Tatiana Gill's Head Meds

There's open memoir, closed memoir, and then there's the memoir of Tatiana Gill. Every memoir she does not only tends to have a strong guiding theme to provide structure, but it also gives an astonishing amount of detail and context. It's almost overwhelming how open she is about drug use, addiction, self-harm, and other issues. At the same time, it makes a great deal of sense, because she's writing this from the perspective of an addict in recovery and working the 12 steps. "Rigorous honesty" is a hallmark of such programs, but like any other structured belief system, it is fueled by personal narratives. Gill has embraced this fully, to the point where the thoroughness and messiness of her recording her narrative obstructs actually telling a smoothed-out and readable narrative. There are a lot of rough edges that she refuses to smooth out in service to her story, which makes this particular memoir, Head Meds, such a compelling read.

The hook of this particular book is a systematic exploration of every drug she's ever taken for prescribed, psychiatric reasons and how these drugs have affected her, for good or ill. Gill hits on an extraordinary insight:certain medications eased the pain of her depression but gave her no real insight as to the roots of her trauma. They simply allowed her to feel better and therefore party more, doing a variety of recreational drugs and engaging in risky behavior. Different therapist and the benefit of more years passing have allowed Gill to figure out what works for her, more or less, but she noted that she's still vulnerable to trauma and relapses. She also readily admits that having a home with a loving partner and a pet, along with being on his insurance and overall support, is a luxury that she understands that not everyone has. 

Indeed, after discovering that running and reducing stress generally make her happier, she is careful not to preach some kind of formula or claim any kind of narrative closure. Instead, she thanks her luck and realizes that in trying to write a history of her use of SSRI's and other antidepressants, there's no way she can tell what was caused by her brain chemistry and what was exacerbated by her lifestyle choices. At the same time, detailing her story reveals how complex mental health can be and that attempts at reductionism are inevitably doomed to failure. 

There's something else that's remarkable about this book: Gill tackles her past and manages to do so with a minimum of shame. As a result, there's no defensiveness at work here. She freely admits to what she did, she freely admits to her current struggles, and she understands how lucky she is. There's a strong understanding that her choices, even the bad ones, don't make her a bad person, because she can always make different choices--especially with the proper support and health regimens. 

The first half of the book, where she deals with this narrative in a chronological fashion, has an almost frantic pacing and tone. It's as though she's trying to race through these details as quickly as possible in order to get them on the page. The second half of the book leans more on her drawing, as each page is a brief anecdote or syllogism related to recovery, good boundaries, and forgiveness--especially self-forgiveness. Much of it is dedicated to anger, a difficult emotion for those dealing with trauma to process. Interstingly, even though there's no narrative flow whatsoever in the second half of the book, it nonetheless highlights,illustrates, and recapitulates the narrative from the first half of the book, providing a more human and present context for things she rushed through here and there. The two halves complement each other loosely, and the spontaneity of her line helps project her unflagging optimism despite everything. I've read a number of cleaner, more calculating books on mental health that aim to be guide books, but Gill's warts 'n all presentation feels more effective in discussing these issues. 

Andrew Neal's Meeting Comics

Andrew Neal was the owner of Chapel Hill Comics, one of the best comics stores in a America, for a number of years. When he sold the store, he eventually took a new job, and that job one day inspired him to do a loosely-sketched, four-panel comic about an office meeting that took place during the apocalypse. Just as surely as Charles Schulz's first Peanuts strip ("Charlie Brown...Oh how I hate him!") set the tone for years of work, so too did Neal's wobbly line establish the absurdity and sheer ridiculousness of office life. Also like Schulz, Neal slowly shaped his characters into complex, funny, and memorable personalities with long-running stories. Throughout his run on Meeting Comics, Neal has never deviated from making this a gag strip, even when the jokes are dark and the subject matter is satirical. 

A collection of the first six issues of the minicomic was published by AdHouse, and it unsurprisingly looks great, just like all Chris Pitzer-designed books do. Neal kept it simple, as a squarebound paperback printing each strip chronologically, with plenty of extra material in the back. The strip also appears on Neal's Patreon, in minicomics form (I believe it's up to #19 at the moment), and earlier strips are appearing on Solrad. Neal hustles this strip, and it's easy to understand why: his storytelling is so brisk, his characters' designs are so clever, and his gags so smooth that it approaches the status of compulsively readable.

Upon reaching the end of the collection, I also read issues #8 and 9 (I'm missing #7 and haven't seen #10 and up yet) and a related mini called 320 Shades Of Greg. The first dozen or so strips all have that hastily-sketched, spontaneous feel to them, and they are unpolished as a result. While Neal had been drawing on and off for years, it's obvious that it took a little while for him to grow into Meeting Comics as his first true, long-range project. It takes a little while for archetypes to evolve into characters and for gags to first become recurring gags, and then characters of their own. A good example of that is the HR robot Rob, who began as a gag and then became a regular member of the cast as the ex-boyfriend of Val. (There's a later joke about "on-again, off-again" relationships that's particularly inspired.)

Val is the Snoopy of the series, the wild break-out character. With her trademark hair in a bun and big earrings, it's also interesting that this lead character is a Black woman. The diversity in the strip is pretty casual and woven into the humor. Don is an older gay man, while Thomas is a Black man who has to deal with a lot of shit--but also has a secret identity as the Ribbon Cutter, a superhero who foils the mayor's attempts to cut ribbons at openings. But Val is a fearless, funny, ass-kicker and hedonist. That said, Kevin is often the focus of the strip, as a manager who lives a conflicted double-life as an activist and musician. Even douchey Gil, a management bro, is a fully-realized character. 

The key to the success of the strip is that Neal passes no judgments on these characters. They are most certainly Part of the Problem as managers in a corporation with unstated aims (it's part of the joke that they don't quite know what the business does), but they are also people who need to make money to live. Neal is casual about the company's corruption and evil, because these things are understood. How each person navigates it for their own personal hustle is what makes the strip funny. These characters drink, date, fuck, gossip, and seek out some degree of connection along the way. Even when Jesus shows up as a character and joins the company, it makes sense. That makes side projects like the bizarre and hilarious 320 Shades Of Greg so funny; the story is weird on its own, but the actual punchline is an awesome groaner. 

Neal is funny, and what also helps make the strip compelling is that he can go to a few different wells in any given strip. A punchline might be a pun (there's a gag about an old ska band becoming janitors that made me laugh out loud), a funny image (Val hiding from her mother in a filing cabinet), or a carefully-constructed bit of character humor. The slightly surreal quality of the comic makes it easy for a reader to accept all of this as part of its reality. One gets the sense that the best is yet to come from Neal, both in this strip and future projects. It's certainly been a lot of fun watching him figure it out on the page.