31 Days Of CCS, #4: Sierra Edwards, Wayne Carter

Kiki is a small departure for the talented Wayne Carter. This 8-page mini is done in full color (I think it's a Risograph comic), and it packs a lot of punch. It's about two brothers who play a fighting video game on a day when the weather forces them to stay indoors. The real action of the comic is hearing a fight between their mom and dad, as the former accuses the latter of cheating. There's a loaded question about why "Kiki" is calling the house, with a response that she's "keke'n" (gossipping) with everyone. The competing narratives (visual vs the unseen fight between the adults that the kids keep trying to drown out with the TV but find it doesn't get loud enough) are heartbreaking precisely because the kids aren't all too surprised. The last page is a splash after a lot of 4-panel grids, and we see police cars pulling up to the house. This is a great example of working around a narrative without showing it; the pink and purple palette is the color of bruises. The visual of a fighting game standing in for the actual conflict, especially as a way for the boys to work out their aggressions and frustration, was extremely affecting. Carter was already good, but this represents a real levelling up.

Man Rock Lake looks like another Riso comic, and it's by Sierra Edwards. Each page is a splash, starting with the titular man on a rock in a lake. From the very beginning, it's an ontological query, as the man wonders if anyone else is there. He receives an immediate answer of "no," which then turns into an eventual negation of reality. It's cleverly done, as the final negation doesn't even have language--it's simply a dark page minus all of the original elements. The cartooning seems pretty basic here, but the real meat of it is more conceptual than visual. I'd love to see more of Edwards' work. 

45 Days Of CCS, #12: Wayne Carter and King Ray

Wayne Carter is a humorist. The comics I've seen from him have been absurd and well-designed, with sly surprises. His comic The Saddest Angriest Black Boy Anywhere initially seems like a joking tribute to Robyn Smith's classic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl In Town, down to the use of a vellum cover with an image that overlays an image underneath it. However, it is most certainly its own thing apart from what Smith did, even as it describes a similar experience: being a Black person in the extremely white White River Junction, VT. Smith talked about how othering this experience was, and did it in her own poetic, sensitive style. Carter addressed similar issues in his own style, which is satirical and blunt. He uses a fluid open-page layout and begins with a slavery "joke" that someone made at a bonfire he held. 

Carter then lists a bunch of microaggressions, just plain aggressions (like a cashier who refused to acknowledge him), and the essential point of just how exhausting it is to live in an environment like this. This comic is a seething, unapologetic expression of how angry he is at this exhaustion, but it is also a love letter to Smith, who was his professor at CCS. As he said, "She made it feel less lonely." That said, the comic focuses less on outright, in-your-face racism from that cashier and more on his white peers who see him as someone to foist all of their insecurities about race upon. Part of that anger is that their feelings are not his problem. The comic is also a statement on his own identity, mixing sequential anecdotes with full-page text stops for emphasis. He ends by noting "Here is a place where my anger is good. My anger leads me through the bad." He makes no claims for anyone else, which is one of the most important points of the comic: Carter doesn't presume to speak for others, so why do others presume to speak for him and project their fears on him? Carter makes a statement here, and he does it in style.

King Ray's comic Birds vs Planes is typical of Ray's quirky storytelling and the way they integrate word and image on the page. It manages to include the crazy tale of pilot "Sully" Sullenberg, who famously managed to land a plane after geese flew into his engines, as a sort of patron saint figure who brings peace to the warring factions of birds and (sentient) planes. As it turns out, the conflict between birds and planes was heightened when a bird named Claudia and a plane named Steve fell in love and later broke up. This triggered all-out war before Sully stepped in to promote peace and announce that Claudia was pregnant with Steve's child. Ray cleverly transfers soap-opera tropes to a ridiculous scenario that nonetheless has its own internal logic.

45 Days Of CCS, #9: Wayne Carter

Wayne Carter's Ben is a hilarious takedown of a character that the reader slowly learns is not exactly what it might seem at first. On page after page, an unseen narrator warns us that this fellow Ben is "the worst," and lists a litany of sins, missteps, bad taste, and just plain obnoxiousness. Ben is drawn simply--circular head, conical hat, and no mouth. The simplicity of the character design and drawing is key to the actual jokes/accusations, which get increasingly absurd. Stories like "Baby Ben would give himself homework and grade it. e would later call this his 'genius era'" reflect the astounding specificity of Ben's generally obnoxious behavior. 

However, about halfway through, the reader starts to wonder, "Why am I reading this? Who is giving this one-sided account of this asshole?" In a scene where his attempt at karaoke is a failure, we see a mysterious figure in the background taking notes. After several more pages of this (including one laugh-out-loud mention that Ben only reads books written by millionaires, with Gwyneth Paltrow being his favorite author), we are introduced to Pamela, who "sees through it all." She's following him around, recording every dumb and regrettable thing that he does. The exact nature of their relationship isn't revealed until near the end, and it's a credit to Carter that he sustained this long series of insults for as long as he did. Ben is sort of a shaggy dog story, but it's a really good shaggy dog story, and the back cover has a follow-up to the narrative that pretty much confirms everything we see in the story. 

Carter's comic Candy Confessional is even funnier and shows off both his comedic and conceptual chops. The characters are anthropomorphic pieces of candy, and the lead character is a young woman concerned that she is "going sour" because of something horrible she did. Going to confession, she tells Father Carmel (who barely seems interested, as he's playing with a ping-pong paddle with an attached ball) about a bar fight she got in. Furious at a pushy ex at the bar, she threw a bottle at him after a cutting remark. The whole has Carter's highly stylized line and bright color scheme, but it's his commitment to the bit that makes it work. Carter also submitted Nowhere, an illustrated zine that features a different compliment or insult he received throughout his life. This is done in a completely different visual style, as Carter shows off his drawing chops in frequently disturbing and even horrific images, with lots of splattered ink and moody shading.