ABP editorial

DOIN’ THE TWIST: “TRICKED” and INTERLOCKING FATE

By Inky Black

Frequently with a multi-character narrative, all parties involved are simply particles in a unified whole. With each fluctuation a veteran reader can see the puppet strings of the author’s grand design. Where the pleasure once lay in ‘what might happen next’ the reader now is tickled by technique. Anticipation has been sublimated with appreciation.

How one character does or does not affect the others is only part of the story. In a film such as Altman’s Nashville the protagonist is not one specific character, but rather the town of Nashville itself. Enter Alex Robinson’s revelatory graphic-novel Tricked. Beyond being merely beautiful and well crafted, Robinson is able to buck superficial structural comparisons to Altman through utilizing a complexity of character derived from behavioral nuance. However, much like Altman, actions speak louder than words in Tricked. Words literally overlap, and sometimes in mid-sentence, entirely disappear from the page.

The Kids are All right: Charles Burns' 'Black Hole' by: Inky Black

I am writing this review in the wake of a moment in which cartoons have reasserted their power. As the 'cartoon' of the prophet Mohamed has demonstrated, humor is still an act of subjectivity, and those wielding the ink have slashed global consciousness with a stroke far deeper than any that could be made by the strongest of swords. It is within this frightening world, in which the cartoon is the new dirty bomb, that I choose to turn inward, or more accurately slip into a fully realized world that is pure sub-conscious projection, a world fertile with sex, death, and high-school alienation. To be sucked into Charles Burns' 'Black Hole' is to find a womb-like haven amidst the chaos that now even confronts on us on the funny pages.