Alternative Visions
Alternative Visions |
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Page 14 of 29  Cover to Drawn and Quarterly (Drawn and Quarterly, 1990). Art: Anne Bernstein. Chester Brown's Yummy Fur (Vortex, 1986) was a consistently innovative title. The lead story in the early issues was 'Ed the Happy Clown', about a passive ingenue who suffers the most appalling humiliations and injuries. In various surrealistic episodes, he breaks his legs, is chased by cannibalistic pygmies, is beaten up and is sexually mutilated. He ends up an emotional and physical husk. Appalling though this may sound, it is also utterly hilarious: the more excruciating poor Ed's predicament, the funnier it is. The word 'schadenfreude' could have been invented for this strip, and the reader's response is a mix of belly laughs and cringing guilt. Brown manipulates this contradiction with knowing skill, and his artwork adds to the unsettling tone: the characters have thin bodies and big heads, and panels are spread out over pitch-black backgrounds. The result is a uniquely amusing and disturbing read. Brown had appeared in various anthologies as well as Yummy Fur, most memorably in Escape, and had increasingly experimented with drawing on the darker areas of his subconscious, basing his comedy on free-form association. He explained later that, 'the Ed story came automatically, without any thought'.5 This is undoubtedly what gives his work a nightmare-like quality, emphasized by the unworldly art. In Brown's world, however insane the turn of events, everything seems sinisterly normal. This tone could be perfect for bizarre comedy, but later, as we shall see, he would take Yummy Fur in more serious directions. Peter Bagge was the second of the comedy masters, and was responsible for two outstanding titles. The first was Neat Stuff (Fantagraphics, 1985), which featured a lead story about a dysfunctional family, the Bradleys, and their efforts to get along with each other in small-town suburbia. The satire was based on close observation of family dynamics and interpersonal relationships: when tensions erupt to the surface, faces become distorted into spike-toothed demons, while the air turns blue with the vilest of expletives. The publisher's blurb had more than a grain of truth: 'The only people who don't like Neat Stuff are those who are afraid they might recognise themselves in its pages.'  Pictopia  Yummy Fur (Vertex, 1989) |