Tanya Dorph-Mankey's Count The Lights Preview

Pro wrestling, at its essence, is a kind of carnival theater improv based heavily on audience reactions. Every emotion must be over the top to reach the person sitting in the last row. Every aspect of the story should be told in the ring itself, through the choreographed violence. There's a reason why so many former theater kids become wrestlers these days; the line between burlesque, drag, musical theater, and wrestling is a decidedly thin one. In a musical, a character is moved to break out into song as a reaction a feeling so strong that conventional speech cannot contain; in wrestling, the same is true, except emotion is expressed in violence. 

Cartoonist Tanya Dorph-Mankey understands all of this, and in her preview of her future graphic novel Count The Lights, she immediately introduces us to her principal characters through what else--their first match together. The twist is that this story is also a queer romance, and wrestling has always had a homoerotic subtext (or these days, just plain text) in the most memorable of its feuds. Dorph-Mankey simply takes this out into the open in a classic enemies-to-lovers storyline that has a number of twists and turns. (Full disclosure: I've helped her edit some of this story.)

This preview introduces heel wrestler Alan Jacobs, a member of a faction simply dubbed "Violence." He's an intense prick who's out to prove himself, and he goes up against a funny slacker of a wrestler named Ryan Roberts, who "absolutely hates to put in any effort." His antics are anathema to a sneering heel like Jacobs, as Dorph-Mankey keeps the action of the choreographed matches "kayfabe," meaning that she suspends the disbelief that the wrestlers project toward the audience. Even after Jacobs predictably wins, Roberts notes that it was a good match because it got a big crowd reaction, and then he flirts a little with a fuming Jacobs.

Fans of wrestling will enjoy a number of different easter eggs in here, but what makes the comic compelling is Dorph-Mankey's ability to tell a story through action and impact. She adds an almost expressionist set of backgrounds for hard-hitting sequences, and her understanding of anatomy and the relationship of bodies in space is absolutely crucial in adding stakes for the characters and an emotional connection for the readers. In a story that revolves around a romance, establishing the importance of gesture and body language (albeit in a totally over-the-top manner) early on propels the character narrative without wasting any time.