Sequart Reprints: Hotwire 2

This article was originally written for sequart.com in 2007.
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There's a lot to like in the new Hotwire, both by contributors new and old. The package is pretty similar to the last volume: lots of lurid, over-the-top and funny comics along with many pages of similarly-grotesque illustrations. Hotwire is editor Glenn Head's reaction to "literary comics" that he feels are pretentious an dull. While there's no editorial in this version announcing his manifesto of sorts, it's clear that Head both is continuing his own personal aesthetic vision while breaking his own rules when he sees fit. For example, there are even more non-story illustrations in this volume than the last, which contradicts Head's desire to present "comics with cool style and great stories". There's a lot here that isn't comics, but it does somehow fit into the anthology's underground, anything-goes, unruly sensibility.

I like the unapologetic, take-it-or-leave-it aesthetic that Hotwire carries. This isn't an anthology designed to win new converts to the world of comics, but rather it's a celebration of a style rooted in the tradition of the 60s underground artists and the 80s anthology Weirdo. As such, it's hard to imagine a reader being drawn to every artist in here, given such an extreme series of artistic choices. For example, Glenn Head's "Tongue Trouble" and Doug Allen's "Hillbillys 'R' Dumb" are the sort of over-the-top, stylized and id-soaked comics that are personally difficult to read. Johnny Ryan's "Sin Shitty" quasi-parody felt like a Ryan Mad Lib (insert your own scatological reference into line A, a taboo sexual act into line B, a vague comics reference into line C), especially since Frank Miller comics are the proverbial low-hanging fruit. Matti Hagelberg's "Zombie Justice" feels more like a Kramer's Ergot or Bete Noire piece than something for Hotwire, given the extreme stylization and scratchboard technique. Illustrations by David Paleo and Stephane Blanquet are the sort of page-jamming, highly-detailed orgies of visceral unpleasantness that my eye tends to gloss over.

On the other hand, the fact that this anthology provides such a fine spotlight for humorists, which is such a rarity in this era of graphic novels and prestige anthologies. It's exciting to see new work by Ivan Brunetti (in his stripped-down but still-vulgar style), Mark Newgarden (with his usual combination of old-style gag format with nihilistic punchlines), and R.Sikoryak (another literary smash-up, this time of Little Nemo in Slumberland with The Picture of Dorian Gray, done with his usual astonishing style mimicry), and Sam Henderson ("Lonely Robot Fuckling"--nuff said). Christian Northeast's "In The Trenches" was a hilarious, deadpan account of a self-serious but unaware small businessman's past. Onsmith contributes an autobiographical story detailing the odd behavior of a creepy neighbor. There's a lot to laugh at in Hotwire, and that alone makes me hope that we get a new edition every year.

Beyond pure humor strips, there's an amazing range of interesting material. The most welcome new presence in this volume is that of Mary Fleener, who contributes a new 10-page story and several of her distinctive illustrations. The latter are in her "Our Lady" series, using her fractal "cubismo" style, with subjects like "Our Lady of Apocalyptic Fixation" and "Uninterrupted Munitions". Her story, entitled "Niacin" will thrill any readers of her old Slutburger series in its depiction of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. This was a hilarious account of Mary winding up in a car with a creep who gave her pot laced with PCP, and her attempts at crawling out of that particular trip. Her thick, rubbery line is a perfect delivery system for the warped, drug-induced imagery that she saw in the story. Hotwire is a perfect home for Fleener's work, and I hope she continues to contribute to future volumes.

My favorite Hotwire discovery has been Tim Lane. His unfussy, naturalistic line is used to tell straight-up pulp stories. "Outing" plops us straight into a bizarre encounter in a bar that ends with a shooting and a car crash. My favorite conceit of the story is that it's narrated by a character who gives us all sorts of intimate information without revealing who he is or most of his backstory. "The Aries Cow" features a character named Muncie and weird stories told at a bar. "In My Dream" has Lane detailing the wacky details of a flying dream and his downfall in it. This sort of anthology is a great showcase for Lane, because his stories act as a sort of anchor for the work in here that are weirder, while still creating an unusual and unsettling tone.

Another remarkable achievement is Jonathan Rosen's "A Massive Stroke of Bad Luck", which is about an aunt who suffered a stroke and was kept alive but in a great deal of distress and pain for quite some time. The top half of each page is a single image that illustrates a few lines of text. The bottom half is a series of images from a sketchbook that "diagram" his aunt's sad state. The grey wash acts as a sort of numbing agent for the reader to the intensity of each page's drawings. The story's best quality is its lack of sentimentality while still getting across the affection Rosen had for his aunt and his concern for her condition.

Not every story here is in-your-face. Carol Swain's "Communicable Disease", is a quiet story about a man in an institution of some kind, where the very words of books fly off the page and his companion starts burying the books when they're empty. Colored pencil seems to be at work here in setting up the air of melancholy and despair. "Last Testament" is a clever, time-jumping story by Chris Estes and David Lasky about Clash guitarist Mick Jones.

Still, Hotwire's main punch comes from its stylization and concentration on the "all that is good is nasty" school of storytelling. Lorna Miller (another welcome presence) retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood that portrays her as a little skank who ends up being eaten--eaten out, that is, by the Big Bad Wolf. Glenn Head's "Oozing Dread" is a hilarious account of Wilhelm Reich's wackier theories regarding orgone energy, orgasms and how they're rooted in alien involvement, all centered around a particular neurotic patient. David Sandlin's "Slumburbia" is a typically sex-and-shame centered story, a sort of echo of Reich's prediction that sexual behavior and activity was doomed to take on a fetished, guilt-ridden quality. Mack White's "Trouble In Tacosa" takes on a western legend, splitting its depiction into the grimy truth on one side of the page and then how it would be portrayed in Hollywood. Craig Yoe's ode to Tijuana Bibles is a sort of day-glo meditation on the surreptitious, anonymous nature of these bits of pornography and the writers who created them. What I get out of it is that these artists weren't all that different in nature to other cartoonists in terms of pandering to an audience and doing it in a sweatshop setting. All told, while not every story in this anthology will appeal to every reader, there should be at least a story in here that will draw in the eye of any reader.

sequart #52: ABC, Dr Sketchy, Action Figure

I often get items for review that aren't quite comics. Some mix illustration and comics storytelling techniques. Still others are traditional comics about unusual subjects. I prefer to think of comics under a big tent--when in doubt, I include it, even if it skims the border between illustration and comics. Considering how many artists work as illustrators in order to make ends meet, I find it interesting and useful to consider such works.

Let us first consider Molly Crabapple. She was working SPX and handed me a review copy of her first book, DR. SKETCHY'S OFFICIAL RAINY DAY COLOURING BOOK. This is, of course, not her real name, but it fits into the entire nature of her enterprise. Crabapple is a self-taught artist and created her persona out of whole cloth. She had a fantasy notion of Paris in the 1920's--a decadent scene of creativity and artistic camaraderie. Whether or not this scene actually existed isn't relevant--Crabapple wants to believe in it and has the sheer force of will to create that reality.

This book is an art virus and manifesto disguised as a whimsical colouring book. The idea is simple: set up a life drawing session in your local bar, bookstore or coffee shop. Make the models interesting: burlesque dancers, roller derby girls, adventurous art models. Pay them well, make them comfortable, let them be creative. Charge admission for the artists, stage ridiculous contests, and feed everyone booze and/or coffee. Promote the hell out of it and stick the results on a website. Presto! Instant art scene. The only thing Crabapple insists upon is contacting her, so as to feed the worldwide scene.

The actual instructions in the book are quite useful, but only take up maybe 25 pages. Crabapple knows this and puts her decorative skills to use, with dirty paper dolls, drink recipes, photos of burlesque models, testimonials from Dr Sketchy operators across the world, etc. It's all very light-hearted and fun. Even if the entire operation is essentially a self-promoting exercise, it's a manual for encouraging everyone to find ways of becoming decadently famous.

Fantagraphics has of late been producing albums by artists associated with the art-comics anthology BLAB! That anthology has often copletely eschewed narrative in its editions, blurring the line between comics and art book. ALPHABETICAL BALLAD OF CARNALITY is a kid's ABC's book gone horribly awry. Indeed, artist David Sandlin incorporates text and image on double-page spreads, just like a children's book. Each letter takes us through the book's narrative, which is really just an extended confession, with the line "was it only a fable coming over the cable" repeating throughout. As the narrator reveals his dalliances with greed, incest, necrophilia, onanism, wife-beating, etc., each set of pages is rendered in lurid detail. The last letter is z for zealotry as the narrator gives us his most despicable confession--he gave up his sinning ways and replaced his doomed obsession with his woman with a bible in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

The content tries to be shocking, but it's nothing we haven't seen before in the comics of R.Crumb, S.Clay Wilson or Dori Seda. What I like about lies purely in the artist's chops--his design is clever and the way he incorporates text into each page's composition is quite appealling. Ultimately, this comic felt a lot like an issue of BLAB--it was interesting to look at but an especially compelling read. The comic should be enjoyed for its decorative and lyrical qualities above anything else.

ACTION FIGURE #1 is a fairly standard comic book--slightly smaller than a regular comic but bigger than a mini. It's a thinly-veiled autobiographical comic, set with a framing device of someone finding his journals in the future. Artist Richard Marcej is Richard Marzelak in the comic, and he dreams of having time to work on his comic strip and getting it syndicated. Pretty standard stuff, as the art is appealling & professional if slightly bland. Even the dream sequences are nothing out of the ordinary. What is interesting is his actual job: working in the art department of Hasbro Toys in the 1980's and later for Hallmark greeting cards. He combines the two as Hasmark, and as the story begins his company has just gotten the rights to Americanize the "Bot-Changers"--aka the Transformers.

His frustrations in his workplace are the most interesting thing in the comic--he's thrown off a plum assignment by a tyrannical boss, comiserates with co-workers in other departments and finds ways to make his new assignment interesting. While Marcej makes his desire to do his own comic the focus of his comic, and even tosses in a potential love interest, the meat here is the nuts-and-bolts of his daily experiences. Marcej can't help but lapse into technical minutiae from time to time, but seeing these kinds of details in an industry that marries art, craft and commerce is what made the comic interesting to me. I eagerly await the next issue, if just to see how the competition to adapt the Transformers for an American market and how he struggles to express himself in his job. I sense that Marcej isn't comfortable going all Harvey Pekar and reveling in the details of his day-to-day struggle, but I found his attempts at putting in a more traditional narrative constricting. Hopefully future issues will find Marcej getting more comfortable with the nitty-gritty of his daily routine and expanding upon it even more.