Minicomics and Genre: Doug Michel, Jason Viola, Tim Rocks, Mike Fisher

A number of minis I receive fall into the category of gag work or humorous genre. Let's take a look at a few of them:

Monkey Force One #7 & #8, by Doug Michel. This comic is part epic adventure and part spoof, as Michel blends the X-Men, James Bond, sci-fi, scatological kids' humor, Scott Pilgrim and coming-of-age stories into one dizzying package. It helps that Michel keeps his line simple, varying his line weights to make his characters pop off the page but keeping everything else fairly clear. That's helpful for the reader, because Michel is a "kitchen sink plus" kind of artist, cramming his panels with details, figures, weapons, posters and other chicken fat. There are occasions when Michel indulges in a more detailed extreme close-up of a particular piece of action the way a video game might cut away to that sort of animation. The weird tension in these issues is between the shared indy rock band past of several characters and how their lives are intersecting in the middle of a zombie invasion of St. Louis. I found those conflicts more interesting than the zombie fights, which are all pretty standard issue. Indeed, Michel's main weakness as an artist is depicting action; the stiffness of his line that's appropriate for scenes depicting conversation makes his fight scenes less interesting to look at. That's especially true for fistfights, where Michel seems to have a shaky grasp on how bodies relate to each other in space and how to hook the reader into immediately turning their attention to the next panel. Michel is at his best when he's poking fun at the genre conventions he genuinely enjoys, like when a rapper comes across Zombie Tupac and Zombie Biggie Smalls and demands to get a picture with them for his next album. It's that breeziness that gives these comics their energy and appeal.



Pete Moss: A Kid Who Has Adventures, by Tim Rocks. This is a hyperexaggerated screwball comic somewhat in the vein of Peter Bagge, in terms of the frenetic quality of its storytelling. It's about a kid who mistakenly receives news that he's a terminal case, who then proceeds to try to get laid before he dies while tricking a variation on the Make-A-Wish foundation. Rocks gets across most of his humor with funny and/or grotesque drawings and over-the-top satire. The drawing is much more interesting than the writing, which aims for shocking and falls well short of shock or even pointed commentary. On the other hand, Rocks is unrelenting in the avalanche of gross and funny images he throws at the reader, making this comic interesting to flip through if not especially memorable otherwise.

Jay's Brain, by Jason Viola. Viola is best known for his webcomic gag strip Herman The Manatee, but I've often enjoyed his side projects more. This is a series of gags about Viola and his anthropomorphic brain, and what's most interesting about it is the obvious discomfort the artist feels from drawing these strips. For an artist who does pretty silly gags (even the ones that touch on despair still feel like shtick), Viola is surprisingly personal and even confessional in these strips that touch on panic attacks, saying horrible things to those he loves, a lack of inspiration and other issues not unfamiliar to readers of autobio comics. The difference is that his brain character turns every strip into a punchline, no matter how awful or uncomfortable the premise. Viola turns his social anxiety into some pretty fertile ground for humor (the page of tweets from his brain is especially amusing--it tells Viola things like "You shouldn't have said that" while wondering "Why don't they put flavor crystals in EVERYTHING?"), making this his single strongest work to date.



3-D Pete's Star Babe Invasion Comics, by Mike Fisher. This comic/zine is exactly what it claims to be--a celebration and examination of sexy women in science fiction films. What makes it enjoyable is the light tone Fisher employs throughout, deemphasizing prurience and playing up humor. It helps that he has rock-solid fundamentals as a cartoonist, capturing the naturalistic essence of a figure without losing the cartoony quality of his compositions. Speaking through his mouthpiece character 3-D Pete, Fisher discusses Jane Fonda in Barbarella and which Star Trek guest actress was most appealing, as well as silly strips where Pete encounters less-than-sharp aliens and tries to get on a space ark. The interview with a model from a sci-fi themed beer commercial is entirely gratuitous; it doesn't really add much to the comic other than letting us know that he managed to interview a model. While the comic is entirely disposable, Fisher's line is wonderfully fluid and expressive. A full length genre story from Fisher would be quite pleasant to read.

Humor & Adventure: Jackson, Smith, Michel

This batch of minis is humor oriented, by way of superhero/action, horror and sci-fi tropes.


Monkey Squad One Annual #1, by Doug Michel. This comic is an odd duck. It's equal parts Marvel comics homage and kid's adventure, as though the artist was making up stories for his own children or nephews. Even the "annual" concept is straight out of superhero comics, with a number of shorter stories, behind-the-scenes reveals, schematics, Marvel Universe Handbook-style bios, etc. Michel adds weight to the silliness of a book featuring a bunch of young kids as superspy/assassins with sheer density. While he has a simple and cartoony style, he packs every panel with details, eye-pops, hatching, stippling and greys. The balance works, as every page is a breeze to read but fun to look at. There's also a good balance between the action tropes, the depiction of how kids interact and overt parody and winks at genre conventions (there's a villain named "Seven Bricks of Fury" and then a critique by some characters about that name). This is less a fusion comic than a funny superhero adventure; as such, its main appeal will be to those who grew up reading X-Men and have especially fond memories of the interstitial scenes, where the characters bickered in an affectionate, familial manner.


The Gods Must Be Bastards, by Rob Jackson. The latest bit of lunacy from the U.K.'s Jackson may well be his best comic. At 56 pages, it's one of his most sustained narrative efforts. Jackson has really found his niche working within fantasy-as-farce as his genre of choice, playing ridiculous situations completely straight (as opposed to winking to the reader when making a joke, as Michel does). This story concerns a world where a group of scientists must work in secret lest they draw the wrath of the gods and their human servants. Through a convoluted series of events, the scientists travel to what is reputed to be the gods' home, Atlantis, with a sympathetic navy captain and a group of marines. Jackson creates genuine suspense and mystery as he slowly reveals details about this world and its gods and whether or not they actually exist. When he pulls the big reveal, he pulls the rug out from under the reader several times: when the gods are revealed to be the kind of petty, vindictive yobbos that Greek myth makes us familiar with; when the captain acts in an unexpected fashion; and when the true function of the gods is revealed.


Jackson's line is still crude, but he's found ways to really make this work for him. The way he varies his page composition as well as line thickness led to some genuinely attractive art. As always, his character design is hilarious, especially the images of the gods and the bonus "character sheets" he included at the end of the story. Characters like Bolto, god of lightning, required a special kind of inspired silliness. What makes the comic work so well is the way Jackson flips between total weirdness and the driest of deadpan humor. It's a sort of low-fi fusion comic, given his modest draftsmanship skills, but fusion nonetheless. Jackson's point of view and sense of the absurd always takes center stage no matter what kind of story he writes, but he always makes it a point to stay as true to his genre of choice as possible in all other respects. I hope he continues to grow yet more ambitious in his storytelling choices.



SF #1 and SF Supplement #1 by Ryan Cecil Smith. Smith is firmly in the Fusion camp, though he comes at it from a different angle than most cartoonists. Currently living in Japan, Smith filters all of his comics through a Japanese genre lens. His previous effort, Two Eyes Of The Beautiful, was a hilarious and genuinely creepy take on Japanese horror comics. SF is a manic, sprawling and frequently ludicrous attempt at epic science fiction. Smith's character design is delightfully exaggerated, with the leader of the group SF, Ace, sporting a bouffant as tall as his entire body and assorted aliens looking like a cross between manga characters and Vaughn Bode designs. There's a perfectly modulated stilted seriousness to the dialogue that brings to mind sci-fi stories of the past as well as translated manga & anime (I got a Star Blazers/Space Cruiser Yamato vibe from the story, but I'm sure there are other influences in there as well).


The story follows a young orphan whose parents were killed by terrorists who is then adopted by Ace and the S.F.S.F.S.F.--Space Fleet Scientific Foundation Special Forces. That group features anthropomorphic ducks and cats, Aladdin, a kick-ass aerobics instructor, etc. Smith is equally at ease with small, character-based moments and big (if ridiculous) action setpieces--like a scene where Ace is disguised as an anthropomorphic rhinoceros in an effort to bypass security. This comic has a weird timelessness to it that I think is intentional; extensive use of effects like zip-a-tone give it a retro feel, as though this was some kind of lost artifact that's just surfaced. Smith doesn't make this explicit, but it's clear that he's working his way through all sorts of sci-fi adventure tropes, from the overtly intellectual adventurers of Asimov's Foundation series to bits of Total Recall along with the aforementioned manga/anime influence. There's an impressive level of detail here, as the SF Supplemental File reveals. A character who essentially had one line in the first issue of SF, Smith whipped up an extensive backstory for him and how he came to join the S.F.S.F.S.F. Smith here has whipped up a series that's a perfect match of style and content, from the "secret file" envelopes the comics come in to the gleeful silliness of the character design to the minutely planned story & character details.