Back in Bleck by Johnny Ryan
Back in Bleck
By Johnny Ryan
Fantagraphics
Were Fantagraphics ever short-staffed and desperate enough to ask me to pen a disclaimer for a Johnny Ryan book, it would read something along on the lines of:
Warning—please take the following pages at face value. Seriously. If you are looking for stories that speak to some greater truth about the human experience, consult the Fantagraphics catalogue for one of their many fine soul-searching opuses. This is not one. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a joke about eating boogers is a joke about eating boogers.
Maybe I’ll rework that last line, to include something about a prostitute/syphilis joke, before we go to press–those always go over well. Keep in mind that this is all still something of a work-in-progress. The point here is that any attempts to read too much into Mr. Ryan, in order to justify his inclusion along side the works of folks like Chris Ware and Dan Clowes (though, to be fair, Clowes himself is more than capable of his own feats of ridiculousness) is kind of, sort of missing the point.
To even attempt to squeeze him in along side R. Crumb or even Ryan’s old pal, Peter Bagge, seems a bit of a stretch. While both of those artist have been know to, in their time, devote page-space to a single, well-timed gross-out gag, they’ve both proven that they have a good deal invested in such well-worn conceits as character development. Even in Ryan’s longer pieces, such as the Sinus/Loady comic-length epic, ‘The Whorehouse of Dr. Moreau,’ there always seems to be a stomach-churning gag in sight, and any twists and turns in the story line are mere devices for moving us closer to the ever-present gag. Ryan’s work, is more the heir apparent to the works of the Mad Magazine greats, and generations of anonymous artists whose work could rarely be viewed outside of single-panels in the back of adult magazines. Ryan has taken up the torch with unblinking chutzpah, with a growing body of work rivaled only by Underworld cartoonist, Kaz.
Ryan’s weekly strip, Blecky Yuckerella trims off any semblance of storyline that might sneak by in the pages of his more fully-realized book, Angry Youth Comics. Ryan is a gag man—one of the best around these days. As such, Blecky’s four-panel pages prove the ideal format for the artist. We get the set up, the punchline, and then it’s time to move onto the next strip. Of course, the format also has its constraints.
Thanks to the weekly deadlines, it’s seems a bit much to ask that Ryan deliver with the same gut-shaking constancy of AYC. Some of the strips come across as throwaways, proving once and for all that there is such a thing as an unfunny diarrhea joke. But again, the beauty of the format is that, given Ryan’s skill, the odds are pretty good that there’ll be a much better one of the next page.
The adventures of an elementary school girl with a stubbled face, her single friend, Wedgie, and the well-endowed Aunt Jiggles have provided Ryan with more than enough fodder to keep the strip going strong, without getting watered down with filler like plot and character development.
As always, Ryan’s work is not recommended for the easily offended and those who don’t appreciate a lot of stupid with their humor. For anyone who has been looking for the perfect gag book to stash under the bathroom sink when the guests have to use the facilites, there’s no better way to invest your $11.95.
Oh, and added bonus: the single strip that’s been censored by The Portland Mecury (the only paper in the country that actually runs Blecky–or, rather ran Blecky), as mentioned by Ryan during our interview earlier this week, is included, for your rioting pleasure.
–Brian Heater
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