| June
2008 |
Matt Anderson, Eric Hutchins, Micah Farritor, et al., White Picket Fences (APE Entertainment, 2008), $6.95.
I came around a bit late to White Picket
Fences. I enjoyed
the first three-issue mini-series that launched the title
last year, and I was immediately taken by the visual
pleasures of the book. But on the level of its story, I was
somewhat underwhelmed: another portrait of life in the
bad-old, conformist, paranoid 1950s and of the clever young
rapscallions who transform this cold world into a magical
fairyland of the imagination. The first storyline did push
things considerably further than this premise, I will
admit, presenting a world out of 1950s scifi where the
scifi wasn’t fiction. Here, in this speculative
historical fiction, the Red Menace refers equally to the
Martians as the Commies, and dads talk about the good old
days fighting the Green Menace (Venutians and Nazis). But
in their first miniseries, too often Anderson and Hutchins
got lost in the finger-wagging at the spying neighbors,
witch hunts, and confirmity, and far too much time was
spent with the parents who were ultimately precisely what
they seemed: pleasant, bland and well-groomed. I wanted
more. I wanted the creators of this book to fully let
themselves go into the more perverse corners of their
premise and away from the well-trod, back-patting critiques
of Cold War America. And with this new graphic novel, they
have done precisely that. This is a book that fully finds
stories equal to the dynamic energy of the artwork that
made the book pop off the page from the start, and it
suggests that the future of White Picket Fences
is going to be very bright
(and wild) indeed.
The book contains three stories, although only two are
fully realized--the second short sketch, written by
Anderson and Hutchins and illustrated very stiffly by Brian
Mead, being more of a love letter to the book’s
protagonists, the three best-buddies, Charlie, Parker and
Tommy. The first story, “The History Lesson,” demonstrates
the growth of Anderson and Hutchins’ vision for the story
as they develop a promising new adult character with a
shadowy past: Mr. Reason, the boys’ science teacher at
Robert Wise Elementary (named after the director of
The Day the Earth Stood
Still, clearly a
foundational film for Anderson and Hutchins). Despite his
name, Reason proves unfazed by the very unreasonable
predicament the boys find themselves in here, in which yet
another film genre comes to threaten the seemingly bland
world of Greenview, USA. This time it is monsters straight
out of the 30s Universal classics: vampire, werewolf,
Frankenstein…the works, complete with a mad scientist who
turns out to be an old adversary of Reason from adventures
past.
But Anderson, who scripted this story, goes beyond the
pleasures of this world where monsters prove as real as the
little red and green men of the first mini-series. Our evil
scientist, Dr. Niemann, is dedicated to bringing back the
monsters of the past because in this world of modern
Reason, Fear has been conquered by complacency and
confidence that everything will always be O.K., with what
are for Niemann tragic results. As he describes it, not
long ago, monsters roamed the night streets, and the people
of Greenview lived in healthy fear of the unknown. These
were monsters of our nightmares, irrational creatures
beyond explanation who allowed us daily to confront the
darkness in ourselves. But today (that is, in the alternate
1950s of Greenview, USA), as Dr. Niemann complains, the
monsters can all be explained too easily as the result of
atomic radiation. Thus the giant lizard crushing city hall
is ultimately just a lizard, and therefore never truly an
object of Horror.
Of course, Reason triumphs and the dark forces of our
unconscious past are repressed once again. But in the
second long story in the book, “Beetle-Mania,” we open with
precisely the giant animals Dr. Niemann so disdained, huge
beetles working their way inexorably toward Greenview, in a
story that brings the world of Godzilla and the Toho
monsters of the 50s and 60s fully to life. For readers
familiar with the first mini-series there is a winking
playfulness in the opening to this story, which appears
initially to harken back to the imaginative opening of the
first. And here, as Dr. Niemann gloomily predicted, reason
and cooler heads prevail. If a giant lizard is just a
lizard, then the reverse equally applies, as young Charlie
realizes at the crucial moment (with tragic consequences
for a certain innocent pet lizard).
Without giving away too much of the fun, part of what I
want to describe here is how well the collaborative team
of White Picket
Fences is working
together in developing this world. Although Anderson and
Hutchins work their stories separately here, the sense of
their lively collaboration remains intact. It is as if,
working on their world-making more independently, they have
both allowed themselves to go a bit further in exploring
its fullest potential. But like the best collaborations,
their vision has grown together. The book concludes with
the promise of a new mini-series later this year, and I
know it will be at the top of my list this time around.
I cannot conclude without commenting in a bit more detail
on Micah Farritor’s exquisite pencil work and coloring.
Farritor is a wonder, bringing a fresh and surprising look
to a 50s story that could have so easily been predictable.
Instead of the bland air-brushed quality one might expect,
Farritor brings an idiosyncratic style that is
simultaneously improvisotory and highly polished. The
former comes through in the pencil lines, which are allowed
to dance unedited on the page, lending everything a
personal and emotional tone that is not at all what one
might expect from such a story. The profound sense of
polish and precision in Farritor’s work comes through in
his compositions, both on the level of the panel and the
page. In terms of design and rhythm this is one of the most
enjoyable books I have looked at in a while (and this
includes the original mini-series as well), comparable in
this regard to Pedrosa’s Three Shadows. And as if Farritor’s achievement here
weren’t impressive enough, in “Beetle-Mania,” a new
co-artist, Tim Lattie, takes over the pencils and the book
doesn’t miss a beat. Lattie maintains many aspects of
Farritor’s style, but he brings a more flashy, big budget
approach to the layouts which work well for this Calling
all Monsters storyline. And Farritor lends his earthy
palette to the coloring on both long stories (again, not at
all what one would expect from a 1950s comic, and just what
the story needs).
As I hope I’ve made clear, I’m now ready to sign up for
the WPF fanclub. Send on my secret decoder ring
and tell me where the secret meeting will be held. This is
the most fun you’ll have with comics anytime soon, I
promise.
