Mauled! #3
Brian Musikoff, editor

Remember that time? That was quite a time.

Mauled! is the brainchild of Hoboken, NJ's own Brian Musikoff. Normally, I get a little nervous about themed comics anthologies, but this one has a strong enough hook to grab you in. Each issue of Mauled! (getting thicker each time) features a wide variety of mostly up-and-coming cartoonists relating true horrific tragedies linked by a common source. The first was true stories of animal attacks, the second was medical malpractice and this, the third, is "True Tales of Tragedy at Sea."

These are attractive comics in the standard American format with black and white greytoned interiors and full-color covers. It's all proper until you get into the truly bizare stories within.

The cover is by Dave Mckenna, an artist I'm only familiar with from his contributions in Mauled! and Shiot Crock (by the way, there's usually a Shiot Crock coming up at some point, copies only available to participants—but anyone who submits gets in! Details over at the Comics Journal message board). It's safe to say that each piece I've seen of his has been different, and all have been very good. While the cover eschews the 'true' promse of the book, it's still a striking and humorous painting of a fisherman caught in a battle between giant squid and a whale.

The table of contents, unlike a lot of comics anthologies, is clear and easy to read. It's a little depressing that that's a notable feature, but try reading the table of contents in Kramer's or McSweeny's 13 sometime.

Musikoff handles the opening 3-page story, and the real shame of these anthologies becomes apparent: that in editing these books, we don't get more cartooning done by the editor. He gives us three splash pages out of chronological order, all beautifully rendered in perfect brushstrokes and greytones. Musikoff renders these pages in a way you'd wish half the mainstream comics on the shelves were—at the same time fun, terrifying, meticulous and lively.

The real tragedy: not enough Musikoff cartooning each year.

The second story is by Michael Narren, and the idea of these being 'true' stories flies out the window (one has to wonder just what the actual mandate is, a number of stories seem to be more "Weird Sea Tales" than anything that really happened) in a 4-page strip that looks to Dylan Horrocks, Jason Lutes and Jamie Hernandez for inspiration. It's common for a lot of cartoonists to try to fill out their short stories with a heavy reliance on captioning, naration and exposition; but Narren gets around this in the best way possible. Exposition is handled well in dialog and wordless cartooning. He's a little melodramatic at first, but one has to think he was laughing to himself as he drew the extreme closeup that anchors the first page. Narren's cartooning is clean, clear and displays a keen sense of storytelling. If there's any weakness, it's in the anchor panel on the fourth page, a gag panel with some bikini babe being jostled when her boat hits something at sea. Narren seems to have a little less conviction in this bit than he does in the more gruesome ones surrounding it.

We're then presented the story I'm most conflicted about, Bishahk Som's "Together, Apart." There's a bit of poetic Dear John letter here, some fabulous drawing (particularly in the first two pages), incredible use of negative space on the second two pages (it's a 3-page story) and formal experimentation all over the place. This is where things get a little spicey. In the first eight panels, the text 'reads' faster than the art—which is fine, it confounds an initial reading, but rewards multiple passes, taking advantage of the medium in a way most are afraid to do. The pull back on the bottom of the page would put a smile on Horrock's face. On the second page, the experimentation quietly explodes and Som bites off either more than he can chew or more than I can. The problem arises at the bottom of the page, where trying to follow the swordfish beneath the swimmer gets complicated by words that can be pieced together into phrases but don't work together as a whole. Whatever it is that Som is trying to do, is escaping me. And yet, the page itself is so obviously the tour-de-force in the book. The top of the page is just brilliant. There's no other way to describe it.

I can't make swords or tails of it all, but I knows what I likes.

I'm reminded of last year's anthology, Rosetta 2. The book combined a lot of different and disparate styles linked very loosely. But three of the links between many of the pieces were themes of water, impressive drawing and/or formal experimentation. If the thought didn't turn my stomach, I'd be tempted to take both books apart and assemble one fat, nearly flawless anthology out of the best pieces.

William Bredbeck and Altman take the book on an about face, at least on the surface. A bit limmerick (in the former ) and a bit comics underground by way of Top Shelf and all funny. I haven't read Mad Magazine or it's competitors in quite a long time, but this is the sort of silly, slightly dirty, well-drawn sort of work you wish you remembered seeing there.

I'll be perfectly honest, the biggest problem with doing a review like this is that I'm tempted to do a detailed review of every piece included, especially since there's so much variety. Unfortunatley, I run the risk of writing a review twice the length of the book itself. So, I'm going to have to skip some of the pieces. I apologize to the artists concerned.

Peter S. Conrad combines an alternative manga look (whatever that means, it's the best descriptor I could think of) with a more traditional Japanese drawing style (as in those pieces about waves?I mean, look at that wave!) with a bit of Tom Hart's cartooning and Conrad's distinctive thin-limbed box-body figure drawing. It's a fun story about two ships colliding at sea (What's wrong with cartoonists that we find this sort of shit funny? Seriously. I find it funny, Conrad surely does. What's wrong with us?!). It's the Japanese pages that are the strongest here, if only because I've seen some of his other work and it's great to see someone display a real affinity for manga sensibilities as opposed to the gaijin jackasses that can look beyond certain surface elements of a narrow view of what manga is.

This looks much better in person.
Greytone scanning ruinid it. RUINED IT!

Kate Allen sure draws pretty. It's probably a horrible thing to say about a cartoonist, but it's true. The delicate line work, the decorative use of hatching and splendid use of inkwash (something handled so badly by so many people that I would normally advise against it). The overlapping panels, the ship that is both gorgeous and funny, the birdsnest sequence and the rescue, all drawn much smaller than a lot of people would have the confidence or capacity to attempt are the things that bring the reader close to the page for some brief intimate moments.

Eric Knisley is the artist behid Mickey Death, a book I strongly recomend you pick up. It's the second page of his 2-pager that best displays both his fantastic rendering and his dark sense of humor. It's worth looking at just for that thick, black inking on the tentacles?like Kirby dots spilling out of an oil drum.

Full-size: wow.

Jenny Gonzalez can be both really good and sometimes a little too goth for my tastes. Her first page here is gorgeous. I would frame it if I had the original. She uses a brush like the paper is her best friend and she wants to fuck it's face up before it goes to prison tomorrow. It's something to behold. I wish she had stopped there. It really works on its own. I'm reminded of poets at the Nuyorican poetry slam that should just stop after one stanza because it says it all—and then they keep going to fill some vague idea of time requirements. Some of the following panels are funny and her language is dirty hysterical, but the lettering can be so hard to read and the jokes seem unneccesary, even though I'm laughing at them. And those big gothy eyes just work against my own likes sometimes. But that first page. Wow.

I'm not entirely sure what Musikoff's parameters are, but after talking to him a bit at APE he suggested that he takes work from cartoonists he knows and whose work he likes. He's getting better as an editor in the sense that the pieces work well together and flow the way an album might (an album that's tracked well—a concept soon to be an anachronism with you kids and your crazy iPods). His tastes are diverse enough that pieces don't wash over the eyes like so much wallpaper and it's just fantastic that there's someone out there providing a forum for artists that might not fit into some of the better-known anthologies but should be seen by anyone interested in this artform—especially those with a good sense of humor.

—Justin J. Fox