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SPOTLIGHT ON XERIC GRANT WINNERS
This upcoming weekend, folks will be attending the 2005 Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland. And I'm remarkably jealous, because every time I've been to SPX, it's been a blast, a small but highly enjoyable con that is all about comics. Given my more indy bent these days, I'm especially missing the show this year, because I've discovered any number of new favorites and cool minicomics at the SPX shows I've attended in the past. In fact, I found myself on Monday night looking at last-minute flights and trying to figure out who I could crash with, but I decided it was too much hassle to plan a last-minute visit.
This upcoming small press focused event does seem like a perfect excuse to talk about one of the friends that the self-publisher has in this industry, The Xeric Foundation. The Xeric Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Peter A. Laird, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that provides thousands of dollars in grants every year to self-publishing comic book creators. While every Xeric book hasn't been my cup of tea, in general I've come to see the Xeric Grant as a mark of quality, and will always give those books that are Xeric grant winners a look if I can. You can find out more about the Xeric Foundation and Xeric Grants at their website.
Over the past few years, I've reviewed quite a few Xeric Grant winners. Here's a list of grant winners from 2000-2005 that have been reviewed, for those of you who want to check out some of the archived reviews:
Bumperboy Loses His Marbles (2005)
A Few Perfect Hours (2004)
Coexisting (2004)
The Brontes: Infernal Angria (2004)
Ninety Candles (2003)
Along the Canadian (2003)
Paper Museum (2003)
Poppie's Adventures: Serpents in Paradise (2003)
Malinky Robot (2002)
Garlands of Moonlight (2002)
Chiaroscuro (2001)
Content (2000)
I've also got a pair of Xeric Grant winners in my review pile, and I've decided to pull those out and give them a review for this week. From what I can tell, these creators are not set up at SPX but you can check out their websites to order the books, or keep an eye out at your local retailer if they're indy-friendly.
 Though it's often depicted as such in fiction, life is anything but simple. Little choices that seem clear in hindsight, or when viewed from the outside, cause gut-wrenching hours of thought and later recriminations, and doing the right thing doesn't always result in the rewards it should. Black Mane is about the difficulties of doing the right thing in situations where right and wrong is blurred by the ambiguous nature of reality. Sounds like heady stuff, but LaRiccia brings these philosophical ideals down to earth by exploring them through a self-deprecating semi-autobiographical version of himself. The difficulties of standing up for yourself and others are explored in humorous (albeit sometimes darkly humorous) ways, and when life just gets to be too much, LaRiccia summons his imaginary alter-ego, the Black Mane, to cause imaginary grievous bodily harm to folks who generally really deserve it.
Black Mane is a loosely plotted graphic novel, more a collection of slightly linked short stories than an overall story arc. LaRiccia takes the reader on a journey through daily life in short vignettes, exploring his cartoon alter-ego at work, on the road, at a club and at a restaurant, among other stops that will be familiar to just about everyone's day to day experience. Though the locations change, the over-arcing theme of the stories in Black Mane involves LaRiccia running into the crudest, most despicable examples of alpha male behavior in the world, and attempting to process it and decide if he needs to be involved in what's going on.
There's some definite courage involved in doing a book that is autobiographical, even one that has fantasy elements like Black Mane. LaRiccia's alter-ego often comes off as weak and ineffectual, worrying about every little thing and unable to act even in the face of situations that, to the reader, seem cut and dried. However, Michael is a protagonist who is easy to sympathize with, and LaRiccia does a good job of conveying the uncertainty in the situation, allowing the readers to really put themselves in that same role and realize that in real life, things aren't that cut and dried. Standing up often has dire consequences, and as the ending of Black Mane shows, it doesn't always accomplish enough in the long run.
Which is not to say that Black Mane is a paean to standing idly by and letting bullying and misogyny go by. Indeed, Michael's story arc takes him through several bully confrontations, starting off with him backing down and being gently chided by his girlfriend and ending up with him doing a difficult thing in informing an authority of some bullying (and worse) going on that he has witnessed. Over the course of the story, we also see Michael react with his fictional alter-ego, unleashing his rage and frustration on fictional versions of the real bullies, but it is the throughline of Michael's ability to act in the face of bullying that is the more compelling story of Black Mane.
LaRiccia's artwork has more in common with the chaotic madness of his lion-esque alter-ego Black Mane than his cartoonist persona. Certainly the general style is clear, but there's a chaotic energy to the work, especially when violence or threats make their way into the story. The lettering becomes exaggerated and begins twisting into the curves and spaces of the artwork, and the enraged characters distort and enlarge like a crazed Bill Plympton drawing or the end result of a crack-fueled painting session from Simon Bisley. LaRiccia's style in general is solid, and I like the almost caricaturish focus he puts on enlarged heads and clear facial expressions on top of more normal sized bodies. However, he is at his best when his work explodes into the violence and madness that, ironically, gives his alter-ego (and presumably the artist himself) such nervousness and unease.
 In Thread, Benz and McClinton have created a view of everyday city living viewed through a lens of paranoia and mystery. I'm reminded somewhat of some of the opening sequences of The Matrix, when it was clear that something unusual was going on, but what exactly that something was remained a mystery just out of reach. Which is not to say that I expect Thread to evolve into a story of kung-fu kicks and hyper-intense gunplay, just that Benz and McClinton have done an excellent job of creating a world that is slightly unreal yet very familiar and remarkably engaging in its unsolved mysteries. Thread #1 takes us into the life of Frankie, a young woman in the city plagued by disturbing dreams and working at a dead-end job and places that life in the context of compelling urban paranoia.
Thread is an unusual read, because it has all the elements of a slice-of-life book - urban setting, dead-end job, protagonist with emotional issues - but it's clear that there's much more than that going on here. Which isn't to say that Benz and McClinton have failed to capture the joys of a good slice-of-life tale, as Frankie's life makes for interesting reading even when the more unusual elements of the story are still lurking mostly beneath the surface. The first-person narration creates an intimacy with and sympathy for the lead character without breaking the fourth wall, and Frankie's character, jaded but not entirely cynical, self-confident but still vulnerable, is very likable right from the outset.
However, what really intrigues me about Thread isn't just the story of Frankie's life, but the changes that the story seems likely to make in that life. There's a sense from the beginning that unusual events (or at least tragedy) lurks in Frankie's past, as shown in a very vivid and effective flashback opener, but the story really takes a turn when "the Chinatown mystery man" shows up and drops some pills into Frankie's basket. What at first appears to be a drug dealer trying to get away from cops who are too close turns into something else, and the reader is left with a number of mysteries about what the drugs are, who the mystery man is and why he's being chased by the cops. Thread #1 doesn't give up the answers, but it asks the questions, and by the end, it has the reader asking the questions as well. It's a good start to an effective mystery, and while the proof of a good mystery is in the way it ends, being able to hook the reader is definitely a key element in making it work as well.
Summer McClinton's artwork is intense and detailed, but she never loses the thread of storytelling in the sheer amount of detail found in the panels. Her characters are strangely developed, much farther along the stylized end of the continuum than the photo-real end, but there's a nice variation of expression in the faces and definite power in the body language as well. McClinton's figures are more fluid and languid than real people, but there can be no doubt that this is a deliberate choice rather than an amateur art failing. While I enjoy her work on people, however, it is her depiction of Frankie's urban environment that really impressed me. Broken springs from a well-used mattress, cracked shingles on an old roof, chain-link fences and billboards are among the realistic urban detritus that makes up Frankie's real yet unreal world, courtesy of McClinton's artwork. There's also a terrific, inky quality to the work as a whole that I really like, and I have to single out McClinton's clever lettering choices when it comes to sound effects and songs, making them feel part of the scene without being so intrusive as to overwhelm the rest of the story.
Thread #1 is an impressive debut, well worth a look for those who like tales of daily life with just a touch of conspiracy paranoia mixed in. This kind of thing is a tricky business, as it's easy for a promising beginning to devolve into a mundane or, worse, overly complex and unclear finale, but based on the skill at work in Thread #1, I would bet on Thread pulling through to a satisfying conclusion in the end.
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