This appeared on The Comic Journal's
website July 25, 2003
by Daniel Holloway
The Comic Journal website - TCJ is published by Fantagraphic Books
link
to the review on TCJ's website
To believe m@b's press is to wonder when comics artists will stop meticulously documenting the lives of young white urbanites. Toronto's Eye magazine, which publishes a weekly version of the m@b strip, writes, "Confused yet amused by the absurdities of urban existence? Or find your circle of friends your surrogate family? m@b is a comic about your life." Your life and the life of every 20-something cartoonist in North America, buster. Fortunately, m@b is more than the good people at Eye, in all their good intentions, make it out to be. Matt Blackett goes to the well with a different bucket than that of the typical urban-hipster cartoonist, and manages to draw from it a wholly different drink.
M@b is not a daily comic strip, but it reads like one. Each issue is a collection of three-panel strips, and the only thing to tip the reader off that the books are not collections of a syndicated daily is the occasional profanity or reference to drugs or sex. The three-panel format and the artistic style, obviously closest in kinship to the modern newsprint minimalists, encourages the reader to approach the material in the same way one would the comics in a local daily. M@b benefits from being read in such a context. Not only is Blackett's writing sharper and his art more expressive than that found in m@b's syndicated cousins, but its source material seems unique by comparison.
Unlike the world of alt comics, where urban people-watching and close attention to the relationship dynamics among groups of friends are common elements, in the world of the short newspaper-style strip the motifs of m@b are a deviation from the norm. While many syndicated cartoonists deal in family dynamics or wacky pets that talk, m@b appeals to a demographic that lacks representation in most funny pages: the type of urban 20-something who might be caught reading alt comics. This deviation is just enough to pique the reader's interest on initial reading. The familiarity of format and artistic style contrasted with the relatively unique subject matter smells suspiciously like artistic innovation, a rarity in comics of this breed.
What keeps the reader coming back to m@b is solid, understated art coupled with Blackett's uncanny ability to place his finger squarely on what it is that makes the things peoples say sound so weird. In one strip a character refers to a new coworker as "The type of guy who eats live frogs from a bucket." In another strip a stranger at a bar tells someone, "I kid you not, I was recruited in 1979 to spy for Poland."
But the beauty of Blackett's writing is not merely that he can come up with stuff this quirkily absurd; it is that these are his punchlines. Almost every m@b strip ends this way -- with a character saying something that appears to make no sense, but in which the reader can identify a small grain of truth. You probably do have a guy at your office that eats live frogs. That guy you talked to at the bar last night probably was a Polish spy. You just never thought of it before Blackett pointed it out to you, and he does so like a man sitting across from you, trying to direct your attention to something using only his eyes.
Instead of his eyes, though, Blackett is armed with the rhythm of the three-panel format. In one strip Blackett depicts a teenage boy and a priest. The first panel reads, "I passed a young man and a priest talking this afternoon." In the second panel, "I have no doubt about it, I heard the priest say." Finally, in the third panel, "The un-dead walk among us." The strip works because Blackett is able to manipulate situation, format and punchline to make the reader wonder as to why a priest would say that. There could be any number of reasons, any number of unseen contexts in which that line would be delivered in conversation, and the fact that the reader would take the time to consider them is a testimony to Blackett's mastery of comic timing and phrasing.
Though the art is uncomplicated, m@b is far from being the hipster Dilbert. While the writing is strong enough to carry the strip, Blackett's facial expressions are the foundation on which the writing stands. The cartoon version of Blackett, the strip's main character, has a blank, open facial expression that is surprisingly versatile. It is not blank in any negative connotation, but rather blank like a theater screen, ready to have any possible situation projected onto it. The reader becomes so familiar with this expression that even the slightest variation shakes the strip at its foundations. Few cartoonists would be able to get so much mileage out of changing nothing but curve at the end of the tiny line of a character's mouth. Such slight manipulations rattle the strip like a low-flying airliner over an elementary school.
Such is the sensation one is overcome by when reading m@b
: thunderous quiet. If only the strips Blackett imitates were able to arouse
this feeling, the daily comics page alone would be worth the price of subscription
to your local news rag.
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