“It’s too late in the day to tell me I’m off the path”
Maria and Peter Hoey make very odd comics, so it’s fitting that In Perpetuity, their latest, is rather odd. Top Shelf brings this to us, and we’re going to take a look at it!
To be fair, In Perpetuity isn’t that odd, and it’s less opaque than the two previous Hoey comics I’ve read. It’s their take on a noir story, and unlike their other comics, it has a pulpy plot (a few of them, actually) that actually gets resolved. 
But their sensibilities are such that the book, despite its straight-forwardness, is still odd. But that’s ok, right – we like odd stuff around here!
The book is set in Los Angeles … but not really, as we learn on the first page that our protagonist, Jim, is actually dead, and the Los Angeles he lives in is an afterlife version of L.A. He works at a gas station (apparently in the afterlife, everyone works but nobody seems to mind), and one day Raymond, a dude he knew when they both were alive, shows up. Raymond and his boss, Eddie, are unsavory types, and they’ve figured out a way to get in touch with the living, for which they need Jim. Jim, it turns out, has a natural ability to move between worlds fairly easily (he’s not alive in the living world, but his “shade” can interact – somewhat – with the living), and they use him for a criminal scheme they’ve cooked up. The authorities of the afterlife, which is ruled by Hades, would not be happy about this, and there is a worse place the dead can go than this afterlife, so they have to be careful. On his first excursion back, Jim meets Olivia, whom the criminals use in their scheme, and when she eventually dies, she and Jim start a hesitant romance (emotions in the afterlife seem to be deliberately muted, so their romance is, too).
There are three main sections of the book – Jim working for the criminals, Jim working for the police, and Jim trying to have a romance with Olivia and trying to figure out why he has this ability. 
The sections do flow into each other, but they’re also largely discrete, which makes for a somewhat disjointed reading experience. Jim is the main character in all three parts, and Olivia is much more prominent in parts 1 and 3 (she shows up late in part 2 because she’s going to be more prominent in part 3), and the plots do flow together fairly well, but it’s still a bit disjointed. The Hoeys are also interesting creators, in that they seem very comfortable making comics that are just a bit bizarre and surreal, and they do that here. There’s an unreality to the characters, which we can think is because most of them are dead, but even the living seem to be somewhat cardboard cut-outs, which is why the book is so bizarre. This might not be something you enjoy, and I get that, but I don’t mind it. Yes, it makes their comics hard to love, but it also makes them fascinating to read. The lack of emotion from the characters in their dialogue is contrasted by the emotions in their faces (which I’ll get to) and by the few characters who do exhibit some emotions, as it feels odd to see characters doing such in a comic like this. When Hades actually gets mad at Jim and Olivia, it feels weird but also real, because he’s the ruler of this world, so he’s not bound by the strictures of the dead (as it seems like the dead have no emotions). 
When Jim’s old crony shows up and sneers at him, even though it’s early in the book, we’ve already gotten into this weird world, so his burst of emotion feels off to us, and therefore has a bit more of an impact. It’s not my favorite way to create a story, but it’s not bad, either. The biggest problem with it is that Jim and Olivia’s romance lacks the spark that makes it work, so the ending of the book doesn’t hit as hard as it might. It’s an interesting and fitting ending, but it works more intellectually than emotionally. That may have been what the Hoeys were going for, but it doesn’t feel like it.
The Hoeys do this kind of thing with their art, too. They use stiff figures (it bothers me that the characters either don’t or barely bend their knees when they walk) and flat colors and not a lot of hatching to create a weird, somewhat sterile world, but then they go about subverting it to a degree, which makes the art more interesting than it looks when you first see it. Their sense of design is very nice – they do create realistic worlds with odd touches, so that we’re thrown whenever something strange crops up, adding to the surreality of the comic. There’s a bit too much narration explaining things (nobody in the afterlife drinks, but they still order alcohol, but the glasses are empty, which the Hoeys point out in narration when it would have been nice to discover it ourselves as readers), but they do add nice touches to the art nevertheless. 
As I noted above, they don’t do excellent work with the dialogue (which is usually just there as a plot-conveyer), but they do very good work with the facial expressions, so that we get a sense of the depth of the characters not by what they say but by simple changes in their faces. Just little changes in the way the Hoeys draw their features can show how they are feeling, as when Olivia tries to reunite with her family and realizes it’s not the greatest idea, or when Hades makes a deal with Jim near the end of the book that, he’s convinced, will work out well for him. The Hoeys never use a lot of lines, but they are able to express a lot with the ones they do use, and it makes the art more subtle than we first think. Again, the art has its limitations, especially when it comes to movement. But for what the Hoeys are trying to do with their comics, it tends to work better than we expect.
This is an interesting comic. I don’t love it, but I do like what the Hoeys are doing in general, and this book does work pretty well. It has some problems, of course, but in general, it’s a neat book. You can find it here if you’re interested!
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
