October 2007



Kevin Freeman & Stan Yan, SubCulture (Ape Entertainment, 2007). $3.50, four-issue miniseries.

by Jared Gardner

Normally SubCulture is the kind of in-joke non-event I tend to ignore. And to be honest, I am not sure what possessed me to pick it up off the shelves in the first place. Having done so, I am not ashamed to admit that I kinda liked it. I am not convinced that I will be remembering to pick up the final issue (where handsome-geek Jason and slumming-alternachick Noel reconcile? Go their separate ways? Learn to be happy with who they really are?). But I will be around to see what Freeman and Yan (hopefully together) create for their next project. Because ultimately this book reads like a very promising freshman effort, and there is reason to believe that, given time to develop, they could find their way to a story and characters worthy of their skills (Box Office Poison or Strangers in Paradise come to mind).

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The premise, such as it is: Our hero Jason is a nerd, comic geek, fanboy, and yet we are reminded that he is so by choice (and not by biological necessity) by comparing him to his overweight best friend, Arthur, or any of the larger ecosystem of nerdom in which he has made himself at home. In walks Noel, straight out of some geek’s Suicide Girls wet dream, ready to buy all the indie comics and to date Jason, thus offering him a vision of a more glamorous world of performance art and trendy bars. But Jason is not prepared, even for such a prize, to walk away from Arthur and his ilk, and he makes the mistake of bringing Noel to the Con, where (as happens to us all at least once in our comics lives) everything goes tragically wrong. Thus the cliff on which we are left in the penultimate issue: Jason and Noel have accused each other of unpardonable sins: hypocrisy and dorkdom. Is there any hope, in the midst of that soul-crushing collection of human and post-human flesh that is the Con, that they can reconcile? Do we care?



Actually, being a sucker for romance comics, I sort of do. Although in this case, the romance that interests me most is the one between Jason and Arthur. But in the end, I can’t get too excited about the plotting here: feeding the perennial comic-geek self-delusion that a beautiful babe will pick him up at the store. But the writing sparkles on other levels: Freeman demonstrates a quick wit, an honest ear for dialogue, and a sense of a character’s tone and foibles that would be wonderful to see develop on a more worthy subject. And some of the observations about comics fandom are valuable (although no surprise to anyone in fandom, who are the only people likely to read this title). In particular I enjoyed his representation of the ways in which fanboys are their own best critics and chides, making the insults of their tormentors from the outside world pointless and mundane. And the bonds of affection and trust within the community are nicely articulated as well. And for a four-issue series, maybe that’s enough?


Yan’s art is also a nice surprise: he has the cartoonist’s ability to capture personality in quick strokes and a cinematographer’s eye for rhythm and perspective. Given how much of the book is devoted to geek talk, it is a testament to his nimble pen that the page never feels stilted and static.


So no, I don’t regret the time and money invested in this slight title, because I think the young talents behind it are the real deal (and they play nicely together). Now, let’s get them a bigger sandbox. Of course, Freeman is no spring chicken and already has a decent size sandbox, as editor-in-chief of Ape, the publisher of SubCulture (not to mention a fellow-academic type); and so maybe instead (and I do feel like a real old man in saying this) Kevin should get himself a bit more, um, ambition with his next project? I’m quite sure Stan is capable of following him anywhere he wants to go.



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