The Complete Badly-Drawn Comics, by Martha Keavney

This collection of Martha Keavney's minicomics from 1988 through 2002 (eight issues in all) represents the work of a cartoonist who was part of the Xeric/DIY generation of artists, albeit one who wasn't especially prolific. What made her Badly-Drawn Comics series unusual was its relentless commitment to its mining humor out of its titular premise. Indeed, her comic probably had more in common with humorists of the 80s like Peter Bagge than the minicomics revolution that exploded in the 90s. What's clear is that in terms of pure, conceptual comedy, Keavney has few peers in comics. Her nearest cousins are probably Michael Kupperman and Sam Henderson. Kupperman's visual aesthetic is more important than Keavney's, as he's trying to draw on a particular kind of nostalgia for things that never quite existed. However, like Keavney, he excels at taking a familiar premise and absolutely flogging it to death, creating a tension between reader and the work that plays on that familiarity and warps it through that familiarity. Like Henderson, the deliberately crude quality of the drawing (especially when Keavney actually figured out a line she was comfortable with drawing) is a key element in the humor, providing a sort of easy-to-access visual that is easy to bend in any number of conceptual directions. Keavney's interest in (and self-mockery for) self-reflexive humor that often self-consciously explains the joke to the reader (creating even more tension) is a large part of her appeal. She sees the gears in hack comedy and loves to rearrange them for the reader.

The first few issues of Badly-Drawn Comics rely heavily on the "badly drawn" aspect of things, consistently bringing attention to this and creating conceptual humor out of it. Her original characters, Nick and Nicolette, often complain about not knowing what's going on because everything is so badly drawn, they have no idea what objects are around them. A "scratch 'n sniff" comic features items like a perfume called Eau de Paper. Keavney runs through these gags quickly before she creates her greatest character: Martha Keavney. She's introduced complaining about the many rip-offs of her famous comic and how bad they are, like Poorly-Penned Portrayals, which is a failure because it's drawn too well. Then there's the "reader participation" issue, which is told from the point of view of the reader hanging out with Keavney. After a pleasant conversation, the reader gets out of hand, angers Keavney (who starts throwing things through the panel like a 3D movie), has sex with Keavney and eventually learns that Keavney is the all-powerful god of her strip. In the next issue, she shows up in one of Nick and Nicolette's stories, who want to get back at her for heaping so much abuse on them.

Keavney also plays around with the formal aspects of comics for laughs (and making fun of Understanding Comics), explaining things like flashbacks, flash-forwards, etc in literal terms. When the caption said, "One Week Later", it was an actual week in Keavney time, as she was startled by the reader's presence. There's a blobby superhero named Letratone Girl who diffuses conflict thanks to her shades of grey. The sixth issue is where Keavney's style is firmly in place and she no longer makes gags about her comics being badly drawn. "One White Chick Sittin' Around Talkin'"explores her frustration with only being able to draw herself, then introduces multiple Marthas as extra characters, then rejects that as self-indulgent after a pun-filled fight between two of the Marthas. The story then morphs into a hilarious It's A Wonderful Life parody, where the assorted "what ifs?" twist and turn on themselves in the most convoluted possible ways.

Keavney doesn't often get into more personal humor, but her strip "The Incredible Adventures Of... Self-Absorbo!" featured her narrowly avoiding having the center of attention taken away from her from a friend who tearfully told her about her cancer. Using her secret power of super-tears, the friend apologized and told her how great Martha was. One of Keavney's great skills as a writer is adopting the cadence of whatever she's trying to lampoon, and she truly nailed super-hero speak here (and in the truly disgusting Hostess Twinkies parody later in the book). Probably her two best stories are "The Mix-Up" and "The Secret Life Of Martha Keavney". The former is a parody of every romance/comedy of manners/wrong time, wrong place trope imaginable, jammed into one story. Martha gets hired by someone who only takes on people in relationships (she was single), so she hires an actor who claimed he was gay (he was not, he lived in a building whose landlord only allowed gay people) to be her boyfriend for a dinner at her boss's house. The actor was told that Martha was a nun, leading to all sorts of hilarious contrivances. The best part of the story is that after setting up the premise, Keavney claimed that a few reels of the movie were missing, leaving only the ending. How everything wound up completely different and yet perfectly happy is completely omitted, making it that much funnier.

"The Secret Life..." is a masterpiece of building on a premise and one-upping it. Martha imagines herself as an Antarctic explorer, until she's shaken out of that reverie by her boss at her job that she hates. While imagining how great it was to be an explorer, she's woken out of that reverie by a fellow homeless person in a subway tunnel, and Martha thinks about how nice it would be to have a job and an apartment. That keeps escalating until we see Martha in hell, and that escalates to a hilariously banal punchline that nonetheless works perfectly in stopping the progression of events. Simply put, there are few cartoonists with the kind of comedic chops that Keavney displayed during her active publishing period, and hopefully the new strip she has in this collection (along with a funny introduction and index) means that she'll be more prolific in the future.

Sequart Reprints: Shirtlifter, Love Stories, Spelt-Rite, Injury 2, Awesome

Shirtlifter #1-2, by Steve MacIsaac. MacIsaac is an extremely astute observer of human nature in his stories, both fictional and autobiographical. Issue #1, "Unmade Beds", is fictional but is based on MacIsaac's time spent in Japan with his partner. Identity and a sense of purpose are running themes in MacIsaac's stories, as is self-deception obscuring the same. In "Unmade Beds", the story's ex-pat protagonist Derek finds himself as a "kept man" as Michael's partner. He's deeply unhappy but is unable to express it to his partner; instead, his ennui plays out in the form of anonymous sex while denying his sexuality to his co-workers. His unwillingness to come to terms with what he really feels and own up to those feelings is in direct contrast to his otherwise sharp intelligence and awareness. That blind spot he has is his own latent self-loathing and selfishness, and as the story ends it becomes clear that his dawning understanding of both is too late to save his relationship. MacIsaac's restraint and subtlety are what make this story work, never hammering home key points of characterization but instead allowing them to unfold for the reader.

His autobio work in #2 ranges from brief musings and digressions to stories that are more explicitly driven by narrative. These stories link sexuality and identity, an issue that becomes especially pointed for gay men and women. The very declaration of sexual identity becomes a defacto political statement, and to publicly deny that sexuality is to distort an essential truth about identity. In stories like "Waiting For The Bus" and "You Can Tell Us Anything", MacIsaac struggles with his own desires and the experience of coming out to a family that is not entirely supportive. In the latter story, the juxtaposition of hurtful family statements with scenes from his loving relationship with his boyfriend are especially powerful.

The exploration of desire and its consequences are seen in stories like "Safe" (about the simultaneous desire for unsafe sex and the pressure often created to do so) and "Crush" (about an encounter on a jam-packed bullet train in Japan that underlines MacIsaac's alienation and isolation). My favorite stories were probably "Border Crossings" and "You Do The Math". The former is about MacIsaac's struggle to find a job in the US (he's a Canadian), which balances multiple identities (sexual, national, career, artistic) and forces him to make a leap of faith. The latter story is about the public/private dichotomy of sexual identity, where MacIsaac is still uneasy about how and when to come out to the general public (like many of his ESL students, who are homophobic). MacIsaac explores this issue through a series of clever vignettes, culminating in an exchange in a florist's where he makes a point of saying flowers are for his boyfriend.

There's one major issue I have with MacIsaac's work. While he has a solid understanding and grounding in the language of comics and page composition, his figures have an essential stiff and static quality that is created by his drawing this comic using a computer. That makes a lot of his stories look and feel much colder than I think MacIsaac intended. This is ameliorated somewhat in stories where he uses color but was a significant difficulty in "Unmade Beds". His use of a realistic style probably contributes to this problem; using a slightly more expressionistic approach might make his figures come alive a bit more. As I noted earlier, the use of color greatly aided in bringing his characters to life in #2, and I'll be interested in seeing how he continues to develop his visual approach. He's already one of the stand-out autobiographical writers working in comics today.

John Henry, by Dmitri Jackson. Jackson retells the legend of John Henry, steel-drivin' man, whom he refers to as America's First Black Hero, and this story subtly deals with the racial overtones of the legend. Jackson employs a simple, blocky style and a steel-blue wash to depict the duel between man and machine (John Henry vs a steam-powered drill). Jackson's character design is his greatest asset. His line is not quite assured enough to easily carry a story, but he generally avoids over-rendering and allows his compositional skills to drive his narrative. I also enjoyed his "Brother Rage" character in his minicomic Frotoons #3, a firebrand black orator whose speeches seem to contain parody, satire and a few grains of truth as well. Jackson obviously has a lot of potential as an artist and a distinctive point of view; his task at this point will be one of development, refinement and continued experimentation.

Love Stories #1, by Mat Tait. This New Zealander tells stories that are mostly about and set in his nation. This is a visually striking collection told in stark and boldly outlined black & white, giving his pages a certain weight while not sacrificing the fluidity of the narrative. Tait's local and Maori stories like "Graveyard Etiquette" (comparing a Maori creation myth to the simultaneous gratitude and resentment children feel toward their parents) and "The Heading Dog Who Split In Half" (about a legendary sheepdog) are crisply told and a delight to look at. Tat goes in a different direction with his last two stories. "Great Historical Disasters" is a hilarious collection of one-panel fictional historical events like "Admission of the Antarctic Empire to the U.N., 1974", where we see a Jack Frost-looking figure freezing the Secretary General. "Shortcuts To Enlightenment" is a creepy story reminiscent of Zak Sally involving a ritualistic process of adding an extension to one's house and various disturbing steps needed to possibly become enlightened. Tait is a master of tone, both visually and verbally, using shadow and intense cross-hatching to tell stories that linger in one's mind. Tait is a major talent, skillfully navigating the intensity of his imagery with the clarity of his storytelling.

Injury #2, by Ted May, et al. I loved the first issue of this series, and this issue is more of the same wonderful big fun. One thing I should note is that this is not actually a one-man anthology; Jeff Wilson co-wrote one story while Jason Robards did the finished art on another. "Hair of the Dog", involving teenaged stoner metalhead soap opera, had a number of laugh-out loud moments. With the story set in 1983, I grew up with a number of metalhead kids like Jeff and Ray--every beat of this story felt familiar. The climax of the story, where heartbroken Jeff imagines that the lead singer of Nazareth (helpfully labeled with a shirt that read "The Dude From Nazareth") sits next to him while they both sing "Love Hurts". The overwrought, over-the-top scenario was played entirely straight, which is why it was so funny.

The other story, the next chapter of "Your Bleeding Face", was yet another action-packed, over-the-top story with unexpected laughs. It was the story's little touches that made it so much fun, like two gang members playing a Slade pinball game or the video game-influenced action scenes. The scene where our hero, Manleau, is in a bathroom trying to get a man waiting in a stall for anonymous sex to leave for his own safety, was a riot ("I gotta get this guy outta here. Need to keep my phrasing free of double entendres!"). May's line is loose and lively, with a touch of that kinetic Jack Kirby energy informing his action scenes. What makes these comics so pitch-perfect is the way he's able to tell these stories in a completely straight-faced manner that respects the source material, yet at the same time has an understanding of the ridiculousness of it. That fine balance, much like Lewis Trondheim & Joann Sfar are able to achieve in their Dungeon series, is what makes Inury such a great comic.

Spelt-Rite Comics #1, by Martha Keavney. Keavney is a long-time favorite artist of mine and one of the funniest comics creators around. After a long hiatus, she's launched a new series, following her hilarious Badly-Drawn Comics. Spelt-Rite doesn't use a lot of self-reflexive humor like BDC did, but rather creates premises and either subverts them or takes them to extreme lengths. "Oh, The Irony!" takes every single time-travel cliche' imaginable (Hitler's mother, averting a world war, traveling on the Titanic, etc) and turns them on their head as a time-traveling Keavney enters the story for the most banal of reasons. The final punchline is Keavney at her best, managing to top every gag she had dished out. "Cease and Desist" is a story where every bit of dialogue and sound effect is a registered trademark. Amazingly, Keavney manages to construct an 18-page story out of these trademarks (even things like "Beep" and "True" are trademarked), including a guy trying to pick up a woman and that same man trying to talk a friend out of suicide.

"The Hypocrites" (a story I published in Other magazine) takes a particular set-up (two guys showing how hypocritical the other is) and takes it to its wildest extreme (a third person performing a hypocritical act that is as ridiculous as it is monstrous). The masterpiece of the issue may be "The Minuscules", the "correctly spelled comic", starring Aloysius and Siobhan. Every bit of dialogue is packed with commonly misspelled words ("chaise", "cemetery", "desiccated", etc), leading up to a final punchline involving the word "stationary". Keavney's art is quite functional in its role as joke-delivery system for her set-ups--it's simple and unfussy as she doesn't depend on visuals for her jokes. Her combination of complexity of setup and absurdity of her jokes makes her one of the most effective humorists in comics today. Hopefully this issue will spur her productivity.

Awesome, The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology. This book certainly has a noble aim--providing a cash award to a student at the Center for Cartoon Studies. That award, by the way, was awarded to Chuck "McBuck" Forsman, whose excellent first issue of Snake Oil was just reviewed here on May 3rd. This anthology was conceived by the co-hosts of the Indie Spinner Rack podcast, "Charlito" and "Mr. Phil" and published by Evil Twin Comics. It is unfortunate that so much of this anthology ranges from awful to pleasant but forgettable. While it was admirable for so many artists to donate their time and stories, too many of the stories felt lazy, rushed or inconsequential. Too many of the stories (with the nearly incoherent story by Robin & Lawrence Etherington being the worst example) almost felt like advertisements for their creator's series rather than stories that stood entirely on their own. The exception to that objection was Kazimir Strzepek's Mourning Star short story, mostly because he did a great job in quickly setting up a premise and telling a clear story.

This book seemed to suffer from the spirit of "let's all get together and make an anthology", lacking an editor and direction. That said, about a third of the book's fifty or so entries were memorable, and of that number, seven were excellent and merit further discussion. First, Matt Kindt's "Misery Index" relating stories of people he's met on the title index--containing four quadrants of tragedy, humor, suffering and irony. True to description, the three anecdotes he relates are indeed very funny in their own awful way. Jamie Tanner's "The Accommodation of Old Man Small" is a typically creepy, beautifully drawn entry by Tanner, whose peculiar, meticulously drawn but cartoony art always impresses.

Chuck Forsman's own strip, "God vs Idiot" continues to plumb the themes he's explored in his other comics: alcoholism and family. This darkly comic story was a bit reminiscent of Chester Brown, with a thin line and absurdist elements like the hand of god coming along and smashing a bottle of alcohol, and the alcoholic man somehow having the devil's phone number from the phone book. Forsman's self-doubting afterword was almost as funny as the strip. His fellow CCS student, Joseph Lambert, contributed another visually striking strip about the creative process and the way it creates multiple voices of doubt and rage--and how this affects others. Roger Langridge added a typically zany story about a filthy vaudeville singer who managed to cheat death, effortlessly propelling the narrative while staggering the reader with his decorative touches.

One always hopes to discover a surprising gem in an open anthology such as this, and there were two notable entries in Awesome. Jesse Post and Ben Towle's "The Gates of the Garden" manages to pack a lot of portentous history and humanity into just four pages. It's an anecdote about British diplomat Gertrude Bell, whose influence in the Middle East can still be felt today. The biggest surprise in the anthology was Sarah Oleksyk's "The Enchanted Stag", a well-drawn, well-designed story that starts out in typical fantasy-genre fashion but soon turns those tropes on their head. The punchline of this story is so effective because Oleksyk stays completely within the expected rules and even visuals for such a story, but still manages to quickly surprise the reader.

Of the remaining stories, entries by Nick Bertozzi, Joshua Cotter, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Al Columbia, Liz Baillie, JP Coovert, Sam Hiti, Matt Bernier and the team of Harvey Hsiung & GB Tran were also quite good, but not quite as memorable as the artists mentioned above.