Josh, by Bayer, Simmons, Cotter, and Stephens

The Josh anthology is a gimmick in the most fun sense of the word. It features cartoonists Josh Bayer, Josh Cotter, Josh Simmons, and Josh Stephens, all doing their version of horror. I wasn't familiar with Stephens going into this comic, but it's clear by his contributions that he was quite comfortable with the genre. Of course, this is Simmons' wheelhouse, and he doesn't disappoint with his casually deranged contribution. For Cotter and Bayer, both of their work is strange and dense, but they found ways to stay true to their styles while dialing up the tension. 

The image of this collective as a scuzzy Rat King scribbling out assorted perversions is one that's repeated on the title page and end page, and it's a fitting one. The quartet makes a point of repeating the name "Josh" past the point of meaning, and Cotter zeroes in on it for his "Keep On Joshin'." Starting out as a kind of Crumb pastiche and a faux slice-of-life story about a guy hosting some friends at a party, it veers into inexplicable body horror when the friends see the Josh he has in the living and suddenly sprout horrific parasites. The sickly pink shade of the tiny, cartoony "Josh" parasites is genuinely unnerving in the way so much of Cotter's work tends to be. 

Bayer doesn't really do horror per se, but his "Horror Skies" is a typical mix of memoir, fantasy, comics history, urban geography, and lumpy, disturbing body shapes. Bayer's comics on the surface seem to be a swirling mass of crude drawings and scrawled lettering, but these design choices are quite deliberate. A closer look reveals a locked-in 12-panel grid that starts with the premise of Bayer trying to think of an idea for the anthology and quickly shifts his initial idea of recording the lives of the homeless in Penn Station to an investigation of the "murder" of 80s/90s cartoonists like Gerry Shamray, Ted Stearn, and Michael Dougan. Bayer incorporates his girlfriend (the cartoonist Hyena Hell) into it, as she asks him about the "murder" of Harvey Pekar as well. When Bayer is followed by Stearn's creation Pluck (an anthropomorphic chicken), it's all part of the shadowy, strange horror that follows him. Bayer mixes absurd humor with his genuine interest in these artists, along with his typical punk sensibilities and desire to depict the grimy, dirty, and forgotten aspects and people of the city. 

Stephens' "The One And Only" is a slightly more drawn-out version of the story that both Cotter and Simmons did. That is, a figure named Josh proves to be a terrifying force for destructive, absurd evil. In this case, the Josh is a tech-bro cult leader whose bid for world domination through his literal force of personality goes horribly awry. The final, visceral image is a showstopper, as Stephens had mostly avoided horrific violence up until that point. 

Simmons' "To Be Joshed," unsurprisingly takes the cake for absolutely absurd, senseless violence. At a girls' soccer game, an alpha male type named Josh magically appears, hits on soccer moms, and responds with an "I'm just Joshing you" when they express concern. Of course, he soon goes on a rampage and the violence escalates to an immediate, crazed degree and ends with him threatening the reader with a Joshing as he breaks the fourth wall. Simmons' work is notable for his total commitment to gleeful and unhinged nihilism. As a reader, it's a rare example of someone tapping into their id that is actually interesting, as most of those sort of comics tend to be puerile. His undeniable skill as a cartoonist is a big reason why it works. 

It's why the collection works as a whole; one might ask, "What was the point of all this?", and the answer is "No point at all." Only Bayer wrestles with meaning here, because even his most violent and absurd comics wrestle with morality and authenticity. The irony is that while his work looks the most grimy and depraved on the surface, it's the cleaner art of the other three artists that zeroes in on making the self-referential conceptual gag so gleefully, pointlessly, and gloriously unsettling. 

Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Date Book, Volume 3

Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Date Book series, which collects highlights from his sketchbooks, has been a fascinating look into the working process and raw, unfettered emotions of one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. Ware's willingness to push himself formally, his dogged work ethic (despite his own self-deprecation about being lazy), and the way he combines spontaneous expression with meticulous craft is unmatched. Of course, his work has always been fiction, some of it thinly veiled, or rather, reimagined scenarios regarding what could have been in his life. Despite his reputation as a miserabilist, Ware's deeply warm and humanistic approach to his characters is more akin to Charles Schulz or Jaime Hernandez. No matter what Schulz put Charlie Brown through, no matter how much misery Hernandez heaps on Maggie, they genuinely love and feel deep empathy for their creations. Some of Ware's best comics have involved giving characters with few redeeming qualities like Woody Brown or Jordan Lint their own sense of humanity, even if it's deeply flawed. Similarly, Ware seems deeply interested in trying to understand and empathize with characters who aren't his obvious stand-ins; Building Stories is the best example of this, but there are parts of Rusty Brown and Jimmy Corrigan where this is true as well. 

Ware reveals a lot about his own mental illness in this book, zeroing in on obsessive-compulsive disorder. As one could see reading John Porcellino's The Hospital Suite, one of the worst things about OCD is that one can logically and rationally understand that the ever-present obsessive thoughts are utter nonsense, yet one can't help but be overwhelmed by them. In Ware's case, it is an unshakeable certainty of his own persistent, consistent worthlessness as a person but especially as an artist. Even as he acknowledges his incredible exhibit at the Pompidou, he is unable to emotionally accept and process it. Ware's frequent insistence at sometimes working so small (especially with regard to lettering) that it strains one's eyes to read it sometimes feels like a symptom of OCD, particularly in this collection. He's still saying difficult things out loud, but the font is so small that perhaps no one will notice, least of all him. This all seems unintentional, as even Ware wonders out loud why he does this.

The new Date Book is worth reading for the many strips about his daughter Clara alone. This could have been its own book, as they are not so much cute observations as they are small moments of awe regarding Clara's own incisive understanding of the world at a very young age. The period of time covered in this book is from 2002-2023. This makes the Clara strips all the more poignant, as he skips back and forth from her childhood to her leaving for college. Clara reads her father so clearly, calling him out for his lack of productivity and generally gently roasting him on any number of other topics. No one can zero in on one's foibles as one's own children, and Clara is every bit as incisive an observer as her father is. Ware also depicts a great deal of affection as well, along with giving her the space she needs to express herself. Ware has long expressed his admiration for Charles Schulz, and I can't help but keeping about Schulz's influence on his diary strips. If Ware is Charlie Brown, then Clara is somewhere between Lucy and Linus--a foil and a wise friend. 

Ware's other diary strips sometimes go into his daily routines, but there's also a sense of middle-aged reflection on his youth. The incredible affection he had for his grandmother Weese and the unflappably sensible things she had to say about life were obvious guiding lights for him. The strips about his youth vary from reflections on loneliness and isolation to moments of perfect aesthetic joy being with his mother and grandparents and reveling in small bits of beauty. His strips as a teenager and young adult are hilarious reflections on grandiosity; he makes fun of himself even as he allows his past self moments of grace that are hard to give to his present-day self. 

The single funniest strip is "Self-Isolating Comics & Stories," which is about the onset of the COVID pandemic and the subsequent quarantine. Predictably, Ware is gleeful at first that "my lifestyle has been vindicated!" until he realizes "maybe this is all just really, really sad" when it sets in that there are a lot of people he might not get to see for years. 

There's plenty of other stuff to look at as well. Ware's figure drawing is unsurprisingly excellent, maintaining a naturalistic approach while rendering figures full of life. There are mock-ups of future projects, including a few that haven't been published in the US. The cover and other introductory pages have the usual, tiny diagrammatic comics that feature Ware's bleak, caustic sense of humor. There are also moments of sheer joy, especially when Ware is doing Frank King strips or drawing other things he finds interesting or pleasurable, like old-time advertisements or European comics. Ware's misgivings about his own work are superceded by his passionate defense of the art object, the sketchbook, and the diary, even if he feels in the modern world of social media that revealing one's inner voice debases it. Like with much of Ware's artistic output, he feels compelled, like Charlie Brown returning to the pitcher's mound every spring. Good ol' Chris Ware may never win, but his audience certainly does, being privy to process, spontaneously-composed and deeply emotional diary strips, and page after page of beautiful art. 

Hate Revisited #2, by Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge is on my shortlist of my favorite cartoonists, and Hate is perhaps my favorite comics series of all time. Since ending the series in 1998, he's periodically returned to these characters in roughly real time, as the series leads Buddy and Lisa had a kid. Bagge has said that Buddy Bradley is a version of him, approximately ten years in the past, so it's been interesting to see him move Buddy into a weird kind of adulthood. Hate was the quintessential Gen-X slacker comic in its day, featuring a rotating cast of lunatics in Seattle right around the time that grunge became a dominant aesthetic. After a certain point midway through the series, Bagge moved Buddy and the cast back to his native New Jersey, where he had to try to figure out what to do with his life instead of just drifting. There was always a restlessness to what Bagge was doing in this series; he could have milked the Seattle scene a lot longer than he did, for example. 

Bagge has done a lot of work since Hate ended, including several series with DC, biographies with Drawn & Quarterly, and tons of political commentary and history. (Founding Fathers Funnies is a particular favorite of mine, as Bagge hilariously cuts through a lot of bullshit in a way that matches the irreverence of Hate at its height.) Hate's always been there, however, and the new Hate Revisted! series is a blend of modern-day Buddy & Lisa (and their now-adult weirdo son Harold) and flashbacks to Seattle and even high school Buddy in New Jersey. 

Looking at issue #2, Bagge returns to perhaps his most memorable character, Leonard "Stinky" Brown. Bagge's perspective on Stinky now from Buddy's point of view is interesting. On the one hand, this delusional loser has an undeniable charisma and almost a sweetness to him, but he's also the kind of loose cannon that as Buddy describes "more often than not, they don't grow up...and that 'charm' wears off fast..They become more of a liability." For Buddy, being around Stinky was a fun adventure, because Stinky had no boundaries and no limits. He was totally unpredictable and capricious, and the first story serves as their first meeting. In the course of the story, Stinky calls in a bomb threat to set up a drug deal, steals two different vehicles, shoplifts half of a record store, and gets stabbed trying to rob someone at knifepoint. But he introduces Buddy to St. Mark's Place, they have a crazy adventure, and Stinky represents this tantalizing sense that anything is possible in an otherwise stultifyingly dull suburban environment. Buddy wanted someone to bring him out of his more cautious tendencies, and Bagge shows how easy it was for Buddy to want to fall in with Stinky.

Of course, the next story sees Buddy in the present day, worried about his son falling in with a Stinky-like character nicknamed "Spam." Spam lives in a tent in a homeless camp, jokes about stealing Buddy's propane, and wants to buy land with Buddy's son Harold. Buddy immediately suspects that he's going to get Harold in trouble the way that Stinky ultimately did. Here, Bagge delves back into one of the more jaw-dropping scenes in Hate: Stinky's accidentally (?) killing himself with a handgun in front of Buddy's younger brother Butch. Even after Stinky's death, shenanigans occurred, as Buddy had to help move Stinky's body multiple times. The entire issue revolves around Stinky, as there are flashbacks to Buddy's old housemates Val and George dealing with him.

This wasn't just a memory lane exercise for Bagge; by centering the story around Stinky, he was able to get at the heart of what made him so appealing and repulsive at the same time. Stealing and lying came as easily to him as breathing, and he never once thought about the consequences of any of his actions. Buddy and Lisa have always been a mix of reactive and impulsive in their actions, and Bagge shows how this hasn't changed even as they've grown older. Buddy's plan to rein in Harold is predictably hair-brained, and Lisa's eventual reaction ("grounding" their adult son) points out her own impulsiveness AND reactiveness. 

Bagge did the flashback stories in black & white and the present-day stories in color. The inking in some of these stories was pretty rough, especially the color sections.  The whole issue has several mistakes, like a misnumbered page and a misspelling, which makes it feel that any editing done here was cursory at best. Still, even if this isn't Bagge's crispest work, his use of body language and the way he arranges particular sets of characters is unlike any other artist. There are many artists who have imitated Bagge's rubbery character design and frantic character expressions, and Bagge's comedic dynamism is as sharp as ever.

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. 

mini-kus #112: Gina Wynbrandt's You're The Center Of Attention

As I've said before, when it comes to humor, punching up can feel pretentious, punching down is unseemly, but punching yourself is always funny. Gina Wynbrandt excels at this sort of comedy of self-humiliation, and it's been exciting to see her slowly work herself back into cartooning again after a long break. In I'm The Center Of Attention, Wynbrandt satirizes social media attention-seeking culture in a hilariously blunt manner, interpolating Disney-style platitudes with a magical bug character. 

Wynbrandt uses a kind of cartoony naturalism that borders on the grotesque and exaggerated as a way of emphasizing the artificiality of her environs. The premise of the comic is that she's a contestant on a reality show where she's to be subjected to "a series of silly and embarrassing challenges" in order to win $10,000. Wynbrandt immediately fantasizes that this will lead to worldwide fame, her own TV show, and a harem of guys. She's encouraged by George, a Jiminy Cricket-style talking bug that encourages her. For the initial challenges, she does the chicken dance, acts like a dog, and sings in front of reality show judge Simon Cowell. 

Then she has to read her entire search history (which includes her own name several times and "plus size slut clothes.") Things get worse after this, as one might suspect, but George is there all along--and in the end, he's there for Gina in a way that should have been clear all along. Everything about this comic is unsettling, grotesque, visually disturbing, and hilarious. The use of color is especially off-putting, particularly with regard to the candy-colored backgrounds. Wynbrandt sets herself as the butt of every joke, but it's also a funny series of jabs at every aspect of popular culture, the expectations of society, and the superficiality of desire. Wynbrandt admitting that her own desires are completely base and lazy is the trigger for the final humiliation, but the reality is that she's simply like everyone else. The fact that she gets part of what she wants in the end, albeit in a totally unexpected and over-the-top way, only makes the whole thing funnier. Wynbrandt's satire has only grown sharper as she's become more skilled as a cartoonist and more forward-thinking with her use of color. 

Christina Lee's The Method

Christina Lee's The Method is a Riso comic done in the style of a People-magazine style magazine mixed with scandal sheet sensationalism. The result is three separate stories that focus on the concepts of appearances, internalized & externalized pressure, and above all else societal expectations of women. The Method utilizes a typical Riso color pallette, with a focus on pink & blue for the first story, green & yellow for the second story, and a sort of aqua green wash for the third. These are all rather bright, cheery, and candy-colored hues one associates with Riso comics, but Lee's intentions here are clearly subversive. This comic is one long, satiric wrecking ball, taking on notions of celebrity, misogyny, the concept of effortless perfection.

The first story follows a pop star named Kelly. Interestingly, the reader never hears her speak, nor are we privy to her thoughts. She's in the stage of her career where she's an international superstar with a massive following, but she's feeling the burden of expectations. She's at the point that while she's rich and successful, her worth is entirely tied to what she does next. The story begins with her finishing up a video for her anticipated new album, and Kelly is fascinated by a billboard that defaces her with someone drawing a spurting dick on top of her face. She's obsessed with her weight and her appearance, and not only is she utterly alone at home, she refuses to answer a call from her family about her (presumably sick) father. 

Laying awake, she imagines herself as Sisyphus in heels, hoping for her own failure. A fantasy of being crushed by that boulder finally allows her to sleep, holding a magazine with her cover photo that she's defaced herself. Lee's use of restraint with regard to text and introducing images and scenarios of stressful failure adds to the dreamy quality of the story, where the reader has to discern what's real and what's Kelly's imagination. That final image clarifies everything, as her fantasies of failure are the only thing that comfort her.

The second story is one long gag about an "effortlessly perfect" office drone/receptionist sending out emails and messages written in bureaucratic babble who goes to lunch. Gorging herself on a "420 Burger" and a milkshake, the remainder of the story is her trying to hold in a noxious fart thanks to her meal. There's a great page where Lee uses an interesting grid, including stacking 4 panels vertically on the right side of the page to mimic the elevator ride where she crouches down in agony. The punchline is a hilarious fantasy sequence culminating in a candy-colored two-page spread. This is all a bit of silliness to clear the reader's palate for the much darker final story.

Titled "Superfan," it's about a young woman dolling herself up for a concert and potential meet-up with an aging comedian and actor named Brad Harrison. This has the structure and tone of a horror story, and it is. Alexis is the fan of Harrison who's going to his show--except she's lining up backstage, not for the show itself. The two-track narrative at the beginning sees Alexis getting ready for the show as an interview plays that goes over his career and accolades, with this stand-up tour being a triumphant return. It's also a different kind of triumphant return for Harrison, as Harrison only allows women twenty years and under backstage, and they must sign a non-disclosure agreement. 

There's a funny and disturbing scene where one woman lies about her age and isn't allowed in, and she throws a fit. When Alexis is let in, she sees her idol finishing up his set (and talking to his wife on the phone). However, one of Harrison's handlers directs them to the showers, because "Brad only spends time with clean girls." Alexis fantasizes about what she's going to say to him, telling him he's her comedy inspiration, etc, without a single thought as to what is actually about to happen. 

Lee likes to create striking moments and works big for this effect, as she uses a two-page spread when Alexis sees Harrison performing as a way of emphasizing the sense of awe she's feeling. Signing the NDA agreement is another two-page spread, but this time, it's a way of showing how little she seems to be taking in the implications of this signature. The final image, where she's naked and dripping wet without a towel, is a splash page. She has a rapturous expression on her face as it's just been announced that they are going to "party with Brad," but the dense blacks that surround her tell another story. Or rather, they are a signal for the horror that's about to begin, one that Lee leaves to the reader's imagination. Lee knows that the reader can guess what's about to happen, and it's that moment of tension that she seems most intent on escalating and then prolonging. Lee really puts it all together in this final story, using a wide array of visual tricks to simultaneously continue the brightness of the overall comic and then take it in a more sinister direction.

Nadine Redlich's Doing The Work

Published by German company Rotopol, Nadine Redlich's Doing The Work is on the surface a breezy collection of silly and scribbly single-panel cartoons. Underneath her brightly colored (yellow body and big red nose), bulbous, and frequently absurd stand-in lies a story with a certain sense of lurking desperation and sadness. It's a feeling that leaks out from time to time (like in one strip where the figure is working at a computer, looks at her watch, and utters "Time to cry"), but that feeling is then shunted to the side with strips like a poodle pondering existential questions, a giant walking banana slipping on a stray person, or someone swallowing an umbrella. 

Near the beginning of the book, a pink blob with a big red nose introduces herself as "Nadine's last brain cell," pauses, and then asks the readers if they like her. Later, a creature in a shell declares that it doesn't want to be perceived. (In a later cartoon, it jumps up and says "Just kidding!") This largely sums up the nature of the gags in the book; there's a deliberate and uncomfortable awkwardness present in many of them, as they linger perhaps a beat too long, or a strange, discordant, and sad note to what is otherwise a fairly conventional gag. 

There are several recurring characters: a grumpy boulder who stubbornly resists change; a hairy yellow figure; the aforementioned lecturing poodle; and several variations on the original "brain cell character." For every gag where they are doing something silly, there's another one where the banana has its head in its hands. There's an air of inevitable doom that pervades the book, but there's also a sense that the show must go on. The brightness of the colors feels almost deliberately obnoxious, and there's little about many of the actual drawings that's interesting, even at a minimalist level. Similar projects by Lewis Trondheim like Mister I or Mister O took much better advantage of the actual drawings to make interesting stories, but that doesn't seem to be what Redlich is going for here. This is a protracted howl disguised as a series of candy-colored vignettes, as Redlich constantly lets slip that mask of cheer to reveal the ways in which the narrator is barely holding on sometimes.