One thing you have to say about Larry Young is that he has a tendency to think outside the box. Proof of Concept is another example of that kind of thinking, as it centers around a notion that is similar to pre-established comic models but just a little bit different. In many ways, Proof of Concept reads like a one-writer anthology like Mortal Coils, but it has an underlying conceit that it is based on Young pitching various ideas to a friend and producer, and so we get something more akin to a highlights/clip show kind of thing. Honestly, only a couple of these concepts really spoke to me, and in execution, there was also only one I really wanted to see more of, but the insights into Young's creative process and the variety of art styles makes for an interesting read.
There are those who are annoyed by the very notion of "the high concept." It has taken on negative connotations for many, who see it as the destruction of creativity by marketing interests, such that every movie has to be "this meets that" and can't be something original. Personally, I love these kinds of games, and find that it takes more creativity to boil something down to a simple concept rather than less. Of course, my favorite high concepts are the ones that are kind of weird or funny on their own, and that's really what young has presented here. The last vampire being hunted by retired vampire hunters. Zombie dinosaur versus a military unit. A noir mystery set in a future world full of cloned Abraham Lincolns. A group of kids who discover a time portal. That kind of thing.
The framing device of Proof of Concept is a phone conversation between Larry Young and his buddy, lawyer/producer Ken Levin. The art on this sequence is some of the strongest in the book, provided by Kieron Dwyer, although Larry is looking a lot more bald in Dwyer's rendition than I remember him looking in person. Aside from that, though, Dwyer is given some of the most boring stuff in the book to draw, the talking heads sequences as Larry stays in one spot and Ken heads to his office, and yet, these are always visually interesting.
However, the meat of the book is in between these brief interstitial pages, as we see the concepts that Young is describing come to life on the page courtesy of a variety of artists. The five main stories are 11 pages each, with a larger story called "The Bod" reprinted here for those who missed it when it ran in Image's Double Image series. "The Bod" is also the exception in that it features art from someone who has been published elsewhere, while to the best of my knowledge the art on the other five stories is by five new creators. To be completely honest, I think all of the art is a bit on the rough side, but there's also something I like in each artist's work. The stories aren't as strong as they could be visually, but each artist pretty much gets the point across, at least.
Of the stories presented here, my favorite is the one which could be considered the goofiest, that of a zombie dinosaur taking on a military team. Young, Sanders and Johns present a military team led by Bruce Willis's comic-book equivalent, with a pretty female scientist along to provide knowledge, as they blast the living hell out of a zombie T-Rex. It's unapologetic formula action movie stuff, where the diversion from formula is in the unusual monster, and that puts it in the same realm for me as Aliens and Predator, two of the truly great sci-fi/action flicks of all time. If any of these concepts return in a longer form, "Zombie Dinosaur" is the one I'd like to see more of. I had a similar fondness for "Hemoglobin," another monsters meets military pitch, but Young and Couciero present this one as more of a movie trailer than the cool action sequence, and so I didn't really get the hook as strongly on that one.
There are two stories here which I felt were really let down by the artwork. "Emancipating Lincoln" is easily the weirdest concept in the book, and I like both the weird hook and the general tone (noir/sci-fi) that the story represents, but if your story centers around a world full of cloned Lincolns, it behooves you to have someone who can actually draw Lincoln. Flynn is working off the common look of Lincoln and aging and de-aging, so you have to cut him some slack, but it wasn't until the very last page that I understood that our protagonist was supposed to look like Lincoln, and that takes the sting out of the gag and a lot of wind out of the sails of the concept. "The Camera," on the other hand, is a concept that really needed to be clear in what it's showing, and in both story and art, it's not. The basic idea, that kids have found a time portal, is clear enough, but where and when it goes and other important details never really come through.
The other time travel concept, "Time Being," I just couldn't wrap my head around. I've got a fondness for time travel stories, but I tend to prefer "dumb" time travel like Back to the Future or A Sound of Thunder to the heavy concept stuff that Young gets into here about synchronizing time, paradox and ultrapowerful time beings. It's not that it's bad stuff, it's just not my cup of tea, and I couldn't quite "get" what I was supposed to be getting, which is a problem since the whole point of these high concept stories is to sell the reader on the concepts.
Young closes out the book by reprinting "The Bod," a four-part tale of an invisible girl who uses her powers to become a star. I wasn't crazy about it the first time around, and I'm still not wild about it, but I do see the appeal. Young is taking potshots at the celebrity-obsessed culture and showing the common B-level celebrity cycle, from Tonight Show to Jerry Springer to Judge Judy. The cultural touchstones are all specific enough that they're already well on their way to being dated, but in these days of reality show degradation, the messages of the story are still pretty relevant.
So there you have it. Proof of Concept is a glimpse into the working mind of Larry Young and a showcase for several new artists. I wouldn't call anything in these pages great, but it was all interesting enough that once I picked up the book, I didn't put it down until the end, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more of at least one of the concepts. 7/10
