Hard-Hitting: Ullman, Keller, Chad

Old-Timey Hockey Tales, Volume Two, by Rob Ullman. The only thing wrong with this loving, polished and consistently funny love letter to Ullman's favorite sport is that it's not in full color. Ullman teased the reader a bit with a few f color pages that add some extra zip to his already sharply paced vignettes from the weird world of hockey's history. The slightly muted nature of his palette happily lends itself to that sense of watching old but surprisingly sharp footage from the past. Published by Wide Awake Press, the production values on this one are first-class all the way, from the use of color to the french flap on the front cover. Ullman's stories work both for the fan and the novice, partly because of the way they break down in a narrative sense.

First, he has an eye for finding the stories of unusual athletes, and he's lucky that hockey has a long history of employing weirdos, maniacs and generally colorful characters. Second, his naturalistic but slightly cartoony style is appealing to the eye. Going too cartoony would turn off sports fans, but going too far in the other direction would render his art lifeless. Above all else, he's able to portray the kinetic punch of hockey, a sport with rapid and often violent movement that's perfectly suited to a sequential art treatment in a way that other sports aren't. Third, his deep understanding and respect for the sport's history means that big-time fans aren't insulted by his treatment of the players. Most importantly, he's able to extract a story hook for non-sports fans. For example, in the story of "Ulcers" McCool, the fact that this goalie suffered from debilitating ulcers that required him to drink quarts of milk before the game and during intermission. Ullman also varies some of his visuals throughout the issue, going with a thin line in one story, greyscaling in another and a thicker, almost rubbery line in yet another. Some stories use a number of panels crammed in a page and others are more leisurely laid out, with two panels to a page. What's hard to believe is that this well-executed and stylish comic hasn't been picked up by a book publisher, because it would be perfect sell in places like Detroit, Montreal, Chicago, Boston, etc.

Force Majeure #1, by Keenan Marshall Keller. Keller's work is very much in the vein of Benjamin Marra, as he both satirizes and displays warm affection for the ultra-violent and sex-drenched cheeseball action movies of the 70s. Unlike Marra, whose work (while absurd) is deliberately vague in its delivery, Keller unapologetically goes all-in on crazy and over-the-top action. His tough cop anti-hero, Chuck Narley, starts the comic by kicking a child rapist/serial killer so hard into a wall that his head pops off. His bad-assery and skirting of the law fully established, Narley is rewarded with a completely superfluous sex scene before the real villains of the comic are introduced. That would be a group of nihilists called Force Majeure, who perform ridiculously brutal killings of innocent children as part of their upcoming "war". The issue ends with battle lines being drawn and little else, essentially, yet Keller packs a remarkable amount of cartoony but bloody violence and gore into just a few pages. He offsets the gore with garish coloring, day-glo lettering that blends right in with the action, and framed shots that are clear send-ups of action movie tropes. One can almost sense Keller chuckling as he drew this comic, because there's a sense of ridiculous glee on every page, as though he couldn't help himself when drawing blood spurting out or heads on pikes in a manner that somehow registers as good, clean fun.

Mezmer 2, by Jon Chad. This is the second big issue of Chad's fascinating and fragmented epic sci-fi series. Ostensibly narrated by the villain, Maxer, the reader is shown tantalizing glimpses of various conflicts between the robot Maxer and the warrior Mumfot, his arch enemy. The reader is shown some back story that adds depth and substance to the characters introduced in the first issue as well as fleshing out some character that were simply name-checked but not introduced in that issue. Chad's strategy of using a non-linear storytelling technique focuses the reader's attention on immediate details in order to create a character-based series of vignettes. Above all else, he wants the reader to luxuriate in the weirdness of Maxer and his minions, as well as the doomed and betrayed Makerrat. Using an ultra-fine line with few blacks adds to the fragility of the narrative, as though the reader was examining a document on the verge of falling apart. Adding in other bits of continuity and character-advancing business with the "great speech" interludes is a clever way of slowly building up a confusing and fascinating world built on technology and spirituality alike.

Thirty Days of CCS, Day 26: Annie Murphy, Adam Whittier, Jon Chad, Sean Ford, Rachel Dukes

This CCS entry will focus on odds and ends, things that are more illustration than comics, and a few extra comics that arrived after I wrote an article about the cartoonist.

Adam Whittier's Snake Rapunzel (published by Charlie Clark Books of Portland) is yet another update of the Rapunzel myth. It's a book written and illustrated by Whittier, though it's not a comic. It's not quite a kids' book either, as there are hints of bawdiness throughout. Whittier quickly turns the book from a passive story of waiting to be rescued into an active story of scheming and counter-scheming. On one side is the witch imprisoning Rapunzel. On the other is an unscrupulous grifter who's pretending to be a prince. Then there's poor naive Rapunzel herself, who quickly wises up and displays a remarkable talent at the beauty contest that sits at the story's climax: the ability to drink any man under the table. Finally, there's Belinda the snake and Luther the porcupine, who intersect with all of these characters in unusual and amusing ways. Whittier spins a charming and even exciting story out of this character cloth, with the illustrations looking influenced by Dr Seuss and the prose influenced by Jules Feiffer. It's a combo that works well, as the story carries both traditional and modern touches.

A Cartoonist's Story Unfolding, by Jon Chad. Chad wasn't a CCS student, but he was a lab tech and later on the school's faculty. He may not have been a student there, but he certainly received an education in comics that helped lead him to having multiple books published for different audiences. This is the new recruiting pamphlet for CCS, and it's one of the best. Chad is a formalist who loves making the reader turn books upside down in order to read them and poke through eye pops to get bonus images. As one goes chronologically through Chad's career at CCS, the reader opens up the folded-up comic, flips it upside down and finds both his world as a cartoonist and the comic itself getting bigger and bigger. As with all of Chad's work, it's clever, accessible, funny and extremely well-designed.

Symbology, by Annie Murphy. This is an A-Z compendium of "archetypes and epiphanies", based in part on Murphy's career-long study of pre-patriarchal myths, symbols and rituals related to our understanding of the world. What's remarkable about this comic, and Murphy's comics in general, is the way she's able to make transcultural connections, delving deep into history and then drawing lines to symbols that appear in mythology and sources like the Tarot. One of the key and constant links was the way that feminine symbols and the import of feminine symbols were subverted either into becoming less important than masculine symbols or else transformed into masculine symbols. Murphy's aim here is not to denigrate the masculine, but rather to point out the frequently false binary created in positing the superiority of one over the other. Her "Androgyne" points to an ancient and primordial goddess figure who was both male and female, something that Aristotle also wrote about. (It's also explored in the Gnostic-inspired film/play Hedwig And The Angry Inch). Most of the entries are brief and boldly illustrated, with white text on black paper, until the rune "hagalaz" popped up. She ties this into ancient Germanic runes, Norse mythology, Sumerian goddesses and how they morphed into the archetypical "lady of the three faces" (virgin, mother, crone), witchcraft, modern medicine, Nazi appropriation of ancient peace symbols and the tarot. This is extended comics section was the best thing here, making me wish that more of the comic was similarly integrated into a single narrative, but Murphy does her best to draw connections wherever possible. Murphy's already helped construct a new Tarot (the Collective Tarot), but I'd love to see her bring a narrative to life involving what she knows about the cards.

Shadow Hills #5, by Sean Ford. This seems to be a pivotal issue in terms of setting up conflicts. The town is stricken by the terrifyingly-depicted 'black ink" attacks, but Ford draws back from that after reminding the reader that this is happening, focusing on the back story of a key character and a big decision she makes as she literally climbs into a huge void of a hole to look for another key character who had been swallowed up by the hole. Finally, the odd boy from the first issue takes mushrooms with his protector, and they descend into another hole. Ford's just on point in this comic, using visual cues to set up bold thematic parallels. This comic is all about not just messing with the unknown, but the unknown messing back, but more than the horror of the of "black ink" is the horror of human indifference. I'm eager to see how this one finishes up.

Frankie Comics Issue Three, by Rachel Dukes. More cat comics from Dukes, whose stripped down but expressive line is perfect for preserving the cute content that she's going for here. The comics about trying to give her cat a bath are especially amusing, as the first sees the cat miraculously leap her way out of a shower stall while the second sees her happily sinking into a tub. These strips are less about trying to draw a punchline about cats every time and more about the quotidian details that having a beloved pet engenders. These strange, annoying and delightful animals (they contain multitudes, they contradict themselves) are beings we spend a lot of time with, but Dukes has a special skill with regard to telling stories about her cat that are true to life and delightful but also quite realistic as to how animals behave. Soon she'll have a book full of these cartoons, and I predict that book will be quite successful.

Catching Up With Jon Chad

Jon Chadjurian is one of the more versatile and talented draftsmen in comics. He's also remarkably prolific, which is surprising given how detailed his line can be. Chadjurian (or Jon Chad, as he's known for some of his projects) has written and drawn two children's books, a huge compendium of disgusting humor, five issues (50 pages each) of a fantasy series involving bicycles and the first mini with bits and pieces of a science-fiction epic. On the side, he does a zine about pinball and contributes to anthologies. I get the sense that "workshopping" each of these projects with minicomics ahead of time allows him to stay fresh and interested. Let's take a look at each.

Leo Geo and the Cosmic Crisis. This second book in his Leo Geo series is Chad's most "commercial" work, but it's clear that this one is just as near and dear to his heart as his less commercial work. Published by Roaring Brook Press, Chad uses his talent for formal playfulness to guide the reader's eye across the page while deluging them with dozens of "eye pops" on each page. The first book in the series saw him go to the center of the earth, and so the book had to be held at a 90 degree angle so as to scroll down the page. When the reader and Leo reached the center, the book then had to be flipped 180 degrees so as to climb back up the other side. In this book, Leo goes to warn his brother Matt Data about a comet heading his way, taking his sentient computer along for company. When you flip the book upside down, we see a brand new title (Matt Data and the Cosmic Crisis) and a different mission: Matt going to warn Leo that his computer was infected by a virus that will make it perform bad experiments instead of "rad experiments". These books are tremendous fun because they dispense actual science fact along with goofball craziness (the action reminds me a little of the Johan Sfar/Emmanuel Guibert Sardine series) and give the reader a number of options on how to read it. Indeed, Chadjurian gives the reader a list of things to watch out for while reading the book, or the reader can simply follow the progress of the rocket (and the word balloons) across the page and ignore everything else. Of course, the eye pops are the best part of the book; they're bits of tiny punchlines crammed into a book that relies heavily on its formal structure to create reader interest. That's a deliberate strategy, as the highly simplified forms of Leo and Matt are rendered such as to keep things simple for the reader when tracking them across the page.

On the other hand, The Bad-Ventures of Bobo Backslack is Chadjurian's chance to cut loose on every filthy, unpleasant and just plain gross character and gag he could think of it. Bobo is kind of a pathetic nebbish in the mold of Todd Margaret from the TV show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. The main difference is Bobo's insane lack of guile and self-awareness; they're so irritating that one can't help but laugh out loud every time something horrible happens to him--which is on virtually every page. The character design of Bobo, with those glassy eyes, upswooped hair in the front, annoying bow tie and sweat constantly flying off of him is perhaps the least endearing I've ever seen for a protagonist. In the course of the book, Bobo eats some cursed alphabet soup that causes him to vomit it up in offensive phrases, including puking a number of insults into the face of the girl he has a crush on. Sequences where he pukes things out like "Ha ha just kidding. I would never like you. Your loathsome personality and looks disgust me!" get funnier and funnier as they keep escalating. Chad doesn't spare a single grotesque detail; indeed, virtually every character in the book carries at least a touch of the grotesque, like creepy next-door neighbor Ted Sickness. This unblinking, stupidly-smiling, Weeble-shaped character is weird enough on his own, but when he starts making out with another potential love interest at a kissing booth (and when his cat joins in for a three-way kiss), Chadjurian achieves an amazing level of squirming comics absurdity.

Bobo later gets ingested by a giant snake who puts on a wig and takes over his life; gets horrible allergic reactions to cats and milk (the latter after being dunked in a tank full of milk), gets chased by dogs and savaged by birds; is manipulated by an insane Japanese terrorist (who for some reason keeps a cat in his drawer and feeds it beer and chips); is scolded by a friend of his mother's to clean up his house; and is captured by the US government both for potentially causing a breakout of a virus as well as the unforgiveable crime of copyright infringement. Each character is more insane (and weirdly drawn) than the next, like a group of counter-terrorists who can't stop talking about how hard they are. Chadjurian is less interested in upping the ante on a page-to-page basis than he is simply maintaining utter anarchy in a manner that's still remarkably easy to follow. He very carefully structures Bobo's adventures in a conventional manner; it's just that the characters and the outcomes are hilariously gross. One gets the sense that Bobo is his outlet for these kinds of ideas that tend to lurk beneath the surface for him. I am generally not the target audience for these sorts of gross-out gags, but Chad's sheer enthusiasm in delivering them in the most deliberately bland of packages is infectious. Combined with the fluidity and clarity of his line, Bobo's misfortunes are almost beautiful to behold.

Bikeman is Chad's ongoing fantasy series. There's the expected wide cast of characters, the lushly-drawn forest settings, and requisite weird and grotesque character design. Of course, because it's a Chad comic, things are off-kilter, as the inhabitants of this particular world ride quasi-sentient bicycles. Chad's facility in drawing machines gives the bikes a real presence in each panel, making the fantasy world feel remarkably real. The fifth issue features the young protagonist hunted down by a vicious character named Brasko and his gang. The essential triangle of the book is with the young man, Brasko, and the mysterious Bikeman. The latter character appears in flashback in this issue, as we learn that he was raised by wolves, a relationship that was not entirely benevolent for him. After a number of skirmishes and light-hearted moments that marked the first four issues of the series, this is a serious patch of trouble for the boy, who is being used by the villain to find the Bikeman. The action sequences in this issue are thrilling, as Chad cleverly uses blurring to depict the speeds at which the bikes are flying through the forest, flipping the reader from panel to panel. When the action stops, Chad uses two vertical panels per page, with close-ups on the terrified face of the boy followed by the sneering, toothy grin of the monstrous villain. While Chad's storytelling style and attention to detail is similar to that of his friend Alec Longstreth, the more whimsical qualities of his narrative remind me more of Max Badger's excellent book Oak. All three cartoonists share an ability to work in a particular genre and deliver a narrative that fits within its rules while still applying their own idiosyncratic ideas and storytelling methods.

Chad goes even further afield in the introduction to Mezmer, his space fantasy epic. In some ways, this is his craziest work to date. Rather than tell a single, linear narrative in this issue, Chad instead tells a series of vaguely connected short stories. Some of them are heavy with backstory, like the robotic Maxer giving the reader a bit of history. Others come in toward the very end, like the confrontation between the heroic man/machine Mumfot and the roguish Ferls, which ends with the hero destroying a "Doombox". Ferls is rescued by his extremely cheerful sentient craft Bluebell, which constantly shouts out things like "I'm Bluebell! Now you're on me!" It's sort of like if a dog could talk but also had lasers and could fly. This is further reinforced in a supplemental mini where Bluebell is first created and becomes friends with Ferls. Drawn a bit like his Leo Geo comics, Bluebell explores space in side-scrolling fashion until he meets his new partner. Included with the mini is what looks like a child's drawing; it's a drawing that Bluebell made for Ferls. This level of absurd detail in a sci-fi story approaches Ryan Cecil Smith's insane devotion to world building in his S.F. series. Back to the main mini, there are also tales of the War Rock, a giant, sentient rock-like creature that participates in and is a fan of war. Bluebell appears and gets a day off. More backstory is thrown in here and there, creating a sense of history and depth that is nonetheless quite deliberately silly. That said, Chad seems best suited for science fiction above all else; there's something about the way he draws machines, ships and power-rays that makes it look like they simply flow out of his pen with no effort. One senses an avalanche of characters emerging from his imagination that he can barely keep up with.The fractured narrative style allows the reader to concentrate on these details without worrying too much about a conventional plot. To be sure, the plot is never the thing when it comes to Jon Chadjurian's work; indeed it's all about the ride.

Past and Future: Vermilyea, Cardini, Chad, Leach

Battle Burger, by Jon Vermilyea. This isn't a comic, but rather a series of illustrations of Vermilyea's violent, creepy anthropomorphic food characters done up in full gladiatorial garb. Silkscreened in full color, these drawings are funny, beautiful and disgusting--all at the same time. My favorite images include a two-page spread of a Road Warrior-inspired armored tank driven by a bloodthirsty slice of pizza and cut of meat. Even better is a monstrous doughnut, its hole encircled by sharp teeth. Vermilyea has done too few comics by my estimation, which is unfortunate because he's a big-time talent. He probably has done enough minis and anthology entries to fill up a collection by now, but as it is he's underexposed.

Vortex #3, by William Cardini. I love the increasingly abstract and artificial texture of Cardini's series, which will likely wrap up with #4. It's a fascinating take on the Mat Brinkman/Fort Thunder school of exploring a space, as the protagonist, the Miizzzard, struggles to regain coherence while traveling through a dreamspace. Using a variety of repeating patterns, zip-a-tone and other effects, and simple shapes, Cardini keeps the reader's eye moving across the page without leaving them in the dark for too long. Cleverly, he makes the artificial feel of each page part of the story itself, as the Miizzzard breaks free of the illusion to reach the final stage of his journey, which is where the issue ends. It's interesting to see a book done in the "mark-making" school of comics drawn entirely on a computer, as it heightens reader tension and makes the contents all the more alien in its coldness.

New Sludge City, by Brendan Leach. This is a tight, moody futuristic caper story by the talented, emerging Leach. Published by Retrofit Comics, Box Brown's innovative venture, it's a modest-looking comic that looks like it was shot straight from pencils with some grayscale effects. It's a deliberately ugly, low-fi look for an ugly little story about a pair of thugs who plan to use boutique body-switching technology to pull off a big score. The scuzzy underbelly of the city is highlighted by its otherwise futuristic and even utopian trappings, like cars that drive themselves and fully automated homes. Of course, the punks aren't rich and are trying to get over by getting paid for allowing rich people to inhabit their young bodies for an evening, a sort of obscene cosplay for the futuristic 1%. When it becomes evident that there's no honor among thieves, one only wonders how long the eventual triple-cross that concludes the book was actually in place. The scribbly pencils and heavy atmosphere of the piece do a lot of the narrative heavy lifting in this comic, leaving the reader only to wonder about the nature of the relationships in this comic prior to its events. In this and his earlier The Pterodactyl Hunters, Leach seems to enjoy exploring cities and societies in their decline. In the former comic, certain characters will do anything to maintain their status. In New Sludge City, certain characters will do anything to escape their societal standing.

Maser, by Jon Chad. Chad's rightly received a lot of attention for his all-ages Leo Geo series, but his genre-inflected stories sometimes go in a darker direction. This mini he was selling at SPX is a short, funny and nasty story about a social outcast scientist who perfects his maser (different from a laser--Microwaves Amplified by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation) and calls up a random co-worker in the middle of the night to talk about it. Of course, when the co-worker curses at him and later belittles him at their job, the scientist first takes drastic measures, then takes even more drastic measures in order to get what he really wanted: a chance to talk about his maser with this random co-worker. Chad's a superb draftsman and draws the horrific scenes where someone's face gets burned with an almost loving attention to detail. This one's well worth reading if you can track it down.

Jon Chad Comics: Bikeman and Drop Target

Jon Chad is one of the best of the Center for Cartoon Studies' grads in terms of pure technical skill. In terms of character design, backgrounds, body language and detail, his comics are a joy to look at. He creates a fully-defined world for his characters to inhabit, jammed with clearly-delineated leaves, branches and small objects. The clarity of his line and understanding of when to emphasize character over place means that every panel is remarkably easy to parse and process. He switches between the naturalistic depiction of animals, cartoonish character design and diagram-ready drawings of bicycles and makes all three cohabit the same panel without jarring the reader. In fact, Chad deliberately tries to create visual tensions in order to draw readers in, drawing characters and evoking a world that are simultaneously grotesque and absurd, realistic and silly, dense and light.


Bikeman is his fantasy series where all of these factors come together. In almost every respect, the world he creates is a familiar one: a vaguely medieval world where hard-working villagers struggle in a world filled with intelligent and frequently vicious animals and mercenaries. The kicker in the story is that everything in this world revolves around the use of bicycles, many of whom are sentient at roughly the same level as a dog or horse. As a result, fashion and language revolves around bicycles as well (there's a character who wears glasses with spokes on them), a conceit that would be ridiculous if it wasn't played straight by Chad. The first issue of the series introduced as to the young villager who's the primary protagonist, as well as the titular character. He's a bike shepherd who wears a crafted bear's head to indicate his connection to the fierce but benevolent animals he's devoted to. Each issue has widened the scope of the world to Jeff Smith levels (it's clear that Chad owes a lot to Smith's world-building in Bone), introducing a bounty-hunting human with a grudge against the Bikeman, a pack of evil wolves who also seek revenge on the Bikeman and his guardian bears, a host of villagers, an intelligent bike who can speak, and a variety of other characters and conflicts. Other than a few minor errors here and there (spelling gaffes, a few lines that could be tightened up a bit), this is a marvelous bit of fantasy storytelling. Hopefully, Chad will continue to take his time and let things play out slowly.


I also wanted to mention Chad's pinball zine/minicomic Drop Target, which he co-writes with Alec Longstreth. Anyone with even a passing interest in pinball machines will enjoy this labor of love, as Chad & Longstreth interview the owners of a pinball-centric bar in Portland (and former editors of a pinball zine), talk about their favorite game, dream up and design new games, and talk about places with good pinball machines. The highlight of the issue as a comics reader is "From Zeroes to Heroes", Longstreth's typically breathless account of how he and Chad became obsessed with pinball machines. This is a niche zine, to be sure, but it's an obvious labor of love and done with a meticulousness that one would expect from Chad and Longstreth. Chad has done illustrations for some childrens' books and has his own kids' comic coming out in 2012, and I sense that he could very well have a career trajectory similar to Smith: working in genre fiction and alternating between work aimed squarely at kids and work that's slightly darker.