'Tis the season of giving, so here are four new comic reviews! (We have a strict no-return policy.) This month is also my first foray into a semi-cohesive themed offering. It’s Oops… All Ducks!
Duck Comics #1 by Ian Mackay
Who’s ready for some funny ducks?
Ian Mackay is one of those artists whose process I know is labor-intensive and I can’t begin to guess how he goes from Point A to B to C. He makes these neat prints of corncob men, and here’s how I assume they are constructed: he first makes the model out of clay, then takes a photo of the model, then prints that photo with brilliant Riso texture. Why are some people like Mackay so head-over-shoulders better at Risograph printing than others? (This is a serious question so, as my favorite influencers say, sound off in the comments.) In Duck Comics, Mackay uses those bright hues and high-quality nobbly paper to make a 7" x 7" inch square that’s fun to hold and all but glows. But after flipping through the first five pages of flat-billed gags and pinups, I thought, “Uh-oh, is this one of those zines?” Is this a lot of shapes and stuff where the printing is the point? I’ve been burned before, I tell you!
Luckily for me, those pinups are followed by two stories which I found amusing. “Duck Hunt” is a classic Twilight Zone reversal where a packin’ mallard hunts flying, scared people. Every character looks like they’re out of Kirby’s Dream Land and the highlight is the Big & Rich call the hunter uses to rustle the humans out of the tall grass. The second story, titled “Duck Work,” focuses on Mr. Ducksworth, who appears to hold an upper-management position at Cubely despite doing nothing but farting on his assistants and underlings. The story concludes when he takes out a lunch of wet crumbs from his briefcase and gorges on it. Can zines be art books? Can an art book be a zine? Are they both a waste of money? I have a hard time not feeling a little conned when physical comic books are outright artistic exercises (which is what Duck Comics seems to be) rather than longer stories. Is this all a narrative hang-up I carry around over my shoulder like Santa Claus, and I should just accept artists where they’re coming from instead of trying to project my bullshit on them? Absolutely! I can also admit that this would be a disposable comic if the paper and printing weren’t so meticulously high-quality. Ho ho ho.
Beautiful Duck Comics by Brian McCray
Who’s ready for some horny ducks?
Well, this might be the strangest comic I’ve read in a while. There are three short stories and multiple pinup pages featuring Vivian (a green, affable muscle mommy duck), Tina (the most fashionable duck with a white bob and in a situationship with a little devil imp), and Sharon (rarely featured duck, but has a Stacy London silver streak and smokes). They are all seemingly roommates and simultaneously run errands, tread the boards in Hollywood Western sets, and even encounter Duck God together. None of these are words I thought I would have to type when I started this column.
In one story, an eel man in a turtleneck goes door to door to “adjust rooms.” Vivian instantly falls in love with him, but he leaves after simply exchanging phone numbers. In the third story all the ducks are scantily clad in cowboy gear and trade quips at a saloon, but everything stays fairly chaste. There is a big “Adults Only!” warning on the cover, but in reality Beautiful Duck Comics is shockingly tame. Sex is discussed, but other than in one tiny quarter-of-a-panel dream sequence, never shown. That fact may leave some readers a bit confused or even unsatisfied, but I think McCray just wants to draw some thick-ass quackers in stylish outfits, and who am I to get in the way of someone’s muse? I actually find it quite charming - he obviously has all the chops, but is compellingly focused on one very particular animal with one very particular body type. We used to be a proper country when Eros had a whole roster of these freaks, but now McCray appears to be one of the last men standing.
Going 4 Free by Chaddy-Ann Newton
Who’s ready for some fugitive ducks?
The terms folk, outsider, self-taught, marginal - they’ve all been commodified, commercialized, and mostly pulverized into meaningless applesauce. But if anyone is making sequential art in that specific tradition right now it’s Chaddy-Ann Newton, who, fueled by fried eggs and Copic marker fumes, appears to be psychologically compelled to never stop drawing ducks. Going 4 Free is his longest comic to date, updating hither and thither on Instagram since 2021, and it begins with the main character Pientugriz being sentenced to a jail term (or “jazail”) for attempting to film a viral prank on local mogul Jarecker Cleck. Yes, there’s a lot of good Pynchon names here.
Pientugriz is thrown onto a bus to transport him to the detention center with one duck strapped to the wall Hannibal Lecter-style and another duck with a pentagram carved into his forehead. Although only a handful of panels are released every now and then, this is no trek down the decompressed storytelling trail. We’re off the races immediately with a wild jailbreak that includes stealing the warden’s car, hair metal, and a cannibal. There’s also the foreboding “hunters” out there, or rich ducks who pay to scan the swamps for fugitives. The reader only gets to take a breather when Newton zooms way out. What sets this series apart are the striking panels where the escape takes us through a mountain range under a star-filled sky and your eyes can follow Newton’s marker strokes as they curve around the topography. The action scenes are pushing the plot and are obviously where the juice is, but when Going 4 Free slows down and plays up the natural landscape there’s a taste of sublimity not unlike a Joseph Yoakum drawing. As of this writing, we are on “episode 1 part 17.” I’m eager for more.
Michael Mouse by Mitch Lohmeier
Who’s ready for some sardonic ducks?
It seems like comics history and its accompanying context go back to absolute zero every decade or so, but cartoonists have been inspired by Disney’s “Fab 5” characters to plumb the depths of derision, hypocrisy, and the cultural underbelly for many, many years. There’s “Mickey Rodent!” by Kurtzman & Elder in 1955. You have Wally Wood’s infamous Realist poster in 1967. The Air Pirates collective and Robert Armstrong were both publishing in the early '70s. If you remember way back in 2013, there was even hype around the Tumblr comic Boys’ Night by Max Landis (tugs on collar) and AP Quach. All of those comics are better than Michael Mouse. Welcome to the Do a Satire of Children’s Pop Culture and Nostalgia That Isn’t Insufferably “Dark and Gritty” Challenge!
Lohmeier’s series was originally 86 posts on Instagram from 2020 to 2022, but just recently Floating World has physically published Mouse in hardcover with a shiny Golden Books spine. Michael Mouse may be featured in the title, but the focal point of the story is the Donald stand-in, David Duck, who, after a period of trying to fly right, gets manipulated by Michael to do “one last job.” The mouse, the duck, and their smackhead pal Goony (you read that right) head out to dump their duffle of cocaine in exchange for a briefcase of cash. Things go tediously haywire after a botched gas station robbery where the loose cannon Goony becomes a fall guy and the characters have to meet the mob boss at the “Magic Kingdom” strip club, where Jasmine and Cinderella perform. Then there’s several car chases, a shoot-out, “think of the kids” marital strife, then the end. Lohmeier’s art has an appealing underground crudeness and all the cartoon characters are immediately recognizable, which is what he obviously wants for maximum viral potential. There’s a digital filter over all the drawings so the panels look stained and grimy. The story’s running-downhill momentum makes it perfect for cliffhanger social media serialization, but if not for the white gloves and orange bills, Michael Mouse would be generic as it comes, something like a movie pitch miniseries Dynamite would put out. It was near the end of the plot when I watched Michael Mouse burn alive trapped in his car followed by David Duck pissing on his toasted corpse when I thought of this quote by author Theodore Roszak: “Even where such crudity is meant to satirize or reply in kind to the corruptions of the dominant culture, there is bound to come a point where sardonic imitation destroys the sensibilities and produces simple callousness.” I don’t think Disney should be too concerned if there ever should be a lapse in copyright. You’ll just get Winnie the Pooh horror schlock and whatever this comic is.
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The main takeaway from all of this nonsense is: there is no better time to bring back Critters! (This would go near the top of my list of projects that I would push—but would realistically eventually go nowhere—if I was still working at Fantagraphics. Others on that list were a Grass Green retrospective, a hypothetical series with a working title of “Library of Forgotten American Classics” which would kick off by getting Jess Johnson’s Nurture the Devil back in people’s hands, and a complete reprint of Kim & Simon Deitch’s Southern Fried Fugitives strip. Cue up “Glory Days” right about now.) See you next month, I hope.
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Questions, love letters and submissions to this column can be directed to @rjcaseywrites on Instagram.
