Fantastic Fangirls: Comics and Culture

by Sigrid

I’m reading Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2009. I love reading Ebert reviews. I own his Great Movie collections as well as his collections of the worst reviews given. I rent movies from Netflix out of both books. I read movie reviews, Ebert and Kael mostly, because there is an art to assessing what the movie is supposed to do. Because once you think you know what the movie was supposed to do, the question is then twofold: did the movie accomplish its goals, and are those goals worth attempting in the first place?

I used to read the Movie Yearbook and then rent all the high-rated films. This method of media selection proved to be sub-optimal for me, because a thing that is good at what it does may not be doing anything I like. I watched There Will Be Blood the other day, which I recognize is a great, amazing film. But it’s a great, amazing film for someone who is not me.

The question of right audience is one I think of a lot when I read fan reactions to comics and media. When I read someone decrying a comic issue as the worst thing ever I largely dismiss the remarks. It’s unlikely, really, that any single comic issue is the worst ever. (I mean, one, somewhere, at some time, has to be, I suppose. But this one right now? Hmm.) What I take the person to mean is that they did not like the issue of the comic. And that is their right. But not liking a thing is not the same as the thing being bad at what it does. One must allow for the possibility that it is merely not doing what you want. Or that the story is not doing something you understand.

Which brings me to Sam Kieth.

Kieth’s work (and it is “Kieth,” not “Keith,”) is unmistakable. His portrayals of the human body veer into caricature in the name of emotional realism. His characters are slump-shouldered with rounded thighs and pot bellies. They are soft, their hair is a bit lank, their glasses are dirty and they slump. Kieth’s protagonists are often beaten down by life, are often adrift in circumstances beyond their control. Yet the internal narration places us firmly inside their minds. Kieth uses this slouching depression to reveal the inner dignity and humanity of his protagonists regardless of the events that surround them.

I’m going to touch on those events briefly. In Zero Girl, a girl is assaulted by squares and can protect herself with circles. In Four Women — okay, I can’t describe that one at all without giving the whole thing away. In My Inner Bimbo a man builds a Magic Box because a Trout told him to, and gets a Bimbo who comes to narrate his life. The Maxx features a social worker and a homeless guy who lead double lives in a world which may or may not be hallucinatory.

If you have the sense at this point that Kieth’s work operates under its own unapologetic rules, you would be right.

I think my favorite Sam Kieth book is Zero Girl. Amy Smooster is a high-school-girl-protagonist, but in a way I’ve never seen anywhere else. Circular objects help her out while squares assault her in a world that is inexplicably animate. The recent Joe Kelly comic, I Kill Giants, contains a narrator that appears superficially similar — both girls exist in “real” worlds that are chaotic and hostile, both have secondary experiences of reality that are atypical. But that’s the end of the similarity. Kelly’s fantastic book gives us answers. Kieth’s Zero Girl gives us events that pose as answers while they sidle away, shifty-eyed.

The comics review and discussion site, iFanboy, recently interviewed Kieth in a podcast. I highly recommend it. Kieth talks about his impression of how he is viewed by the industry and by fans. He talks about his own ambivalence about his art style. He goes into his feelings on superhero comics and why he doesn’t gravitate towards them.

The strongest reason, though, that I feel everyone should listen to Kieth’s interview is this — I can’t recommend his work to you. I like it, I buy it, I read it and re-read it. But I don’t think I understand what Sam Kieth is doing. And this means I don’t understand who may enjoy it.

To use the metric Roger Ebert uses in his reviews — does the movie accomplish what it set out to do, and are those goals worth pursuing? — I can’t answer the first question for Sam Kieth’s work. But I think I can answer the second. Yes. Kieth’s goals are worth pursuing. His art addresses questions about external and internal reality. He wonders, publicly and in front of all of us, what vile things ordinary people can justifiably do. Kieth asks whether redemption is possible for the ordinary sins. He asks — never declares, but endlessly asks — whether people can connect. Whether we can ever meet another person and know them.

No answers are on offer here. If you want your story simple and comforting, look elsewhere. But for readers who want to puzzle over the art, who want to challenge themselves as readers, who are happiest in those three a.m. conversations about whether we all see the same color “blue” — you know who you all are. If this description makes you smile and nod in recognition, why don’t you pick up some of Sam Kieth’s work? Read it. Puzzle over it. Review it. And let me know what you think.

Email: sigrid @ fantasticfangirls.org
Twitter: sigridellis