Three New Comics by Iris Yan

I usually do all of my Center for Cartoon Studies reviews all at once, but I'm making some exceptions with the recent batch I've received. It's always a pleasure to get new comics from Iris Yan, whose dry but blunt sense of humor always delivers. Yan is extremely prolific, for good and ill, but when she takes her time, her anthropomorphic figures add a lot to her storytelling.

She also frequently just has a great concept. In Taxi Driver: Wisdom On Wheels, for example, she takes what is low-hanging fruit (stories about cabbies) and focuses on details and her own withering observations to create variations on a set-up that still offers up funny surprises. What's also interesting about this comic is that Yan's whole project has been one long memoir mediated through various gimmicks and devices: her experience having cancer, dating, teaching English, and more. This mini explores Yan's career as a consultant, a lucrative but stressful profession that meant dealing with a lot of weird personalities. Yan wisely approaches this time of her life from different, bite-sized angles with their own narrative hook, like having to take taxis to work. Ultimately, Yan noted that she just wanted to get home safely, which meant humoring some weirdos. 

Yan goes much deeper in her two Studying Traditional Chinese Medicine diaries. Hilariously, she decided to take up TCM after some acupressure helped him with a medical issue, because it seemed like witchcraft and "I've always wanted to be a witch." She was living in Taiwan at the time, and the courses were in China, so off she went. Yan is really adept at breaking down the inherent social absurdities of hierarchical institutions of schools and businesses, bringing the eccentric personalities she encounters to the forefront. Whether it's rigid teachers, flighty students, and concepts in TCM that she can't quite absorb, Yan goes into a great deal of depth with regard to her experience living in a dorm as a woman over forty years old. It's also interesting to see Yan struggle to learn the nuances of the TCM organs, which, while having familiar names like "lung" and "kidney," don't quite match up with their Western equivalents. 

The second volume begins with Yan returning to Taiwan for spring break in 2020, which coincidentally marked the beginning of the global pandemic. Her program was completely unprepared for zoom-style instruction, and so what it took to pass courses became much easier, with lots of open-book exams. As a result, Yan felt she didn't retain much information, except those things that involved children's urine or squirrel feces as part of their makeup. In the end, Yan took a leave while dealing with colon cancer. Each diary issue is close to 100 pages, and the episodic quality of each vignette made this a more uneven reading experience. Yan tried to vary the lessons she learned with bits about her classmates and teachers, but the narrative structure felt a bit overstuffed, as diaries often do. Yan's art and lettering were also uneven, looking rushed at times. The line weight for figures and especially lettering noticeably varied, as it felt like Yan was trying to get this down as quickly as possible. Yan works in a deliberately simple, stripped-down style with anthropomorphic figures because it gives her a lot of freedom to depict sensitive topics. However, I've seen her do this in a much more polished way in earlier comics. Happily, Yan's wit and timing remain as sharp as ever, and that is the main calling card for these comics. 

Eric Haven's Damned #1

Eric Haven's comics exist in this weird liminal state between EC horror comics, 1970s Marvel monster/science-fiction epics, John Stanley comedy, and otherwise uncategorizable pulp fiction. Dating back to his Tales To Demolish days with Sparkplug Comic Books, his publishers have clearly always understood how his comics work on multiple levels and have an appreciation for their pulp aspects. 

There's often an autobiographical component to all of this weirdness, as a lot of his comics feature himself as a bespectacled, stoic observer of the absurd. In his latest comic for Fantagraphics, Damned #1, there are three separate but connected storylines, all told with Haven's trademark unsettling, deadpan style. The first, "Meg Tempera," is a strange romance-style comic featuring the reluctant title character fending off the advances of the cartoonish buffoon Ned (a highly warped version of Haven) who won't take no for an answer and is obsessed with ham. 

The second feature is titled "Deathika," who is a very Golden Age-coded hero who's chasing down an assortment of monsters who yell out "Protective the Collective!" The olive-and-purple hooded outfit is right out of a four-color comic, and the total lack of an explanation (other than killing monsters, of course) is part of the fun. The third story, "Modern Boating," features that oaf Ned somehow driving a high-tech boat, a ham next to him. ("The cured meat, silent, lies beside him on the seat.") This draws the attention of the "Lake Patrol's Elite Killer Shrike Unit," who start shooting at him. Finally, in "Worlds In Collision," Meg discusses her nightmares of being Deathika with a friend, Ned barges in with a ham, and Meg's friend starts going in on a theory about how we need a modern-day figure to "protect the collective." Things are connected but don't entirely make sense. It ends on a non sequitur. There are more questions than answers. There's no guarantee that there will even be a Damned #2. It's all part of the continuing Eric Haven project whose visual appeal is halfway between deliberately stiff and fluidly exciting. You can see Haven deliberately emulating the same kind of flat but curiously compelling 50s art that Dan Clowes does, only Haven genuinely loves playing in this sandbox. The exchange about Ned buying Meg's Micronauts toys but professing that he's really a "Shogun Warriors guy" is hilarious to those who have the same cultural touchstones, but they resonate as absurd even to those who resonate with those references. This comic is a perfect little dose of absurdity. 

Catching Up With Carol Lay: Murderburg and My Time Machine

It's not an exaggeration to say that Carol Lay has had one of the weirder careers in comics that I can recall. She started her career at the dawn of the Alternative Comics era, doing shorts for Weirdo and Wimmen's Comics as well as commercial work for DC & Western. In between working in animation and doing storyboards for Hollywood, she was one of the more successful cartoonists in the alt-weekly newspaper industry with Story Minute (later WayLay). Her Irene Van Der Camp strips in Fantagraphics' Good Girls comic were later collected, as well as her short strips. She did a memoir about weight loss, did Simpsons strips for Bongo Comics, and self-published a number of short comics. While she does a lot of comedic work, she's not strictly a humorist. In fact, I'd say her defining characteristic is that it's hard to define her work.

Her Murderburg (originally Murderville) comics were originally published as individual issues via Kickstarter, and Fantagraphics Underground published a collection of them. These are in the vein of her "Irene" strips: funny, highly stylized, weird, and violent. While Lay's introduction details the publishing history of the Scazzo family, there's nothing that actually explains the presence, making the first couple of stories confusing. The diminutive, fire hydrant-shaped family patriarch Leo Scazzo, with his purple suit and pencil mustache, feels like a tribute (if not a direct reference to) Gomez Addams. Indeed, with the three children and Leo's willowy spouse Antonia, along with assorted references to violence and mayhem, it seemed obvious that this was a Charles Addams pastiche.

Except it's not. This is a goof on mob cliches, with Leo Scazzo being a semi-retired mob boss who has become mayor of Muderburg, a small Maine island community. Everyone on the island has their own shady behavior that they're up to, but things are kept in the family, so to speak. Lay mashes up the island weirdo cliche with mob tropes for humorous effect, even as the personalities of the main characters do have a lot of Addams tendencies. While Leo, Antonia, and their "normal" daughter Isabella are somewhat amusing (if limited) characters, the real fun is in the weirdness of the island itself. Whether it's a mysterious, all-devouring fog, a phony artist, assorted assassins, or the annoying snobs on a nearby island who drop their garbage on Muderburg via hot air balloon, Lay excels at coming up with absurd comedic premises. The characters themselves are all rather static, which is fine because they exist to provide a structure to hang jokes on. The episodic quality of the stories makes it feel like a demented, modern version of a Harvey comic, which isn't surprising for someone who worked on the Simpsons comics. Lay's character design befits the comedic nature of the strip, and her pen-and-ink compositions are so sharp that I wish the whole thing had been in black & white. Her lettering has always been a strong point of her work as well; it's dynamic, crisp, and clear.

Lay's newest work is technically her first original graphic novel. Entitled My Time Machine, it's a genre-bending story. It's technically a sequel of sorts to H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, but it's also a memoir of sorts, and it's also a polemic. The protagonist is Lay herself, who tries to duplicate and expand upon the adventures of Wells' nameless Time Traveler in a world where the book depicted true events. Lay is an artist whose history of primarily doing short stories means that she's used to getting to the point with some alacrity, so it's interesting to see such a languid sense of pacing in this book. The plot follows Lay volunteering to pilot a time machine invented by her ex, in hopes that she could see just how bad global warming has become, so she could alert the present. Set in 2019, it already feels strangely dated in terms of how much crazy stuff has happened.

There is a remarkable amount of detail regarding not only the time machine and how it works, but minutia like the suit she wore and her log of the things she saw. While she didn't encounter Wells' Eloi or Morlocks, she did see the evolution of electronic drones that gained sentience and came armed with lasers. There's also a surprisingly affecting set of encounters Lay has in 2030 with her ex, who details a lot of the world's problems at that time. The result is just strange, as Lay maintains Wells' obsession with detail that tends to supersede character narratives, but it's all laid over how she'd imagine encountering these things in person. It's a fictional story that feels strangely personal and intimate, touching on Lay's own feelings about mortality. 

Lay's art is typically crisp but much more restrained and less stylized than usual when it comes to the character work. That's because she saves the weird stuff for her character's encounter with swarms of drones and a giant octopus creature in the far future. The whole book does have a curiously flat quality to it, in part because Lay's character is somewhat passive. She's just sort of there for the ride and to record things, as she skims her way through time. It's not unpleasant to pass the time with her (so to speak), but like much of Wells' work, it's not as interesting as the premise suggests. 

Catching Up With Jason Martin

Jason Martin is often hailed as one of the best writers in his sphere of comics, which is autobiographical & poetic observations. Indeed, I first became aware of him thanks to Papercutter #17, an issue of the dearly missed anthology that featured a number of different artists interpreting Martin's stories. However, I also greatly admire the spare economy of his line. He's an excellent example of someone with limited talent as a draftsman who nonetheless manages to maximize this with an assured understanding of cartooning itself. His use of gesture and ability to create atmosphere using a simple line make spending time with his gentle, thoughtful, and often amusing observations not only a pleasure, but even nourishing for the reader. 

John Porcellino is an obvious touchstone and influence for Martin, and he acknowledges this fact in one of his stories. However, Martin's Laterborn series is different from Porcellino's King-Cat Comics & Stories, because Martin is a different kind of writer and artist. Porcellino's line is distilled so far down to its essence that it borders on abstraction, yet it doesn't lose any of its expressive power. Martin's line is more rudimentary and earnest, but there's also something pleasant about the way he creates shapes. There's a consistency and intentionality in his visual language that complements his subject matter. While both artists delve into the poetic qualities of anecdotes, Porcellino's writing is often as spare as his line. Martin's eager effusiveness for living informs even the most quotidian of his anecdotes.

Life Lines is his second collection, drawing mostly from his zine series Laterborn and Black Tea. The latter series, he noted in his introduction, was started as a more spontaneous, sloppier attempt at making stories left over from Laterborn. It's a clever way of retaining a certain freshness and liveliness in one's line after the labor of crafting something more elaborate. (Julia Wertz does something similar.) Martin's approach to narrative is interesting, because he retrofits a new narrative onto previously unconnected stories with a unifying theme. The themes are simple, like "Cedar Street," which clearly all seem to take place during the same time period, living in a particular place. No one anecdote stands out, but there's a warmth to them tinged with a slightly bittersweet feeling in retrospect. Some of them are more cohesive narratives, like "First Tour Comix," a document of a tour of a two-man band on the West Coast. Playing live, traveling, meeting other musicians, and trying to find a place to stay are all recalled with fondness. 

The second section, "Changing Gears," is probably the most ambitious set of stories in terms of scope. There's a story about Carolyn Cassady and her old San Francisco house, a touchstone for him given that her book got him into her husband Neal's famous Beat adventures. Another is about visiting a friend at a zen center and the aftermath, and several others are about work encounters with surprising personal outcome. Above all else, Martin seems most interested in stories about connection. The third section hits on stories from his childhood, from being born deaf in one ear to early attempts at making art with others. There's a chapter dedicated to Portland, a city that means as much to him as San Francisco, that includes convention tabling stories, friendships, and the overall vibe of the city. The rest of the book focuses on finely-tuned portraits of people he met, small but meaningful moments, and other places that had significance in his life. There are moments of playful, almost silly humor, but what sets Martin's comics apart is his sense of wonder. 

Martin also included the latest issue of Black Tea (#7), which once again featured stories that both dovetailed into singular & memorable moments and pleasantly emphasized the small joys experienced along the way to those moments. The best was a story about his childhood devotion to Late Night With Conan O'Brien, which eventually led to him getting a last-second seat at a taping. Another story about being a page turner for a piano player for a musical. Here, Martin's attention to the smallest of details in this most minor anecdote is what brought it to life. While the longer collection of his work was enjoyable, Martin's comics are best enjoyed in smaller doses like this, especially with the mix of longer stories and one-page anecdotes and gags. 

Finally, Covers #2 is a comic featuring stories about musicians. What these stories displayed was Martin's ability to distill information into a compelling narrative, even if it's the smallest of anecdotes. In three short stories, Martin zipped off compelling accounts of playing a birthday party gig for Keanu Reeves, one of the band members nearly getting killed during 9/11, and how a legendary guitar brought bandmates Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore together. These moments had little to do with music but everything to do with the life of a musician, and it's understanding that process that makes Martin unique. The same was true in adapting some stories from Mike Watt, especially one about a friend who went to great lengths to help him. The final story, involving an anecdote about an unusual song by Neil Young, was all about music and the process of creation in particular. Martin strips away the glitz and ego and gets down to the art and relationships, and this is emblematic of his work as a whole. 

Elise Dietrich's Kill Your Idols, Part 1

Many of Elise Dietrich's autobiographical comics have been in the form of travelogues, but Kill Your Idols follows a different journey: one into the musical idols of her past. This is mostly about Dietrich as a teenager, "a mostly unformed mass of anxiety and passion." Music and art can often provide both an outlet and a template for teens, as well as a parasocial relationship that can inform their path and decisions. 

Unsurprisingly, Dietrich details that she first started becoming a fan of alternative rock in the late 80s and 90s, as an older boyfriend shared a lot of different bands with her. While the boyfriend didn't last (although the regrets did), the musical obsession did. For Dietrich, it centered around Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. With the ostentatious Farrell, it was the kind of devoted desire given to a magnetic cult leader. With the cool and reserved Gordon, it was the urgent desire of having a role model. Dietrich points out that their identities became fantasies that she wove in her own head, especially when any significant investigation into Farrell's life and aesthetic revealed a great deal of pretentiousness--and not even original pretentiousness. Gordon at least gave Dietrich a creative direction as a musician and an artist. 

Dietrich explores whole-cloth adaptation of another artist's aesthetic and perspective as a way of cycling through influences in order to find one's own voice. The next part of the story will include Dietrich's present-day evaluation of her idols. In this issue Dietrich uses a mostly open-page layout to her advantage, which allowed her to adapt the imagery and album art of her favorites. It's a quick and easy way to show how they influenced her own aesthetics. Dietrich does her best to express not just what each artist meant to her, but why their songs and visual presentation were so important. There were two essential problems here, however. The first is that the comic doesn't convey much in terms of why the sonic qualities of the music was compelling. It's a difficult ask for any comic, but one that is predicated on music falls flat without it. The second problem is that Dietrich's teenage self is barely a character. This is partly by design, as she presents her teenage self as inchoate, but the result feels more like an extended book report more than a narrative. Hopefully, the second part will help connect the dots with a more pointed critique and deeper self-reflection.

E. Joy Mehr's E. Joy Comix #1

E. Joy Mehr's comics have an easy, scrawled, and unaffected quality that gives her diary strips a comedic charge that most examples in this genre lack. There's a crudeness, both in terms of style and subject matter, that works because of its intentionality and a sense of the artist appearing not to give a fuck. Yet, from the lengthy introduction in E. Joy Comix #1 alone, it's clear that Mehr is keenly interested in honing her craft, both in terms of the actual drawings and the jokes. 

If her comics are similar to something, I'd say she's close to the spirit of Newave-era minicomics, with a lot of her drawings reminding me of Sam Henderson. Her jokes aren't as sharply assured as Henderson's at this stage, but there's also a personal element that gives them a certain charge. Mehr's jokes are funny, her drawings are funny, and her cartooning is clear and fluid. I'm fascinated by the sketchbook pages she included here that are largely drawings of dicks (with the occasional drawings of female forms to round things out), but even these drawings are lively and fun. Mehr has a knack for self-deprecation that pushes a premise all the way, like a comic about perseverance that somehow veers into dog-fucking as a metaphor. Even Mehr realizes that is nonsensical, but she declares she's going to do it anyway. The longer stories at the end are both pretty dumb, but there are kernels of darker material at their core, like a story about watching the film The Goonies, which had its origin in depression. Anxiety is at the heart of other strips. Everything is grist for the mill, but Mehr never lets the reader forget why some of these laughs should feel uneasy.

Sea Legs, by Jules Bakes & Niki Smith

Jules Bakes and Niki Smith's middle-grade memoir Sea Legs has a unique hook: Bakes spent much of her childhood as a boat kid. In other words, her parents were itinerant sailors who would rarely stay long in one area, taking on jobs before sailing on to a new locale. This particular narrative begins with her parents deciding to go on a year-long trip to the Caribbean, which meant Bakes (renamed Janey for this story) went along with them, being home-schooled a few hours a day. 

This narrative has a lot going for it. The character hook is irresistible, and Bakes leans into it all the way, in a manner one would expect for Scholastic. Bakes drops all sorts of nautical terms and ocean-related factoids throughout the book, which makes sense given its target audience likely is unaware of this information. Bakes manages to make it a comfortable part of the narrative, given Janey's own obsession with facts and stories. Janey is an amiable narrator; goofy and awkward but also loving, curious, and loyal. Smith's playful, lively, and at times whimsical art is crucial in conveying the narrative, as she fully captures Janey's clunky awkwardness that goes hand-in-hand with her wild, expressive enthusiasm. Smith also has the chops to portray the ship and life at sea, breathing life into the narrative with a blend of cartoony facial expressions and realistic backgrounds. 

The plot is less important than the world-building here; while there's a hurricane that throws everything into disarray, the plot is more in support of the central theme of the book: the matter of being, in the philosophical sense. For a lighthearted book in some ways, Janey's character is one who has a deep sense of the void, of non-being, and she fears it. She cannot escape the thought of it, as it is personified in this cold, blue hole in the ocean that was over an underwater cave. It represented the absence of everything, but above all else, it represented ultimate isolation and disconnection. From the very beginning of the book, Janey values friendship above all else. Leaving behind her best friend from school is devastating to her, even as she tries to stay connected through writing letters. 

Of course, the problem with existential terror is that by its very nature, it is isolating and even solipsistic. Janey's terrible loneliness at sea drives a wedge between her and her parents, but especially her mom. When she makes friends with a cold, aloof fellow boat kid named Astrid, it alleviates her loneliness but not her sense of belonging. Astrid is desperate for her own sense of connection, but Janey doesn't understand why until much later. Bakes hints at Astrid's trauma in being around an abusive and alcoholic father who is charged with taking care of her younger siblings, especially in relation to the things that Janey has but cannot see: loving parents. 

Janey's obstinacy is what she has to work through in the course of the story, as well as the feeling of self-absorption that inhibits her ability to fully empathize with others. This leads to some adventures that she gets into precisely to feel older and cooler than she actually is, to seek meaning, and to fill the gap of existential dread with adrenaline. It is fitting that the ending is an anti-climax in some ways; she never gets to read Astrid's last letter to her, never hears from her again, and even the beloved Merimaid, her parents' boat, is badly battered by the storm. All that remains is to write her a letter and put it in a bottle, repair the ship, and try again--a little older and a little wiser.