The index to the Indie Comics vs. Context roundtable is here.
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I talked about this comic a bit in comments over here. It’s still on my mind several weeks later. It’s one of the favorite things I’ve seen by Johnny Ryan, I think. I love its rhythm; it has a merciless dream logic that has more to do with Kafka or David Lynch than with standard gag cartooning. (Which is probably why the commenters at Vice seem so thoroughly alienated.
Beyond that, and intertwined with it, I really like the way that gender in the comic is both omnipresent and divorced from individual bodies. The main character, Mills, wears a t-shirt with a picture of a vagina on it that says “Pussy Pounder University.” Mills appears to have a working class masculine job digging holes, so you could see the shirt as a kind of frat-brother marker of hyper-masculinity.
But the strip mostly works against that reading. When he has a break from his job, Mills doesn’t do manly things like drinking beer or checking sports stats; instead he straps springs onto his feet and goes bouncing off into the woods. The bizarre panel where we see him first standing with the springs has him, unnaturally tall in the foreground, juxtaposed with a television tower in the background. It semss like a parody of masculine imagery, turning Mills into a failed phallus. That’s more or less confirmed when he goes bouncing off into the woods shouting “wee!” and then immediately stumbles and bashes his head against a tree trunk.
Up to this point, we haven’t really gotten a clear view of the shirt. When we finally see that he’s wearing a vagina, he’s flat on the ground bleeding from the head. In fact, in the image, his head looks like the vagina on his shirt; the line of his mouth mirrors the curve of the text, and his tongue looks like the lips in the image. The liquid coming out of his mouth becomes a double entendre for sexual lubrication; the blood reads as menstrual blood. He isn’t a dude-bro who owns the pussy as a sign of hyper-masculinity. Rather, he is his shirt, a feminized victim of violence.
If a man can become a symbolic vagina, then it makes sense that a woman can become a symbolic phallus — which is what happens in the next panel. Just as Mills initially seems to fit into a standard male stereotype, so the women who find him seem default valley girls, grossed out by blood, shallowly distracted by fashion (“Whoa, check his rad shirt!”) But then they pick up a giant stick/penis and start thrusting it into Mills’ head/vagina while screaming “Harder! Harder!” The rape imagery is not especially subtle — and what they get from that rape is the shirt with its symbolic vagina, turning them into the bros partying with the other guys at spring break.
The structure of the strip — build-up, violence, pause, escalation of violence — imitates, or references, rape-revenge narratives. But the dislocation of gender dislocates the violence as well. Unjust violence doesn’t lead to just violence; the victim does not become the victimizer. Instead, the victim just gets attacked again, because when you’re weak people take your stuff. Femininity is still, as in rape-revenge, used as a narrative trigger for violence, but that trigger is presented self-consciously as symbolic. “Woman” is an arbitrarily assigned position; a marker that has more to do with narrative convention than it does with actual bodies or identities. The vagina on the shirt is, for that matter, no more or less a drawing than Mills or the girls who find him. Why do we see Mills as male initially, anyway? “Mills” isn’t a strongly gendered name; he’s got mid-length blonde hair. No one refers to him as “he” in the first part of the strip; we just know he’s a guy because he’s digging that hole, which is a guy thing, and the people around him have facial hair. In a narrative, gender is a convention — but a convention that can kill.
I doubt Ryan would exactly agree that this was the context of his strip. He’d probably say that he wasn’t thinking about it that hard, or that he was just following his ideas wherever they took him. Still, I don’t think that makes me wrong. The central idea here — that weird vagina shirt — seems in keeping with a lot of Ryan’s comics, where gendered body parts float free of the bodies they’re supposed to be attached to, and narratives of gendered violence are scrambled with a malevolent clumsiness. It’s body horror as failed punchline, bouncing carelessly along till you bash your brains and/or gender out in the forest. Even then, though, meaning is still drawn on you; arbitrary and inescapable, like Fort Lauderdale.
It seems that Ryan was following the oneiric trajectory of Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers, only minus all the racial stuff. There’s a scene in the film where the two lead girls get the wigger character to suck off their pistol. Ryan’s playing it safe compared to the movie, which involves a couple of girl power airheads taking on black male authenticity filtered through said wigger by the emasculating process of mass slaughter. It’s actually a beautiful movie, too. You just might like it.
Yeah, I thought he might be referencing Spring breakers.
Not sure what you mean exactly by playing it safe. Less straightforwardly “scandalous” I guess. Ryan’s a lot weirder than the plot summaries I’ve seen. Like I said, he thoroughly alienated the vice audience. Sex and violence is pretty easily marketable. Surreal weirdness in the form of a gag cartoon seems much more likely to throw your readers (as appears to have been the case.)
I don’t know if the Vice readership should set the criterion for what’s transgressive. However, I haven’t read their comments (because, well, it’s Vice). I don’t find Ryan weirder than Gummo or Julien Donkey-Boy or Trash Humpers or that short made with Die Antwoord or Spring Breakers. But to each his own, I guess. I think you might actually enjoy the movie, though, even if you don’t find it meeting the high standards you’ve set for yourself here.
Arguing over transgression is kind of dumb anyway; it’s all about context. Show a disney movie when people are expecting a horror film and you’ll get more of a reaction than any amount of sex and violence if that’s been advertised in the trailer.
The movie doesn’t sound super promising…but if you think it’s interesting I may give it a shot.
http://www.snubdom.com/BRspringbreak.htm
I haven’t seen Spring Breakers but I enjoyed Rick Tremble’s take on it. I enjoy the Ryan as well. Maybe Inspiring two fun comics is all it takes to justify a movie’s existence.
This is a great comic. I’m not a Ryan fan, but I hope he keeps working in this direction. Lynch is a wonderful parallel.
I know I just wrote a piece on the evils of biographical context, or what have you… but this comic is also really fun to think about in terms of Ryan’s career. I can see Higgs as a manifestation of Ryan, wearing a pussy/co-ed shirt, springing around in joyous abandon, colliding head-first into a tree. Not dead, the violence is all part of the fun… until a bunch of perverse onlookers, attracted and horrified, obliterate his face with a tree-branch and go and wear his shirt for street cred at Spring Break. In Fort Lauderdale. Vice Magazine + Comics, cough cough?
Yay! I’m so glad you like it (wonder if Jacob might be convinced?)
And that biographical reading is awesome. Especially because I think the comic both presents Miles’ odd hobby as both sweetly goofy and debased.
I’m going to make a challenge here: before you publish another word lionizing male “trangressive” artists who’s only real trangression is to indulge in the hateful shit white males say ironically, you spend an equal amount addressing Oglaf – which is transgressive, full of politics, nudity and violence but is written by a woman who is exponentially more skilled than Ryan or Karns on her best day.
Or you could write about Kate Beaton or Dykes to Watch Out For or Diane DiMassa or Noelle Stevenson or any of the women who participated in the Hawkeye Initiative or Strong Female Characters. Or about the Normal Girls Vs Other Girls phenomenon on tumblr, which started as a divisive meme but became one of sexual acceptance, mostly thanks to female Japanese art fans.
Or you could write about the Pixie Trix empire, featuring multiple polyamorous pansexual comedy by a cadre of men and women from Canada.
Or hell, you could examine the plethora of web and indie comics by men and women who regularly match or exceed Mr. Ryan in perversity and presentation. Three Word Phrase and Natalie Dee come to mind, as do Julie Sorenson and Drooly Julie.
Or, taking a page from your google trends fascination, you could do a statistical review of HU posts and comments and see how many times any one female artist or critic has been lauded vs. Johnny “I’m friends with the Owner” Ryan.
Or when HU discusses mainstream comics again, spend more than a few sentences examining the merts and failings of Amanda Conner
Thing is for blog run a guy who writes a lot about Feminism, it kind of seems like a sausage fest in terms of artists discussed, let alone promoted as worth reading. When women artists are discussed it often comes off as “well if we don’t eat our spinach we can’t claim to be fine diners”. Seriously dude, somtimes HU seemslittle better than the fanboy blogs which it claims to rise above. This is not to say that women equal awesome, certainly Kim Thompson’s apologia for the problems surrounding Karns was highly questionable. Nor is this to insist HU has to be comprehensive, but given the general mental power and acuity behind this blog, one feels like you should try a bit harder. At least have some other defining patterns besides “wow, HU sure talks a lot about Johnny Ryan, Manga, Furries, how they got in a pissing match over Kurtzman and it seems like every dudebro who ever made a rape joke will get a fair hearing for traces of ironic feminism”.
I’m not arguing that Ryan is transgressive. Nor that he’s ironic.
And I’m always interested in having folks write about other topics. If you’d like to write about any of the things you discuss here for the blog, feel free to email me; noahberlatsky at gmail.
I’m not exactly sure what your issue is with writing about furries, though. Michael Arthur, who discusses that for us, is generally writing from a queer perspective. Nor am I sure why you feel that manga is unfeminist or anti-feminist, or that discussing it is problematic?
But, again, I’d be happy to have you write something if you’d like. Talk to you soon hopefully.
And if you really believe transgression is merely “all about context” then I am even more mystified why there hasn’t been more about the various trangressions by Kate Beaton, Allie Brosh, Oglaf and others, who trangress in ways from shock to mocking history to unusually frank personal screeds. Hell, Lucy Knisley has a transgressive comic in which she discusses ending a long term relationship and not being particularly bothered by it. Given how women cartoonists can be transgressive by their mere existence, getting death threats over innocuous things, it’s weird how this isn’t discussed more on here.
Weird. When I first read this comic (waiting around, I think, in an American Apparel), I thought that the women killed Mills because they found his shirt offensive — their concern for a body turning to a hatred of the victim. They then skinned it from him and wore it to their own Spring Break, maybe learning to love the shirt in the process of killing him for it.
That clearly is not the case. They love the “rad” shirt and want it badly enough to bludgeon him for it. (Indeed, they love it in the same way and with the same kind of language as the beach bros.) But it’s strange that I would have so blatantly misread the thing.
And even stranger that I like my version better.
So why mention this? I find myself in a situation where — even in my misreading — I can feel, as a critic, smarter than the comic I’m criticizing. I was wrong, but even in being wrong, I did something better than it did.
I often wonder if that smarter-than-thou stance is endemic to the critical context, even when the criticism is as smart, well-written, and (I think) correct as Noah’s is. Noah tends, it seems, to like texts that allow him to feel smart in talking about them, regardless of whether the text itself shares any of these thoughts. I think I do too.
This is not a criticism of Noah’s work, or the work of anyone here. In fact, it’s a fairly standard diagnosis of the critical condition itself: We like comics — good ones or bad ones — that make us feel bigger, more authoritative, like the analyst to their analysand. We like to contextualize comics, because the context we like best is us.
[Hmmm… to jump off of Kailyn’s re-visioning — and perhaps to become Exhibit A in my own case: Mills is the artist; the shirt is the comic; the women are the critics; and Ft. Lauderdale is HU. “Gnar essay, dude!”]
Well, I don’t think our goal is necessarily to focus on things that are transgressive just because they’re transgressive.
Again, I’d be happy to publish essays on any of those things. We have published a fair bit on Kate Beaton.
Incidentally, I only know Johnny because I’m a fan of his comics. You seem to imply I’m a fan of his because I know him, which isn’t the case, fwiw. (And the last thing I published about him was not especially positive.)
Peter, I don’t know that I actually think I’m smarter than Ryan. Certainly not smarter than Marston/Peter, who I write a lot about…I don’t know. I see your point, but I don’t know that criticism has to be about feeling smarter. Conversation doesn’t have to be hierarchical always, I don’t think.
Just Saying, you might like the blog’s discussion of Carla Speed McNeil.
Sorry Noah, not really convinced. I don’t know, maybe this all goes over my head, but I can’t see this comic as more than a bad pun + train of consciousness + “shocking” punchline. Even if I try to forget who it’s by and look at the comic academically, I don’t see the things you say you’re seeing. It’s so banal (and I know that’s a so-common-it’s-trite criticism of Ryan) and I just don’t find it funny. I don’t find this specific comic particularly offensive either, just really uninteresting.
Just Saying – I really agree with a lot of your comment. I’ve been working on an Amanda Conner piece for a little while, and I like the creators you mentioned. I’d definitely like to see more writing about female creators as a whole.
As I said, I rather like the fact that it’s not funny.
Oh…and Amanda Conner’s work is discussed here, though not positively.
Still thinking about this some…I don’t want to be too defensive or anything; I do think it’s important to write about female creators. You’re sort of sliding into saying that not writing about these creators in particular is a problem, though (at least if I understand your dismissal of writing about furry and manga) and I don’t agree with that.
Anyway: here’s some links to stuff on HU about female creators. Most of this is tags, so multiple posts under each.
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/twilight/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/category/roundtables/female-creators-roundtable/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/likewise-roundtable/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/kyoko-okazaki/page/2/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/alison-bechdel/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/moto-hagio/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/ai-yazawa/
https://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/tag/gluey-tart/ (mostly female created yaoi)
Again, I feel like we certainly could do better in various ways, and I’d be thrilled if you (or someone) wanted to write about all the artists you mentioned. But you’re sort of implying that we don’t cover female creators, and I don’t think that’s true.
Well, I’ve been really happy with how feminism is addressed, thoughtfully and on a daily basis, on this blog. I remember discussions on the gender disparity in the comics canon, the misogyny of mainstream work, the unfair attacks on Twilight for its femininity… just to name a few. HU is actually a bit of a relief for me, as I can be a little sensitive about the sausage-fest going on elsewhere on the internet, and in places it shouldn’t be. Like Amanda Conner’s horrific Watchman work. Or Jezebel.
Just Saying, I’m frankly confused about why your comment feels so ‘pent up.’ I hope you do consider submitting something, or at least commenting frequently. I’ll consider writing more about female authors (a good point taken, I haven’t written anything on one here. ) In fact, I’m kind of working out thoughts on Ariel Schrag and Allison Bechdel, for two different posts…
Thanks Kailyn.
I also should say…Kim Thompson didn’t say anything about Karns, I don’t think. Kim very sadly passed away earlier this year.
I was confused by that comment too. I wondered if Karns had enough visibility to be addressed by Thompson before the debacle… but yeah, I don’t think so.
Noah:
“I’m not arguing that Ryan is transgressive. Nor that he’s ironic.”
Well, wait– are you saying that you’re not DENYING that Ryan is transgressive and ironic?
Or that you’re not CONTESTING that Ryan is transgressive and ironic?
Noah, I’ve tried to cure myself of being an English usage fussbudget, but there are still some laxnesses in usage that work against clarity. One of them is the current confusion between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’. It makes a hell of a difference if I plead before an uninterested judge and a disinterested one!
Likewise, to argue a position normally means to speak in favor of it, but more and more people have used the locution (as I suspect you have here) to mean to speak against it.
This isn’t nit-picking. The context of your statement is far from clear.
I wouldn’t have brought it up, save that you’re a professional writer who usually writes crisp, clear prose…not my case!
Noah,
Now you’ve got me thinking about this damn thing!!
So I’ll ask for my own clarification. What do you find so appealing about this strip’s dream logic? (Given that you don’t find it funny, ironic, transgressive, or challenging.) Or, indeed, what do you find so dream-like about it?
It doesn’t seem uncanny, strange, or even terrible unsettling, either through displaced familiarity or unfamiliarity. In fact, like Prison Pit — which is more like a dream — or like 50% of Crumb’s comics, “Spring Break” seems to be just one bloody thing after another, linked by a few puns and rhymes.
Is there anything else you admire or require? Imagine for example, if the comic dream-logic went on for a couple more tiers.
…The girl in the shirt hooks up with two of the muscle bros. Cut to a scene of bouncing-off-the-walls sex (shirt still on), which ends, through some misalignment of objects, in the girl’s being impaled on a bed-spring. It juts up through her throat. The beshaded bros then take her out to the woods, where they dig a hole and bury her in it, completing the circle in 4-5 nifty ways.
Now my hypothetical comic-that-never-was may be the stupidest thing I have ever committed to type. But I’m wondering if this is all it takes — or does the comic, for you, have to follow a particular kind of punning dream logic in a particular way, toward a particular sort of end?
Great comment, Peter. I play the same game with Emily sometimes, where we just rattle off a train of events, throw in a couple racially offensive tropes or sexist ideas, and then joke that we’ve created a Johnny Ryan comic.
Your David Lynch/Kafka comparison is especially confusing to me Noah. I love Lynch and I’ve read a little Kafka, and if Ryan is being compared so directly to them it seems like a really low bar.
Well…I mean, I talked about what I find appealing, I think? I pointed out specific imagery, talked about how it related to other narratives, talked about particular drawings…. If it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work, but I don’t really know what else to tell you. I find the way gender and gendered bodies are separated, and the odd, limping body horror sublime.
RE your continuation, Peter; I think depicting actual sex would sort of ruin things. Having everything sublimated is part of the appeal.
Huh…just looking at some work by Oglaf. Some of it looks kind of funny, but I doubt anyone really wants me to write about it. Gag based; art is slick in a way I don’t find all that appealing; the generalized fantasy setting doesn’t interest me all that much either. Much less imaginative and weird than Johnny Ryan’s work; a lot less ambitious than Ariel Schrag or Carla Speed McNeil (to name two female cartoonists who deal with x-rated material.) And in terms of genre work, it’s not a patch on Gwyneth Jones or Octavia Butler or any number of sci-fi writers. Michale Manning is more interesting in terms of erotic and fetish comics….
I’d be interested in hearing what you like about it. I don’t hate it or anything, but somebody would have to make a pretty convincing pitch to get me to read more of it than the 4 or 5 strips I looked at.