively *despise* himself, a la an R. Crumb or an Ivan Brunetti, so much as he seeks to understand why breaking old and established patterns is such *excruciating* fucking work. Simply put, he knows he’s far from perfect, but he’d at least like to *try* to get better — if he can. And, really, that strikes me as the healthiest way to begin the process of overcoming a decidedly unhealthy batch of neuroses.

To that end, this particular piece of long-form cartooning therapy bobs and weaves through three separate timelines populated by three distinctly different, yet also undeniably similar, versions of Freiheit himself : in the present, he’s a befuddled and anxious jobbing artist trying to navigate married life and the workings of his own mind; in the past, he’s a befuddled and anxious caveman trying to navigate married life and the base struggle for survival; and in the future —well, he’s probably a bit stereotypically “more together” on the surface, but as you’ve no doubt already worked out, many of the same dilemmas his other selves grapple with are still present and accounted for, plus some additional ones.

Such a flexible approach to self-centeredness affords Freiheit ample opportunity to expound upon topics ranging from economics to politics to religion to pop philosophy (plus others), but this is no simple series of monologues or dully-presented observations — rather, it’s a dynamic and engrossing look into one person’s point of view of just about everything under the sun, even if that “one” person is actually *three* people. And while I admit to being partial to the textured, shaded artwork Freiheit has employed on more generally “somber” or even “dark” projects such as his horror graphic novel ***The Woods*** or the strip “Walk A Mile In My Shoes : A Jonestown History” that he did in collaboration with some out-of-his-depth comics critic or other for the ***American Cult*** anthology, there’s no question that the more clean, crisp line he employs here (with, it should be pointed out, increasing confidence as the book goes along — likely owing to the fact that parts one and two were originally self-published as minis and part three is all new, therefore this project can truly be said to have been several years in the making) is pitch-perfect for the expository-bordering-on-confessional tone of this material. It’s necessary for him to draw readers into this comic in a way that’s *cordial* to them so that he can be far *tougher* on himself without alienating anybody in the process, and he pulls off that conceptual tight-rope act with considerable aplomb here — not only visually, but narratively, as well.

Still, one could certainly be forgiven for operating under the assumption that this thing must be scattered and haphazard almost by *definition*, so perhaps the fact that it’s actually a remarkably *cohesive* piece of work on the whole stands as its most notable accomplishment. There are no easy answers to any of the questions Freiehit poses — if, indeed, there are any answers *at all* — but by taking us along for the ride rather than throwing us in at the deep end and seeing if we sink or swim, by laying out his “warts and all” truth without being overly precious about it, and by reminding us frequently along the way that there’s a funny side to just about everything, he’s created something both special and very nearly singular : a conversation with himself (or maybe that should be himselves) that speaks to us all.

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Go Fck Myself : The Fckpendium is available for $20.00 from the Kilgore Books website at http://www.kilgorebooks.com/shop/go-fck-myself-the-fckpendium-mike-freiheit

All That, Plus The Kitchen Sink : Chris Cajero Cilla And Greg Petix’s “Swonknibus”

Posted on November 30, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Whether you love comics like this or hate them, the simple fact is that we need more like them : legitimate “anything goes” creative free-for-alls that have nothing limiting them other than the scope of the author’s imagination — or, in the case, the authors’ imaginations, plural.

The “comic like this” in question is Swonknibus, a newly-released collection of cartoonist Chris Cajero Cilla and writer Greg Petix’s weekly Swonk strip that ran in the pages of the University of Arizona student newspaper The Daily Wildcat from 1995-97. It’s more than that, of course — Cilla published this under the auspices of his own Sardine Can Press (apparently there’s also a hardback version available as a print-on-demand job from Lulu) and has seen fit to include an intriguing smattering of ‘zine content he created with Petix from roughly the same time period, and to round the entire package out with three pages of extensive footnotes — but for purposes of this review, all you really need to know is that if Swonk is to your tastes, the supplemental material is sure to be as well, and if it’s not, then it won’t be. Fair enough?

How, then, to best decide whether or not ***Swonk*** is, indeed, to your tastes? Well, let’s see — if you like random pop culture references, even more random pop culture send-ups, absurdism thinly veiled as satire, absurdism for its own sake, satire for its own sake, political humor, entirely amoral humor, gross-out humor, gross-out shit that isn’t humorous, stand-alone strips, multi-part strips, recurring characters, one-off characters, and all kinds of stuff that either does or *should* make you feel at least a little bit guilty for laughing at it, then congratulations. You’ve come to the right place. There’s something in here to both please and offend just about everybody.

I’m a longtime admirer of Cilla’s comics, but this is my first time even hearing of Swonk, let alone actually seeing it, and as such it’s interesting to note the ways in which it both is and isn’t what a person would expect from the “warts and all” early work of someone who would go on to become an auteur cartoonist. A fair amount of the divergence from expectation can likely be chalked up to Petix’s influence, of course — he wrote this material, after all — but it’s equally interesting to note how markedly similar their sensibilities are in so many key respects, and therefore easy to see why collaboration was such a natural thing for them. They both share a decidedly askew view of reality and aren’t afraid to take the piss out of just about anyone and anything, but they both have a gift for making nonsense make sense (if — errrmmm — that makes sense), and so don’t be too surprised if much of what’s on offer here ends up feeling to you like it could just as well have been the product of one mind rather than two.

Still, in many ways, that’s the ultimate mark of success for endeavors such as this one, is it not? When what’s on the page reflects the creative output of two people who are on the *same* page, the results are often terrific, dare I even say *alchemical*, and so they are here — albeit with an added caveat, that being : if you take offense at the notion of being offended (not even necessarily *easily* offended) and can’t get past it, you’d do well to avoid this collection altogether. There are absolutely no sacred cows in the world of ***Swonk***, and while that makes he strip very much an artistic inheritor of the underground legacy, well — if the undergrounds bugged you, this will too. And for many of the same reasons.

For my own part, though, what can I say? I loved this book. But then slapdash regurgitations direct and unfiltered from the id have *always* been my cup of tea, and while I’m not at all dismissive of those whose life experiences have led them to develop more delicate sensibilities for any number of entirely valid reasons, I don’t think *all* comics should be forced to cater to said sensibilities by any stretch — especially when there are already so many comics that do so as a matter of course. It takes a cast-iron stomach and maybe even a vacationing conscience to enjoy much of ***Swonknibus*** — but if you have at least one or the other, preferably both, then you’re in for a great time.

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Swonknibus is available for $12.00 from the Sardine Can Press Storenvy site at https://sardinecanpress.storenvy.com/products/31736386-swonknibus

Also, this review is “brought to you” by my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics. Subscribing is the best way to support my continuing work, so I’d be very appreciative if you’d take a moment to give it a look by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

Rawness And Refinement : R. Kikuo Johnson’s “No One Else”

Posted on November 29, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

On paper, at any rate, R. Kikuo Johnson’s cartooning sounds like the kind of thing that an admittedly uncultured slob like yours truly wouldn’t — maybe even *shouldn’t* — find appealing : sleek, visually literate, evocative to the point of being achingly so at times, this is the kind of classy stuff one would expect to find in the pages of ***The New Yorker***. And so it is that Johnson has spent much a good chunk of the past several years plying his trade for that venerable bastion of the Eastern self-appointed intelligentsia, which is no sin by any means : it’s just not, roughly speaking, “my thing.”

Still, every now and again it pays to stretch oneself beyond the limits of one’s own largely illusory “comfort zone” and to see just what it is that everybody else is reading — and there’s no doubt that Johnson’s long-awaited new graphic novel, No One Else (Fantagraphics, 2021) will be among the year’s most talked-about releases, especially when it comes to the so-called “bookstore crowd.” If one wanted to take a cynical view of things, in fact, it wouldn’t necessarily be at all out of line to say this comic essentially plays directly to that demographic’s sensibilities, being — as the title of this review would suggest — an inherently refined work by its very nature. But it’s that other world in the title, “rawness,” that kept me turning the pages with this one —

Maui resident Charlene, our nominal protagonist, has it rough from the outset : struggling to juggle work as a nurse with being a single mother to her son, Brandon, and caring for her aging, dementia-afflicted father is enough to drive anyone around the bend, but she’s found a way to center herself within the maelstrom of career and familial insanity by carving out a kind of necessary emotional distance bordering on aloofness that may not be healthy for those around her at all times, but preserves a sense of self for her within a life that affords almost no such mental health luxuries. When the old man dies she soldiers on as best she can, maintaining a disconcertingly businesslike demeanor at all times even as events at home clearly begin to overwhelm her, but when her estranged brother (who, for the record, she never even mentioned their father’s passing to) returns to the island, right after she decides to chuck her job in order to study for the med school entrance exam, and then her kid’s beloved cat disappears, the thin thread tethering her to the rest of humanity begins to fray — not that she’s even capable of verbalizing such things.

If there’s one shill Johnson excels at above all else, it’s representing Woody Allen-esque emotional austerity in a manner every bit as understated as such a mindset/personality type demands in order to come across as authentic. Where his visual metaphors (in this case a recurring motif of burning sugar cane fields) can come off as heavy-handed at best, too obvious by half at worst, his depictions of everyday life and its quiet alienations are never less than absolutely masterful. In a manner not entirely unlike Adrian Tomine back when he was still trying, Johnson’s characters say volumes by saying very little and letting his art do the talking. Brandon’s father is never mentioned, but we know the kid misses him all the same; Charlene’s vocabulary doesn’t even include the word “loneliness,” but we know it’s eating her alive; her father’s physical and mental abuse is never explicitly referenced until the late going, but it hangs over every page regardless. This is powerful, emotionally raw stuff, covered in the “nothing to see here, folks” trappings of multiple layers of mostly-silent denial.

To that end, while this is a brisk enough read, it’s nevertheless a draining and difficult one. Family dysfunction is never pretty, of course, family dysfunction that’s forever swept under the rug even less so, but damn if this isn’t the way reality plays out for any number of people attempting to get by in a late-stage capitalist economy that largely survives on the denial of intimacy at all levels in order to keep chugging along while it destroys the very natural world upon which its (and our) survival is dependent. In much the same way as his characters, Johnson addresses this without directly addressing it, hence those rather clumsy metaphors just referenced, but when he allows his characters to address it for him by dint of their actions and reactions, or lack thereof, the results are equal parts sublime and harrowing.

Yes, this is a self-consciously “sophisticated” comic. And while its central characters have their struggles, it’s fair to say they don’t seem terribly challenged in terms of making ends meet economically — apart from a very brief scene where Charlene’s credit card is turned down to pay for her med school exam, which seems to be resolved “off-page” in fairly short order. That in no way invalidates their traumas or mental and emotional hardships, though, and to dismiss them outright as the trials and tribulations of the “privileged” is to engage in a sort of reverse-snobbery that I don’t care to be a part of. Johnson is a master of his craft, and I can always appreciate exceptional cartooning, regardless of whether or not said style of cartooning is my usual cup of tea. There are other ways of making really good comics than the various and sundry methodologies and aesthetic approaches that I prefer — Johnson’s book serves as a very welcome reminder that understatement can sometimes be the most powerful statement of all.

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No One Else is available for $16.99 from the Fantagraphics website at https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/no-one-else?_pos=1&_psq=no%20one&_ss=e&_v=1.0&variant=40119470915745

Also, this review is “brought to you” by my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics for as little as a dollar a month. Subscribing is the best way to support my continuing work, so I’d be very appreciative indeed if you’d take a moment to give it a look by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

Happy Meal Time Machine : Ana Galvan’s “Afternoon At McBurger’s”

Posted on November 17, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Clocking in at a lean and mean 64 pages, Spanish cartoonist Ana Galvan’s latest, Afternoon At McBurger’s (originally published in 2020 as Tarde En McBurger’s, coming soon in a hardback English-language edition from Fantagraphics with translation by Jamie Richards) packs a tremendous conceptual wallop cleverly hidden within the trappings of a fairly breezy narrative. Inventively structured, meticulously rendered, and lavishly adorned with a riso-friendly color palette, it’s an auteur work in every sense of the term, a comic that could have been made by no one other than its creator. It’s also, and I say this with nothing but respect, a rather deft extended sleight-of-hand trick.

Which is to say, if laid out in strictly linear fashion, it would probably be a bit too obvious for its own good on the whole, but the mark of any visionary is to assemble things in a manner that reflects their own point of view, and often that involves presenting readers with a new take on fairly standard storytelling tropes. I mean, time travel narratives are nearly as old as time itself, and this is hardly the first occasion in which they’ve been utilized within the confines of what could broadly be termed “YA” fiction, but what Galvan is concerned with more than the nuts and bolts of the brief glimpses of the future the girls in her story are “gifted” with is the implications these “life spoilers” have on them in the here and now — and, on the other side of the coin, she’s also exploring by default how the mindsets of the youngsters’ here and now selves shape their perceptions of who they will become.

Not that the here and now of her comic is necessarily our own here and now, mind you — unless you know of fast food joints that run time travel lotteries for kids (appropriately termed “Once Parties”) or people who have little egg-shaped household robot servitors — but at its core the character of this world and its de facto social order is at least as familiar as it is exotic. Again, Galvan’s real skill lies in presenting the tried and true through a set of eyes that makes it all seem fresh bordering on the revelatory. And, in that sense, it’s not unfair to describe this as a pastel-hued rumination on the nature of adolescence itself, a coming-of-age fable for the first generation to have their lives directly impacted by AI algorithms from cradle to grave — even if that’s a gross oversimplification of things on its face. Loss of wonder and innocence and egalitarianism is still a part of growing up, but the effects of those losses have broader implications these days than they once did in that they’re now every bit as technologically based as they are biologically and socially. And while the corporate overlords of McBurger’s aren’t cruel enough to show the “winners” of their contest the steps and stages that will lead to the futures they’re temporarily dropped into, even a quick look at how things are going turn out for you will necessarily effect how a person goes about their lives in the present.

So, yeah — there’s a hell of a lot to consider when reading this comic, and Galvan’s layered, multi-faceted approach to telling it results in something of a narrative “onion” that reveals new layers beneath each one that readers peels away. Again, it’s not so much a confusing or convoluted approach as it is an inherently clever one, and while that’s undoubtedly deliberate, it’s to the cartoonist’s great credit that she’s not out to wow you with her ingenuity — she’s simply following her own artistic instincts, and that’s still the both the best and most honest way to make art in the first place.

Anyone who’s read Galvan’s previous Fanta-published work, the 2019 short story collection Press Enter To Continue, will recognize this new book as being very much “of a piece,” both thematically and aesthetically, with its predecessor, but don’t take that to mean she’s resting on her laurels and simply staking out familiar territory. While it’s true that she isn’t expanding her approach per se, she’s doing something every bit as important : refining it, sharpening it, and deepening it. She’s clearly got a very specific — and unique — methodology, as well as a very particular set of concerns and a very unorthodox prism through which she views them, but I don’t see that, at least to this point, as limiting the scope of her imagination in any way. In fact, I defy anyone to read both books in one go and not be utterly convinced that she’s finding both her her voice and her footing remarkably quickly and that her best work is probably yet to come.

But hey, what the hell do I know? I mean, it’s not like I can see the future or anything. In the present, though, I think it’s entirely fair to say that Ana Galvan is proving to be one of the most intriguing and exciting emerging talents in comics.

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Afternoon At McBurger’s is slated for release on December 7th, 2022, and can be pre-ordered from the Fantagraphics website at https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/coming-soon/products/afternoon-at-mcburgers

Death Becomes Us All : Pier Dola’s “From Granada To Cordoba”

Posted on November 16, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Sometimes, as a critic, you do your best to skirt around the edges, to beat around the bush, to work your way from the outskirts in as you discuss/analyze a particular piece of work. It’s not a bad sleight-of-hand approach to take given that it generally achieves the desired effect of making you look thoughtful at the very least, maybe even smart if you’re lucky, but it only goes so far : some stuff, you see, simply demands that you cut through the bullshit and get right to the heart of the matter.

Pier Dola’s debut graphic novel From Granada To Cordoba (Fantagraphics Underground, 2021) is just such a work, it’s true, but it’s also something more than “merely” that : it’s a book so visceral, so unforgiving, so unrelenting that even descriptions or synopses of it aren’t for the faint of heart. It’s an absolute fucking gut-punch of a comic, in other words, and even though it’s also hysterically funny, the humor in no way alleviates the psychological pressure that literally bears down on you from first page to last.

All of which makes it sound like a far rougher slog than it really is, I suppose, but it’s probably best to weed out the easily-offended — or even just the easily-shocked — well in advance with a book like this one, even though there’s a solid argument to be made for the idea that the aesthetically unadventurous benefit most from exposure to work of this nature. And what “nature” would that be, you ask? Well, the story focuses on a poor shmuck (who, for the record, isn’t ever even given the dignity of a *name*) who suffers a rectal prolapse, gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, and can’t catch a break from anybody — Nazi cops, hookers, priests, you name it — as he contemplates the utter pointlessness of his life and the rapid approach of its end. Can’t a guy just tackle multiple insurmountable personal crises in peace?

The publisher’s back cover blurb promises “near-psychotic episodes, including what may be the most horrifyingly surreal Freudian nightmare ever penned by a cartoonist,” and damn if that’s not a case of absolute truth in advertising, but Dola’s incisive wit, inventive page layouts, admirable skills as an artist (in particular as a caricaturist — be on the lookout for a doctor who’s a dead ringer for Eddie Murphy among other celebrity-doppleganger “cameos”), and blithe, almost nonchalant approach to grappling with the existential abyss make taking this journey, well, if not exactly pleasurable, at least perversely enjoyable. Just be aware that the best place to store your gag reflex while reading this is probably in a strong box with an impenetrable lock, because if it even sneaks its way back into you, then you’re screwed.

This isn’t just confrontational material, then, it’s downright combustible — but that doesn’t preclude it from being both scathingly honest and, in its own way, absolutely accurate. As to what it’s it’s right about, well, that depends on your point of view, but if you take “life’s a bitch and then you die” not as an end-all/be-all cliche but as a starting point to understanding the full scope of reality’s unbending arc, then you’re ready for where Dola is out to take you. According to his bio he’s led the sort of life that would lend itself rather well to explorations of the sort he’s engaging in here, too — born in Poland, his father was purportedly a globe-trotting oil tanker worker who’d bring his son comics from South America, comics which indelibly stained/informed his outlook as he grew to adulthood and made his way through the seedy underbelly of Italy, living as a squatter until he got married and had a kid. Currently, he’s 56 years old, is employed as a dishwasher, and this is his first-ever published work — but how much of this is true, how much is pure bullshit, and how much falls somewhere in between I really couldn’t say. I almost find myself hoping it’s an entirely fraudulent piece of self-created legend, but what I want doesn’t really matter. Nor, for that matter, does the veracity of Dola’s backstory itself. What matters is that it makes for a fitting postscript to a book that sure seems like it could be the product of the imagination of someone whose existence has been a decidedly tumultuous one.

I say that because, really, tumult and turmoil is the order of business here, and the sheer amount of nonsense Dola’s protagonist has to contend with flies directly in the face of his “all of this was a bore, all of it was for nothing, so I might as well get my rocks off on my way out” attitude — or does it? Consider, perhaps, that Dola could actually be advancing an argument that life is an obstacle course that dares you to keep your sanity intact — a phantasmagorical whirlwind of misadventure, psychodrama, unknowable terror, and stifled, stilted attempts at achieving something forever out of reach. That it’s not so much a pointless slog, but a prolonged cosmic conspiracy to prevent you, personally, from realizing any sort of genuine satisfaction. If so, then that’s something well beyond garden-variety misanthropy, and probably more akin to the farthest fringes of nihilistic philosophy. I mean, it’s one thing to posit that life is meaningless and other people suck, quite another to posit that both life itself and the other people leading it are out to cut your nuts off at every turn.

Now, taking things a step further, if we accept — even just momentarily, or for the sake of argument — that this worldview is accurate, then the next logical (and decidedly uncomfortable) question is : what is death? Dola’s answer would appear to be that it is not just the end of life, not just “the peace of the grave,” but that it is actually life’s one and only act of mercy. I mean, I don’t want to give away too much about the final few pages here, but they are both absolutely beautiful and a succinct, non-lyrical appraisal of nature’s endless cycle of creation and destruction. It’s an entirely fitting capstone to a journey equal parts harrowing and hilarious in that it’s oddly melancholic while also being entirely unromantic in its realism, but shit — we’re so far beyond quaint concepts like good and evil, right and wrong at this point that the only way to judge it is in terms of its efficacy alone, and in that respect, it’s not only a fitting conclusion, it’s the only one there could possibly be.

There are any number of works of art across all media that are, if you’ll forgive the overused term, “easier to admire than they are to like,” but Dola has created something altogether different here : his comic is damn difficult to admire and even *more* difficult to like — but it’s also, ultimately, absolutely *impossible* for any reader who appreciates a challenge not to do both.

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From Granada To Cordoba is available for $40.00 directly from Fantagraphics at https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/from-granada-to-cordoba?_pos=1&_psq=from&_ss=e&_v=1.0

Also, this review is “brought to you” by my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the worlds of comics, films, television, literature, and politics for as little as a dollar a month. Subscribing is the best way to support my continuing work, so I’d be very appreciative indeed if you’d take a moment to give it a look by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

The Allure Of “Lure”

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

“There is another world. There is a better world. Well, there must be.”

Or so The Smiths — and, a few years later, Grant Morrison — would have us believe, but if there’s one thing the billionaire space race has taught us, it’s that these assholes are looking to commodify everything, Earthbound and otherwise, in their dick-measuring contest writ large. One of the most remarkable things about Lane Milburn’s new full-length hardback graphic novel, Lure (Fantagraphics, 2021), though, is that he started work on it some five years ago, long before Bezos, Branson, Musk, and their ilk decided the stars were their destination.

Okay, there’s one wrinkle in that it is Earth’s fictitious twin planet of Lure (hence the title) that the story’s Amazon stand-in has set its sights on for capitalist exploitation, but other than that you’ve gotta say that this is an eerily predictive slice of sci-fi, in addition to being a thoughtfully-written and gorgeously-rendered one. Our main protagonist, Jo, and her friends/co-workers are very much like people you and I know (if you’ll forgive the assumption that your social circle isn’t entirely dissimilar to my own) in that they’re artists making ends meet by voluntarily conscripting their creativity in service of “The Man,” but the stakes here are higher than than those attendant with, say, building a sculpture garden on a Silicon Valley corporate “campus”: if their 3-D holographic show goes off as planned, the world’s business and political leaders will be “all in” on a plan to let the Earth go to rot and kick off a new era of economic imperialism all over again under the unsullied (for now, at any rate) skies of our largely-aquatic neighbor world. So, yeah — it’s fair to say Milburn’s cosmic playground is equal parts eminently relatable and decidedly less so.

As you’ve no doubt picked up on, the allegorical value of this book is in no way subtle, but Milburn eschews heavy-handedness by making it a character study first and foremost — in fact, if there’s one (admittedly minor) criticism I’d level here it’s that the fluidity and ease with which he draws us into these people’s lives is almost *too* successful for its own good. The pacing is naturalistic, unhurried, even bordering on the lyrical for the first 95% of the story and then, bam! We get an out-of-left-field ending that’s admittedly effective, but nevertheless both sudden *and* open to all kinds of interpretation. I’ll be the first to admit that the more I thought about the story’s final act the more I liked it — and the less rushed it seemed in retrospect — but at the same time, I could’ve happily spent another hundred pages (at least) immersed in the various trials, travails, and tribulations of Jo and her friends.

Still, it’s always better to leave readers wanting than it is to overstay one’s welcome, and Milbun is first and foremost a highly intuitive artist : he knew when he’d said all that he had to say with these characters and proceeded to give his narrative a jarring, but entirely apropos, finale rather than belabor any of the points he was making. I respect the hell out of that even if it means a more concise book than I might have wanted personally — but seriously, how many readers other than myself are going to consider 192 pages to be “too short” in the first place? I don’t know much, it’s true, but I know when I’m standing alone.

One thing *everybody* is going to love about this comic, though, is the art. As lush, rich, and expansive as the planet upon which it takes place, Milburn’s illustrations are absorbing enough to lose yourself in for hours, and likewise add a layer of intrigue to the proceedings in that there are instances in which he deliberately obfuscates or even omits certain facial features for reasons that are known only to *him*, but offer fertile grounds for speculation for us. Again, repeated explorations of the material offer some clues — I would advise readers to pay special attention to the mythological backstory of the planet’s creation — but when it comes to firm answers, both narratively *and* visually, it’s going to be on you to divine a number of them for yourself. Fortunately, the art is so gorgeous that you’re not going to feel like putting the book down, anyway.

Also worthy of note is Milburn’s decided lack of cynicism, which is remarkable when dealing with subject matter that offers so damn much to be cynical *about*. The triumph of, as my friend Aaron Lange recently put it, “Starbucks neoliberalism” is a depressing enough prospect to be staring in the face, as is the grim political reality that rabid, conspiratorial, racist and fascist nationalism is being widely embraced as the most viable pseudo-“response” to it, but Milburn seems to hold out hope that people can still throw a wrench in the works and prevent, to one extent or another the “Alternative 3” (speaking of conspiracies)-style future the captains of industry are planning. I don’t know if I share such an outlook myself, but Milburn made me believe in its possibility, if not probability, for at least a moment, and shit — in these dark times, that’s a solid achievement in and of itself.

As is Lure on the whole. As we make our way inexorably toward the end of another calendar year and the onslaught of “Top 10” lists come part and parcel with it, you can expect to see this book near the top of many of them.

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Lure is available for $29.99 directly from Fantagraphics (fuck Amazon) at https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/lure?_pos=1&_psq=lur&_ss=e&_v=1.0

Also, this review is “brought to you” by my Patreon site, where I serve up exclusive thrice-weekly rants and ramblings on the world of comics, films, television, literature, and politics for as little as a dollar a month. Subscribing is the best way to support my continuing work, so I’d be very appreciative if you’d take a moment to give it a look by directing your kind attention to https://www.patreon.com/fourcolorapocalypse

Great Moments In Comic Book History: The First Appearance of Werewolf By Night

Posted on October 28, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

From 1954 to 1971, comic book readers across America were safe from werewolves. The Comics Code Authority, that set of rules instituted to get Dr. Frederic Wertham to stop declaring comic books to be the greatest menace to the American way of life since the horseless carriage, forbade any supernatural characters. Werewolves were not allowed to fight alongside or against any of the super heroes published by D.C., Marvel, or any of the other comic books companies governed by the CCA.

The CCA started to relax their rules in 1971, especially after Marvel published an issue of Spider-Man that did not get the CCA’s seal of approval because it featured a friend of Peter Parker’s getting hooked on drugs. When the issue not only sold well but also generated a lot of negative publicity about how out-of-touch the CCA was with what comic book readers were actually having to deal with, the CCA started to relax their rules.

Marvel reacted by introducing a whole host of supernatural characters who had previously been banned under the CCA. Throughout the 70s, Captain America, Spider-Man, and others often shared their pages with the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and sometimes even Satan himself.

Werewolf by Night was Marvel’s first werewolf. (The title had previously been used before the CCA went into effect, back when Marvel was still known as Atlas.) He made his first appearance in the 2nd issue of Marvel Spotlight. By day, he was Jack Russell. He was also Jack Russell by night, unless there was a full moon. Then, he was Werewolf by Night! He was different from most Marvel characters in that he lived in Los Angeles instead of Manhattan. However, one thing that he did have in common with a surprisingly large amount of comic book heroes is that his story started with a mugging.

At first, Jack thinks this was just a dream. It’s only later in the issue that his mother confesses that Jack’s father was a werewolf and apparently, the curse has been passed down. Jack is not happy to hear that and after promising to never attack his stepfather, Jack runs off into the night. Later, when Jack nearly breaks his promise, he realizes that a werewolf cannot have a family. A werewolf must always be alone.

From such simple beginnings, one of Marvel’s most venerable characters was born. Many of the Marvel horror characters disappeared after a few issues but Werewolf by Night has remained an active member of the Marvel Universe. Though my favorite Marvel werewolf remains Man-Wolf, Werewolf By Night has had his moments. My personal favorite was when he, Spider-Man, and Franenstein’s Monster teamed up to take down the Monster Maker. It’s not easy being a werewolf but Jack Russell (and, when the series was recently rebooted, Jake Gomez) has always done his best.