Jetty # 5-9, by Rio Aubry Taylor. Taylor’s transfuturist
sci-fi fantasy epic continues in short bursts, but by issue #9 it seems like
Taylor is almost ready to move on from this particular storyline. Though this
comic is science fiction, it’s also quite obviously intensely personal. The
general plotline, that it’s the future, the sun has disappeared, and a girl
named Mina is trying to escape capture thanks to some friendly monks who have
vowed to protect her, is straightforward enough. It’s an a to b to c story,
going from place to place and trying to find safety. At the same time, there
are a number of other ancillary characters whizzing around, sometimes
interacting with the main plot and sometimes off on their own. This is a story
about transformation and loss, and how the two are navigated. It’s about demons
and personal demons; one character is a recovering alcoholic who picks up a
stray bottle of whiskey, and his self-loathing as a result allows a
thousand-eyed demon to track them. It’s transfuturist with regard to trans
issues, to be sure, but it also meditates upon the predatory future of
capitalism that is far more efficient in eliminating those that don’t
contribute to the bottom line. Issue six features a righteous barbarian witch
who helps Mina by first clubbing the demon and then casting it into hell.
Meanwhile, Taylor’s abstract comics background is used in the service of the
narrative, as background characters continue to melt, transform and face
incredible pressures.
Issue 7 features a cat creature named Leel’ Riot (a
quasi-anagram of Taylor’s name) and zir friend Fill, the constantly and
painfully transforming cyborg receiving an epiphany about the location of a
missing friend, and Mina’s group gets some info from the witch. The eighth
issue is the best of the group, starting with a hilarious flashback to giant
underground worms (who seemed to be named after the alter egos of three of the
original X-Men) who accidentally unleashed a horrific evil on the world. Taylor
gets into some real eschatological stuff here, with demons feeding on pain and
Mina’s anger and heretofore unknown powers playing a big part in everything.
The sequence with the worms is a compact marvel of great cartooning and funny
writing, as the melodramatic worms seem ridiculous until horrible things to
start to happen. On top of all this, they are being observed by a sort of
techno-Hindu deity up above. The very brief ninth issue is a big stop sign, as
Taylor reflects upon zir nature as a sorcerer/cartoonist, conjuring up zir own
worlds and creating zir own descendants. Dragging the story through abstract
muck must be an incredible amount of labor on an issue to issue basis, and the
story might be better served finished all at once. There’s no question that
Taylor is creating a stirring, whimsical, queer, frightening and heroic
narrative; it just simply needs to breathe a little.
The Weight, #1-2, by Melissa Mendes. I’ve read this in dribs
and drabs for a while now, and I look forward to the collection of the original
minicomics. That said, Mendes’ sense of design and willingness to delve into
behind-the-scenes material makes each mini a valuable read on its own. Mendes’
comics have always been about families, but this is the first time she’s gone
deep and to some dark places with a family that is not happy and supportive. Indeed,
Edie (the latest in a series of characters who
gender is vague according to appearances, favoring the aesthetic and
lifestyle of a tomboy) has an abusive father who took her mother away from her
own parents. What makes it worse is that he seemed to have done it out of spite
as much as anything else. As portrayed in the first two issues, her father Ray
is a ball of resentment and cruelty, hating himself almost as much as he hates
everything else in the world.
Her mom, Marian, is helpless against his rage and determined
will. The first issue depicts Edie’s birth and Ray’s subsequent revenge on
Marian’s family (especially her father) by taking away their daughter from
them. The second issue is Edie at about age six or so, a portrait of both
extreme toughness and tender empathy. When some local boys trap a rabbit in a
snare, Edie takes it away from them, daring them to stop her, as she gives the
coney a proper burial. Mendes truly stepped up what was already one of her
greatest skills as a cartoonist, which is her use of gesture. With just a few
facial expressions and with her body language, Mendes gets across the ways in
which she is similar to each of her parents. The fact that none of the boys in
this story would dare step to her speaks volumes as to what happened the last
time they might have tried to do such a thing. Yet she clearly is nurturing,
loving and kind. Seeing her tenderly comfort her mother after another beating
at the hands of her father quickly established the lengths to which she would
go to help her mother, as well as her rage against her father. It’s a
remarkable exploration of some dark territory for Mendes, but she nailed the
emotional content of the story not because she’s used to writing highly
dysfunctional families, but because the way she’s portrayed loving families
comes through so brightly with regard to Edie and her mother. I am eager to
read the whole thing, as Mendes continues to become one of the best cartoonists
with regard to portraying small but crucial moments.
From The Desk Of The President, by Michelle Ollie. This is
the annual CCS pitch comic, and what was interesting is that rather than have a
guest or an alumnus make it, the President of CCS, Michelle Ollie, took it upon
herself to do so. While not generally a practicing artist, Ollie reveals in
this comic a lifelong love of the form. In doing so, she subtly gets across the
CCS message of both Applied Cartooning (using your skills in a career that’s
not necessarily publishing typical graphic novels) and also the expressive
power of comics that anyone can have access to. In the story, she discussed her
difficulty reading growing up and going to a rigidly-run Catholic school. It
wasn’t until her father noticed that Ollie could read the words in comics just
fine that he realized that there was a new avenue to pursue here. Soon, Ollie
was not only reading comics, but also writing & drawing her own material.
With the comic in a landscape format, Ollie juxtaposed her own childhood
drawings of Snoopy in black with blue-line Charles Schulz originals underneath.
Comics, she suggests, are simply another means of self-expression. That
combination of word and image has a transformative effect on many, including
children and veterans returning from war. For those struggling to put things
into words alone, the alchemy of words and pictures together unlocks something
in the brain, especially when one gives oneself permission to do “bad”
drawings. In other words, to simply enjoy the experience of putting pen to
paper without worrying what others might think about it. Ollie’s own line is
charming and expressive; it more than does the job, especially since she
clearly thought out the composition of her comic.
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