Radio-Active Paranoid
Various
Reviewed by Darren Hick

I always run into the same connundrum when I review anthologies in "Thrown to the Wolves" -- how to write a comprehensive criticism of each work therin while maintaining the relative brevity that is the norm of my online reviews? Luckily, the work of at least two of the participants in Radio-Active Paranoid, Neville and Noone, is reviewed elsewhere in these archives, so I get a bit of a break. (Of course, I've spent all this space explaining the situation, so I've rather negated that advantage.)

Radio-Active Paranoid is edited by M.J. Brown and Glen Ross, so perhaps it's appropriate to begin with their contributions to the collection. Brown's three-page pantomime, "Watch," is an interesting experiment, but suffers most from Brown's overly-obscure reliance on visual symbolism and the brevity which Brown's story-length inbues on the portrayal of that symbolism. Attempting to play out a complex thought process in a few panels of psychomachia would be trouble enough, but as "Watch" does not allow, in its brevity and silent form, for insight into the focal character, the crux of the story is left vague and cloudy, a fault that leaves "Watch" irreparably distant. The art, though scratchy and unrefined, seems appropriate to the story it portrays.

Brown knows what the wants to portray, and, with an apparent understanding of filmic influences on comic storytelling, knows how he needs to portray it. Unfortunately, Brown's sole reliance upon fine-point pen, as opposed to the wide variety of implements open to comics artists, and the effects that they can provide, severly limits the range of his art. Future experimentation with both the tools of the trade, and the inherent limitations of pantomime, will serve Brown well.

Brown's co-editor, Glen Ross, meanwhile, presents a much more self-assured and attractive work in "Dead Meat," the four-page story of the inevitable emotional pain of a boy whose family raises livestock. Reminiscent of the design sense of Rick Geary, Ross' story, illustrated with heavy, rounded lines, a most severe juxtaposition in contrasting composition, is truly powerful & beautiful in its tangible, almost plastic, presentation. Told from a child's perspective, "Dead Meat" is the story of the slaughtering of a lamb, narrated with the quizical interplay of emotion and detachment that such a child naturally feels and, conversely, is expected to feel. Ross has wholly grasped the inherent requirements of the medium, and at the same time developed a very attractive style and sense of design, something so few artists in mini-comics achieve with such complete self-assurance.

The work of Ross Campbell in "Empty Rooms" and "Exit," meanwhile, while equally ambitious in terms of solidified style, falls quite a bit short of the mark in terms of storytelling. Campbell's attempt in these two works to impart symbolistic, pointilistic impressionism upon sequential narrative is surprisingly effective. At base, expressionistic, Campbell's art is purposefully vague and undefined in impression, much like the emotions he is trying to portray. Where Brown's attempt to pantomime compex, concrete emotional states inevitably failed, Campbell's adaptation of vague emotions and slippery concepts to symbolic art is strong. However, it is Campbell's attempt, in the second half of "Empty Rooms," to integrate this impressionism with a narrative that ultimately brings about the downfall of his work. His exploitation of the comics form works best when its object is undefined -- when these visually-portrayed emotions become the emotional states of an individual, Campbell steps into the same sinkhole of comic short stories that earlier swallowed Brown.

Strangely, "Dead Meat" is not the only story in this collection to use animal slaughter as its primal story element. Although, with those particular animals often being humans in "Offal King," a series of strips centering on a butcher and his butcher shop, its artist, Anthony Behrens, achieves something altogether unlike anything else in Radio-Active Paranoid. While Behrens employs a clean, variant line, and draws a particularly amusing weiner dog, his strips never quite reach knee-slapping heights in humor -- wallowing, instead, in macabre bizarrity. There is, I suppose, a particular breed of person who find titilating amusement in anything involving wholesale slaughter. After all, something has to account for the widespread sales of Lobo. But, to the rest of us, "Offal King" is the sort of "humor" we hoped to leave behind in high school.

Next up, and in the same vein of humor, is Tony Renouf's "Tony's Totally True Animal Hospital Tales," the story of one man's daydreamed TV program. Incensed by his wife's obsession with "real-life-animal-hospital-drama" shows, he imagines an episode involving a mad dog with a particularly nasty case of hemorrhoids. Really, nothing more need be said. It's not funny; it's not even particularly amusing. More of this junior-high humor. At least "Dead Meat" had some, even if few, redeeming qualities. Renouf's work, sadly, is neither particularly skilled, nor particularly inventive. Either would have been passable. At best, I can say he draws an amusing enraged dog. His stylization reminds me of some of the lesser work in Britain's Viz. If you're a big fan of the art in Viz ("Fat Slags," for instance), you might very well enjoy Renouf's piece. But, of course, if you like Viz, you'd probably like the story, too.

Finally is probably the most unique piece in Radio-Active Paranoid: Leighton Anderson's "Strawberries." The best way to describe "Strawberries" is as a visual freeform poem. Awoken by his teacher, the story's character, Eamon, suddenly recalls to the reader the dream of pure adolescence he has just experienced -- a vision of anger and lust, wild and unrestrained. Fully embracing the comics medium, Anderson resists simply illustrating the words in his poem. Instead, he relies on words when words are necessary to understanding the images, but seems equally comfortable slipping into non-literary depictions of the dream. And his style suits this methodology. Sweeping blacks and rhythmic lines continue to carry the feel of the poem across as the reader is forced to stare at the art in order to decipher what it is it depicts. Whether by accident or design, Anderson has achieved something here that is truly reminiscent of the nature of dreams. And the content achieves a reminiscence (if an exaggerated reminiscence) of adolescence. There is a level of incoherence to "Strawberries," but where this might be a hindrance to traditional narrative, it only enhances Anderson's dream-work.

The problem with Radio-Active Paranoid is the problem of nearly all anthologies. Terrific and terrible in the same package. Some of these creators, as I have indicated, have sizeable potential, if not altogether concretized talent. Others, however, are like fish out of water. Is Radio-Active Paranoid worth picking up? That depends if you're the type of person who doesn't mind picking the raisins out of his Raisin Bran.

For a copy of Radio-Active Paranoid, contact M.J. Brown c/o 106 Marsden Road, Greymouth, New Zealand; or Glen Ross c/o 23 Main Road, Fairfield, Dunedin, New Zealand. Your guess is as good as mine so far as price goes.