Capacity
By Theo Ellsworth
Published by Secret Acres, 2008
What is Secret Acres going to do when they run out of amiable, likeable cartoonists? Eventually, these guys are going to have to find an author who is just a straight up prick. Capacity is their third "official" publication this year, following the release of Samuel Gaskin's Fatal Faux Pas (reviewed here by Nina) and Eamon Espey's Wormdye, and it continues the trend of publishing well designed collections of mini-comics adapted or extended to "graphic novel" length. It also continues the trend of publishing characters that, even if they're killing cats, come across as being birthed from friendly artists who seem genuinely excited to have found an outlet that allows their work to leave the ramshackle hall of hand-stapled mini-comics and join their brother and sisters at Barnes & Noble in the heavy softcover collection category. Theo Ellsworth, more so then Espy or Gaskin, exemplifies these amiable traits at it's finest--while it's doubtful that a man could be anywhere near as whimsical and gentle as his fictional substitute in Capacity, it seems a hell of a lot less ridiculous than to imagine him as an embittered cartoonist lost in the fog of narcissistic solipsism that is so often the setting for the type of stories that Capacity seeks to tell. Simply put, Capacity is a collection of one cartoonist's attempts to nail down his own creative process, to fill in the gaps between his artful depictions of his own imagination with an honest explanation of the motives behind them, and yet, at no point does one get the sense that he's a self-deluded prick who would be much happier doing just about anything other than drawing cartoons based around his own thoughts. On top of that, despite blurring the lines constantly about who the man is behind the cartoons, despite off-handedly mentioning that he lived out of his car or created a work of cartoon art that, due to it's cumbersome size, is unlikely to be seen by anyone who doesn't show up at his home, Theo Ellsworth completely fails to come across as someone with a trace of foolish arrogance. He's just an artist, and he's completely content to let the work stand on its own.
The Capacity collection consists of Theo's various Capacity mini-comics, along with a interweaving bridging story that consists, for the most part, of a substitute author who leads another character (one that is constantly referred to by a blank line that the reader is supposed to fill in with their own name) through the various chapters, most of which consist of reprints of the mini-comics. From a weight of sheer page count, the longest official "story" in Capacity is probably the bridging sections which also serve as bookends to the narrative. For what they are, the bridging sections are probably the true test of the reader--they end up being more baldly honest then anything else in Capacity, and their very nature could end up being more precious then some readers can handle. This reader didn't have a problem with them--but still, it's completely understandable that some comics fans may have reached their limit of how much time they want to spend with this kind of sincerity.
The remainder of Capacity though--and here's where all that time in the 20-something tea party of whimsy pays off--is the mini-comics themselves. Theo's greatest strengths lays in his cartooning, and when the guy starts drawing these gigantic fantasy structures, these gargantuan Aztec-looking statues covered in slides and highways, it makes for a brilliant experience. It helps that Theo embraces one solid fact throughout, a simple one that would benefit anyone who tries to spend their time creating fantasy architecture: make sure that the fantastic has logic. No matter how easy it would be for Ellsworth to just draw his intricate structures with no rhyme or reason, he takes the time to construct some kind of convoluted--yet wholly accurate--Rube Goldberg structure, often by way of the smooth plastic of the old Mousetrap board game. Sure, these mazes, these slides and pennywhistle compounds that end up looking like some kind of alien oil rig on Jack Kirby's Apokolips--they couldn't ever be "real." But they've got weight to them, and the path the little substitute character takes is one that makes sense. You can trace it with your finger--and if the odd little pieces of text are to be believed, Ellsworth would probably like it much better if you did. On top of that, there's pages of the things, and yet he's smart enough to split them up between his own renditions of the classic indi-comics anthology staples--here's a couple of unfunny gag panels about a He-Man type character named Voltan, here's his rejected anthology submission (an overwrought anti-war poem that's as frankly honest as it is lazily repellent), here's his random take on commercials for fake products--and then it's back to the structures. By the time Theo gets around to telling stories--odd dream riffs about a seven year party that was over in seconds, or an attempt by the heart and brain to meet separately to plan the capture of dreams--the overall weight of the book's honesty becomes apparent. More then just an attempt to capture the mundane fancy of a meal, or a boring relationship, Capacity makes the entirety of its author's mind the focus, and then chooses to tell the story as frankly as possible. While it's a comic that probably won't end up making it to the home of as many readers as it deserves, it's a damn fine one, and it's a testament to good taste that the Secret Acres company is putting this much care into something that too few care about.
-Tucker Stone, 2008
This review was based on a complimentary copy from the publisher.
The remainder of Capacity though--and here's where all that time in the 20-something tea party of whimsy pays off--is the mini-comics themselves. Theo's greatest strengths lays in his cartooning, and when the guy starts drawing these gigantic fantasy structures, these gargantuan Aztec-looking statues covered in slides and highways, it makes for a brilliant experience. It helps that Theo embraces one solid fact throughout, a simple one that would benefit anyone who tries to spend their time creating fantasy architecture: make sure that the fantastic has logic. No matter how easy it would be for Ellsworth to just draw his intricate structures with no rhyme or reason, he takes the time to construct some kind of convoluted--yet wholly accurate--Rube Goldberg structure, often by way of the smooth plastic of the old Mousetrap board game. Sure, these mazes, these slides and pennywhistle compounds that end up looking like some kind of alien oil rig on Jack Kirby's Apokolips--they couldn't ever be "real." But they've got weight to them, and the path the little substitute character takes is one that makes sense. You can trace it with your finger--and if the odd little pieces of text are to be believed, Ellsworth would probably like it much better if you did. On top of that, there's pages of the things, and yet he's smart enough to split them up between his own renditions of the classic indi-comics anthology staples--here's a couple of unfunny gag panels about a He-Man type character named Voltan, here's his rejected anthology submission (an overwrought anti-war poem that's as frankly honest as it is lazily repellent), here's his random take on commercials for fake products--and then it's back to the structures. By the time Theo gets around to telling stories--odd dream riffs about a seven year party that was over in seconds, or an attempt by the heart and brain to meet separately to plan the capture of dreams--the overall weight of the book's honesty becomes apparent. More then just an attempt to capture the mundane fancy of a meal, or a boring relationship, Capacity makes the entirety of its author's mind the focus, and then chooses to tell the story as frankly as possible. While it's a comic that probably won't end up making it to the home of as many readers as it deserves, it's a damn fine one, and it's a testament to good taste that the Secret Acres company is putting this much care into something that too few care about.
-Tucker Stone, 2008
This review was based on a complimentary copy from the publisher.
Nice. More of these types of reviews, please.
Posted by: Matthew J. Brady | 2008.10.31 at 10:12
Great review of a fantastic book!
Posted by: Chirs | 2008.12.06 at 16:28