Comics You Should Own — ‘American Barbarian’

So much righteous rage!!!!

American Barbarian by Tom Scioli (writer/artist).

Published by AdHouse Books, cover dated March 2012.

There aren’t really any SPOILERS here, but, I mean, be wary anyway. And, as always, you can click on the images to bigify them!

As you know, Comics You Should Own does not always concern itself with the most serious books out there, as Comics You Should Own has a sense of humor — the word “comics” is right there in the title! In the past, I’ve written up books that are … shall we say, less than concerned with Making a Grand Statement and more with Entertaining the Shit Out of You — as long as the craft is there, any goofy comic can be a Comic You Should Own! And so, we arrive at yet another example of that genre, with Tom Scioli’s post-apocalyptic revenge story. Is it full of trenchant insight into the human condition? Uh … no. It is, in fact, a fairly simplistic post-apocalyptic revenge story, in that the main character wants revenge, and he proceeds to get it. There are a lot of bells and whistles, true, but that’s basically it. And yet … I can confidently state that this is a Comic You Should Own. Scioli tells the tale with such relentlessness in his intent to go completely balls to the wall that the story ends up carrying you along. It is enthralling and exhilarating and transporting. No, the writing itself is nothing special. But when Tom Scioli creates a comic, he does so with the adamantine desire to take you to a weird and wacky world, and he does so brilliantly in this comic. Such is his power!

The story, such as it is, is this: In some indeterminate time in the future, a small part of “New Earthea” is ruled by King Lionhorn as the last bastion of civilization in the ruined world. Yoosaman (see what he did there?) is the king’s majordomo, protecting him from all the fun evil stuff in the world: “roving mutant armies, legions of the risen dead, renegade robots, wild herds of genetic supermen, roving citadels on wheels, science experiments run amok, swirling matter-devouring black holes, re-animated dinosaurs, the sewer people of New New New York …” Yes, he uses “roving” twice very close together, but the writing, as I noted, isn’t really the point of the book. The point is: the world sucks, but Yoosaman and his seven sons help stand guard against the insanity. Early on, the youngest son, Meric (see what he did there?) distinguishes himself as kind of the super-son — he and his brothers perform a ritual and Meric’s result is unprecedented, because he’s just so groovy, and Meric is given control of the Star Sword, which is basically a lightsaber. Of course, some years later, a new threat arises — named, hilariously, Two-Tank Omen (he stands on two tanks, which is how he gets around), and when he attacks, Meric’s father and brothers are killed, as is the king, and Meric swears revenge. Of course he does!

The story follows a familiar path from there. Meric first pretends that he wants to join Two-Tank Omen’s horde, but that doesn’t last long because he refuses to slaughter a bunch of innocent citizens of a fortress he storms. He escapes and meets a bunch of weird people of the world, forging them into an alliance to fight Two-Tank Omen. There’s a lot of fighting, there’s a BIG! TWIST! that’s not really terribly surprising if you’re paying attention, and there’s a silly deus ex machina that nevertheless fits into the silliness of the world Scioli has created. It’s a very bombastic and fun comic, but it’s not terribly deep.

Why, oh why then is it something I think you should own? Well, sometimes, the art is just so dazzling and exciting and beautifully obnoxious that it overwhelms any niggling concerns about the story, and this is one of those comics. It exists in the same realm as such wild and wacky comics such as Fantastic Four #347-349, Hard-Boiled, The Heckler, High Roads, Major Bummer, The Middleman, Nextwave, Rex Libris, Shark-Man, and Wacky Raceland — comics that, if you squint a little, occasionally have something on their minds, but generally are just happy being comics, as they try to melt your brain with pure awesomeness. Scioli, who is doing his best to keep the Spirit of Kirby™ alive, reaches perhaps his apotheosis with this book. His more recent work is still very good, but he uses fewer hard lines and a softer palette, so his work occasionally becomes almost impressionistic. It’s a bit more mature, and while he still works in “awesome” themes, it seems to lack the grandeur of his earlier work. His callowness (I mean, he was in his mid-thirties when he did this and he’d been working a while, but still) means that he goes huge with less regard for the consequences, and while his later work has a bit more heart to it, his earlier work has more COMICS! to it. It certainly does in this book.

Let’s go through it a little bit. We begin with Yoosaman and his seven sons, who are going through their ritual — the “tangle of swords,” and whichever sword they pull will determine their destiny. Meric ends up pulling all the swords, which is how he’s entrusted with the Star Sword, but if we ignore the plot point and concentrate on the art, we’re already in Kirby-Land: there’s the futuristic yet somewhat clanky tech, the futuristic yet shabby clothing, the Yoosamans’ glorious red-white-and-blue-striped hair, with one of them — Bobert — sporting a Mohawk, because of course, and Meric’s wonderful free-flowing locks showing that he’s not bound by convention. The “tangle of swords” is a ridiculous, Kirby-esque … thing, that makes no sense but is just there to show how cool Meric is.

Scioli can do grandeur and weirdness with the best of them, but he knows how to compose a page. When King Lionhorn sits down with his advisers and Yoosaman and his family, Scioli gives us this page:

Look at the way he puts the page together. The perspective is excellent, with the candles in the front providing an anchor point for the reader but also putting us at a distance while also creating a cage in which these people are trapped, as none of them can escape their ultimate fate. The food is just odd enough to remind us that this is a post-apocalyptic world, and the castle itself is that weird futuro-medievalism that Kirby so loved and which Scioli does very well. Note the trapezoid at the bottom. On the previous page, Scioli began Two-Tank Omen’s journey with a triangle slicing upward, and here he continues to expand that panel until, a few pages later, it dominates the page. He shows it from the ground up, so we only see Two-Tank Omen’s feet on the tanks, so he can reveal him in all his awful glory, as we see here:

What Kirby did well and what Scioli understands is that, despite the goofiness of the actual story (I mean, the pun is pretty groan-worthy), if you, the creator, take it seriously and the characters take it seriously, you can still sell it, and that’s what makes this such a bonkers work of art. His name is freaking Two-Tank Omen, for crying out loud, but when we turn that page to the double-page spread, it really hits hard. Scioli does this kind of thing so well.

He knows how to condense action, too, even while making it very cool. When Meric seemingly joins Two-Tank Omen’s side, he assaults the rolling fortress city by himself. Scioli knows we don’t need to see every fight, so he does this:

This is just so wonderfully audacious, and I doubt if many artists would even think of it, much less do it with such panache. He leads us around the pages effortlessly, and the capper — Meric chucks the defender off the top, apologizes, and gets called asshole in response, is just weird enough to work.

Scioli doesn’t just ape Kirby, naturally. Advances in comics production means that he can color with a bit more nuance, as we see in these pages, but he also does nice work with washes and negative space and a lack of holding lines, which adds a bit of subtlety to the work. Kirby tended to achieve this through mixed media, but Scioli goes a slightly different route. Here are two beautiful pages that show Meric confronting dinosaurs (robot dinosaurs, because of course they are) at the bottom of a dark pit:

It’s just really nice work here: the negative space with what appears to be paint spatter on the first page, the use of blue paint on the second when Meric and his enemies are plunged into darkness. It’s a very cool scene. Later, Scioli gets rid of the strong lines altogether when Meric and his group meet “God,” a rainbow-patterned energy entity:

Later, when Meric and his allies figure out a way to defeat Two-Tank Omen (so they think!), Scioli shows that he can do weird stuff with the best of them, as Meric goes a bit cosmic:

And, of course, when he needs to, he can do bombast better than almost anyone:

Now, this might not be for you, of course. Scioli, as I noted isn’t going to make anyone forget “It’s raining in Washington tonight. Plump, warm summer rain that covers the sidewalks with leopard spots.” But it’s not meant to. Scioli isn’t as interested in the words on the page as he is about the entire vibe of the comic, and American Barbarian is far more concerned with being as COMICS! as possible, and Scioli succeeds admirably. Yes, this comic is often ridiculous. In a world full of ridiculousness, though, it’s nice to read an adventure that does not care how ridiculous it is but is simply trying to grab hold of you, immerse you in this world without allowing you to take a breath before you dive in, and say, “Isn’t this thing amazing?” A lot of comics do that, sure, but often, they can’t pull it off. Perhaps it’s the tone of the book, which might not make the complete leap into ridiculousness and therefore allows the subject matter to be mocked. Maybe it’s the art, if the artist doesn’t have the sense of obnoxious grandeur that Scioli can pull off effortlessly. Scioli knows both that this is ridiculous and also that it doesn’t matter, because it’s also gloriously insane. And we could stand some more glorious insanity in our world right about now.

It appears, sadly, that American Barbarian is out of print. You can find a softcover version on Amazon for $42, but the hardcover — which is the version I have — is not priced to move at all, even though it was originally a nice 20 dollars. I would look around at used bookstores, I guess, to find a copy. It’s a grand statement of comic weirdness and wildness, and deserves to be read by all.

Hey, check out the archives for more! I think most of them are still in print, if that helps!