Crudely Drawn Naked People

Project Telstar was the first of three themed anthologies from Adhouse, featuring a ridiculous amount of indie comics creators all throwing a short story into the mix. Anthologies are always hit and miss, but the Science Fiction-themed Project Telstar, printed in black, white and metallic blue (featuring futuristic rounded corners!) contains barely a single duff story, setting an almost impossibly high standard for the anthologies that followed, Project Superior and Project Romance.

It’s with some trepidation, then, that I have to deliver this fact. I was kind of disappointed by Jeffrey Brown’s story in this one.

Hear me out on this - it’s not that the story is bad, because it isn’t. It’s got everything you could want from Brown’s non-autobiographical work: action, comedy, some tragic romance. The problem, in fact, stems from just this. Where almost every other creator at least appears to have gone outside their comfort zone and created something unique and occasionally, very profound, it feels a little like Brown has taken a fairly standard approach with his work and just chucked in a token robot for good measure. Where’s the adventure?!

Admittedly, out of context, it’s great - it’s about a man in space who breaks up with his long-long-long-distance girlfriend, and then, awaking the next morning from a drunken stupor, discovers that in his heartbreak, he programmed his robot to be a violent killing machine that he must then disable. It sits unassumingly alongside the stories of Project Telstar or any of Brown’s other work, though notably in tone it’s most like Brown’s super-hero parody, Bighead, than anything else. Still, we knew Brown had more than this in him, if only because a few years later he finally finished the brilliant Transformers parody, Incredible Change-Bots, which features a far more compelling story about robots and space travel, and one which treats the subject matter as more than the mere background elements of a stock Brown romance plot.

Still, if you’re a fan of the work of Jeffrey Brown, then the Project anthologies remain a must-buy. Mainly because they’re a must-buy whether you like Brown or not. The sheer amount of creators I’ve discovered from this line can’t be understated.

Of particular genius in Telstar are Joel Priddy’s Long Slow Flight of the Ashbot, depicting a robot surviving (barely) as he floats in space until the end of time, and Gregory Benton’s Passover, a story showing the final remnants of the human race deserting a polluted and destroyed Earth in brilliantly pedestrian fashion. Best of all, though, may be Paul Rivoche’s Robot in the Rain, mixture of detective noir and cold-war sci-fi aesthetic with an undercurrent of paranoia so powerful you’ll have to use a crobar to prise the book away. Project Telstar outdoes itself in every possible way, and even if I was a little hard on Brown’s contribution, that’s only because the rest of it sets an incredibly high standard. For what it’s worth, Brown’s inclusion in Project Superior, the second part of the Project trilogy, is far better. But I’ll get to that next week…

Buy Project Telstar from Amazon (UK)
Buy Project Telstar from Amazon (US)
Please be aware that Project Telstar is out of print, so availability may be limited and prices may be ridiculous.

Another packed weekend means no time for a massive update, but here’s another something special that I’ve been saving for when I wussed out of a review. This is (youtube allowing) the Jeffrey Brown-directed video for Death Cab for Cutie’s song, Your Heart is an Empty Room from the album, Plans.

The story is, in great Brown tradition, semi-autobiographical. It was animated by Eliza Chincarini, who may or may not be the same one currently working on Robot Chicken (and if so, great work on that too!)

This video, alone with a rare video interview with the man himself is available on the DCFC DVD companion to Plans, entitled Directions.

Buy Directions from Amazon (UK) *
Buy Directions from Amazon (US)

*Note that the Directions DVD is Region 1. For the love of god ensure you can play it before buying it.

This week, it’s all-new Brown as his latest book, Incredible Change-Bots, finally hits UK shores (or, more importantly, the shelves of my local comic shop). Here’s what the inside cover has to say about the plot:

Far away in space, there is a planet full of robots able to change from robot form to vehicle form — the Incredible Change-Bots! Leaving their war torn planet, the Change-Bots arrive on Earth, where their battle continues — BUT AT WHAT COST?!

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Perhaps like a cartoon you used to watch, some toys you used to play with, or perhaps a movie you remember watching this summer (possibly while choking back vomit) - yes, you somehow figured it out - Incredible Change-Bots is Jeffrey Brown’s take on that loveable robot-based megabrand, the Transformers.

Now, before we go any further, I should warn you - I am what you would call “fairly obsessed” with Transformers. Be prepared to witness some even worse nerdery than usual. I promise I’ll be back to “normal” next week.

As Incredible Change Bots opens, the Awesomebots are embroiled in a fierce, ongoing, er, election campaign, with their rivals, the Fantasticons. The leader of the Fantasticons, Shootertron, wishes to gain control of the government, blaming the Awesomebots for slowing their planet’s economy with their lack of warfare. He seizes power by rigging the voting machines, and as a result, fighting breaks out between the two factions. This is what you’d call a thoroughly ironic take on the conflict presented in the original Transformers series, where the factional differences and power structures were poorly defined, if at all. The fight eventually spreads to Earth, and naturally, hi-jinks ensue.

Brown effectively parodies the tone of the original Transformers series - the characters speak with bombast, shouting slogans at each other during battle and making vague declarations about good and evil. As portrayed by Brown, the Change-Bots display the kind of human qualities most robots get to avoid - they interrupt one another, they leave awkward silences, and they irritate others with their stupidity. They have personalities, but each only really has one character trait which they then display at every opportunity. It’s all funny because it’s only a shade more ridiculous than the truth ever was. Moments like Awesomebot leader Bigrig having to set up his trailer after transforming Incredible-Changing, and the human characters pointing out to him how much of a coincidence it is that he changes into a truck, given his alien name, all point to an author who, like the target audience, might just have thought about the original Transformers cartoon a little too much.

Brown doesn’t make mockery his only concern, though - while there’s a joke on virtually every page, the story does also serve as an action-adventure in its own right. Indeed, the plot itself is fully played out within the pages, in a suitably epic tale that even leaves room for a sequel. It’s half-parody, half-love letter to the original Transformers concept, and Brown’s affection for the material beams from every panel. If you love the idea of a transforming robot but also recognise its inherent ridiculousness, well, be assured - so does Brown. For those deeply into Transformers, there are a couple of references that only the obsessive will get - you could count them on one hand, though, and the vast majority of the jokes are going to work for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the concept.

Incredible Change-Bots is most immediately distinguished from the rest of Brown’s catalogue by being his first full-length work in colour. It’s bright and bold, and has great texture. Whether or not he does further work with colour, it’s hard to believe it’ll ever look as good as this. It’s an utter magnum opus, equalling the recent Transformers movie in scope (indeed, the movie release is what inspired him to complete the story he’d been hanging onto for some time) and justifies every centimetre of every page.

To be honest, I could go on, but there’s so much to talk about it could get ridiculous. I’ll leave you with a nicely quotable closing statement (because I don’t do grading, you ingrates): Jeffrey Brown’s Incredible Change-Bots is a must-own for anyone who grew up on 80s toy-commercial television, but it’s still brilliant in its own right. Buy it, love it, thank me later. Preview pages available below!

Incredible Change-Bots Preview Pages at Top Shelf
Buy Incredible Change-Bots from Amazon (UK)
Buy Incredible Change-Bots from Amazon (US)

Conversation #2 is a fairly odd comic, even by the standards of the indie scene. In a format devised by Kochalka, two creators illustrate a conversation that they’re having, alternately drawing half a panel at a time and allowing the other one to complete it. The topic of said conversation? In this case: Art. Why they make it, and where it comes from. A pretty hefty topic for 48 pages, that’s for sure, especially when this is probably the tiniest comic I’ve ever actually bought - it could fit inside a CD case with plenty of space. It seems like it could be a real challenge to fit topics so huge into so little space.

Somehow, the format does manage to keep up. Rather than being the static, boring talking-heads piece that the idea of an illustrated conversation suggests, it’s remarkably action-packed. Kochalka brings his surrealist and vulgar tone to the artwork, meaning that you get a 48-page philosophical head-to-head across some giant metaphorical landscape that starts on a rock beneath a tree and eventually visits prehistoric caves and outer space, while along the way a giant version of Brown destroys a city. Strangely compelling. Brown and Kochalka’s styles, while fairly different, meld together fairly well. It’s clear who’s drawn what, but in the cases where one inhabit’s the other’s landscapes, the way they stick out almost seems to service the conflict of ideologies that’s being presented.

The two artists do genuinely approach their comics differently. Kochalka seems to espouses a more immediate, visceral, “draw first and ask questions later” approach, in which his comics aren’t about his life - they are his life - and he draws solely because he can. Brown takes a different tack, with a reflective and introverted approach where everything has a reason. I’m unsure of Kochalka’s background, but it certainly feels like Brown’s fine arts education is influencing him.

While I can see the appeal in both methods, it’s probably no surprise that I agree with Brown more than Kochalka. At one point, Brown feels like Kochalka’s reasoning has become circular, and it does seem that way to me as a reader at times. Kochalka evades direct questioning about his reasons for writing and drawing comics about himself by making assertions about living through art and art through living. Eventually they come to an agreement about why actually go so far as to publish the comics they make, rather than just write them, which to me feels like Kochalka has finally been tempered into addressing his motivations and reasoning, despite his earlier willingness to avoid them. In the interests of balance, (and in the nature of dialogue presented by the very format of this comic) Kochalkaholic does a review where he’s firmly in the Kochalka camp.

Despite Conversation being written by two largely autobiorgaphical creators, it feel like the most honest work they’ve done. It cuts directly to the core of why either is even making comics in the first place, and more importantly it presents them as about as human as it gets, exchanging ideas - occasionally inarticulately, or inaccurately - seemingly without revision or filtering. Even the imperfect version of Brown he usually writes is still, to some degree, only a version of the true one. The Brown in Conversation feels like Brown, the creator, rather than Brown, the character.

It’s fair to say there’s very niche appeal to Conversation. The experimental format and the very subject matter mean that likely the only people this is going to attract are people who are already fans of Kochalka and Brown. I hesitate to use the term “vanity project” but it’s certainly fair to say that Top Shelf probably took a reasonable risk that this would sell based on the names of the creators alone. It’s a small subset of people that are going to find this a rewarding reading experience, but to those that would, it’s an incredibly unique piece of work, essential for understanding the creators involved.

Buy Conversation #2 from Top Shelf