Papercutter #7
Edited by Greg Means and Galen Longstreth

Papercutter issue seven spotlights four emerging comic artists with three solid stories. Though none of the tales ranks among my new favorites, the artists prove their mettle and position themselves as ones to keep an eye on in the future.

The featured story, “Americus,” is the tale of two boys on the day of their middle school graduation. A collaborative effort by MK Reed and Jonathan Hill, “Americus” offers somewhat typical fare for plot: a smart, nerdy boy (Neil)has a tough time fitting in in middle school. His friend Danny is also a nerd, but somewhat less socially inept and less picked on, meaning he ends up with a slow dance at the end of the night while Neil ends up rummaging through a dumpster to fish out his book, which a couple of bullies grabbed and threw inside.

Not particularly new stuff, but Reed and Hill do a good job keeping the story moving with some unexpected moments: finding out Neil has no father in the picture and a brief, two-page escape into the fantasy world of the eighth book of one of the boys’ favorite series — the cleverly titled Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, the Huntress Wytch. (Sort of a Harry Potter meets The Chronicles of Narnia.) The artwork, like the story, doesn’t take any big risks, but the bold, clean style suits the story, and at the end especially, frames of Neil digging alone through the dumpster with the shading of nighttime around him are particularly touching.

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The Tinderbox
By Damien Jay [Adapted from a story by Hans Christian Andersen]
Self-Published

In modern America, the word “fairytale” has taken on an almost derisive meaning, immediately evoking images chalk full of genre cliché and the manner of unrealistic life expectations that come coupled with habitually happy endings. Those whose familiarity with the style extends beyond 20th century Hollywood adaptations, however, know that these stories have roots that run much deeper, to tales with far darker overtones, more graphic imagery, and messages steeped in moral ambiguity than the Disney remakes so central to our childhood memories have ever led on.

The pure, unhomogenized works of The Brothers Grimm are oft pointed to as an example of this phenomenon. Those stories that have found their way into the latter half of the 20th century and beyond, relatively intact, such as Hansel and Gretel, broach topics that now seem about as far from children’s lit as imaginable when juxtaposed by their works best known through their Disney iterations. As Damien Jay happily demonstrates in his mini-comic adaptation of The Tinderbox, many of the same things can be said about the works of Hans Christian Andersen.

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