KIT KALEIDOSCOPE
by Nick Mullins
While no artist's work will fully reflect
his or her tastes, it is always interesting to see one's influences showing
through. Jason Lutes, Linda Medley, Neil Gaiman and, to an extent, Chris Ware
inform Nick Mullins' "Kit Kaleidoscope" a great deal.
It would be hard to ascertain, just from
looking at the work, that these artists definitely played a role in Mullins'
development, but the comics (reprinted from a mini comic and three issues of
Litmus Test) display an affinity for their works and, as such, demonstrate a
fairly unassailable taste.
For four dollars, one is treated to 74 pages
of handsome 8.5x5.5 wordless comics featuring the childlike titular artist as
she traverses a strange, Victorian world where the laws of convention are regularly
broken just beneath the surface of society's norms. Mullins draws in a style
reminiscent of Linda Medley's Pentel felt-tip pen work with big, thick outlines
and thin detail work. There is little variation in line weight, but his straight-forward
compositions and a minimalist's hand at spotting blacks, there is never any
question of what it is you are looking at or what it is that Mullins wants you
to look at.
In terms of subject matter, Mullins would
have found himself among like-minded company had these books come out in the
early days of the Vertigo imprint. The first story, "Kit Kaleidoscope Goes
to the Masked Ball," is depicted anecdotally and it would be easy to imagine
it framed by lesser mythological characters sharing it in the confines of some
fantastic inn. In it Kit attends a masked ball full of imagined Victorian debauchery
in a mansion on an isolated plateau. When it appears that a child has been influenced
by a gun-themed Punch-and-Judy show, she steps in to offer an alternative.
The story acts as a distillation of that
"protect the children" philosophy and methodology we've been subjected
to for a good twenty years or so, and ends with a bit of an E. C. twist by way
of de Sade. It is interesting that Mullins uses his main character (and the
one most easily identified with) in the role of someone who might not give much
credence to these sorts of creeds (one might assume), but finds herself acting
in this way when confronted with an actual event that would seem to confirm
every Bible-thumper's worst fear/wet dream. Mullins surely likes his main character
(calling her a protaganist in either of these stories would be disingenuous,
as she is better defined by her lack of action) and he employs her in an attempt
to create a discussion about an issue many of us are probably conflicted about.
While the other party-goers laugh at her, their faces (distorted as they are
by masks and ugliness) betray the fact that Mullins is not.
Some picture-perfect architecture.
The second (and much longer) story is "Kit
Kaleidoscope and the Mermaid in the Jar." Here Mullins seems to have either
realised the limitations of dialogue-free comics or is using them to further
experiment formally with diagramatic allusions one might find in the works of
Lutes or Clowes. I prefer to believe the latter, if only because some of the
characters' converations are so well developed.
Kit is an aspiring artist making a living
as an assistant grave-digger when chance would link her to both a grave robber
and an obsessively deranged sculptor. Discussions of art and its meaning ensue,
Mullins clearly siding with those who find beauty and transcendence in the mundane
rather than the fantastic and grotesque. The family history of the two brothers
in the piece is, probably, the standout piece in the book, even if it owes a
great deal to the above mentioned innovators. Of interesting note are the drawings
Kit produces that are clearly drawn in a different, looser style than the rest—nicely
differentiating the pieces while at the same time demostrating a fondness for
life drawing on the cartoonist's part.
It's not a perfect book by any stretch of the imagination. The characters sometimes
appear a little too stiff on the page and their proprtions are fluid in a way
that is in no way deliberate and yet they always appear grounded in the world
Mullins is dedicated to presenting. Much the same could be said about Lutes'
work, and I would pick any new work of his up at the drop of a hat.
Words fail the characters, but Mullins doesn't fail the reader.
I'm curious to see what else Mullins has got up his sleeve. His website is www.nijomu.com, where you'll find that Mullins is growing more comfortable with a crowquill (and possibly a brush) if not willing to fully surrender to their respective uses (there's one particularly beautiful metapanel rendering of the artist at his drafting table I'd love to see more of). Also of note on the site is the heart-warming/heart-breaking "Holiday Phone Call" that is effective on the site, but was far more effective at APE where the artist had assembled the pages into a long roll you could scroll through in a handmade viewer. Some of his work is also serialized at www.moderntales.com. If (unlike me) you can sit and stare at comics on the screen all day, that site (which charges a fairly insignificant fee) has them by the bus load.
–Justin Fox