Backwash: Jar of Fools by Jason Lutes

I've talked previously about the distinction between "mainstream" and "serious" comics, with the former often dealing with elements of genre and a sense of fantasticism, whereas the latter often deals with issues taking place in reality, rarely if ever imparting any powers or physical anomalies into the fiction (if it even is fiction). Mainstream comics tend to be published by big publishers, serious comics by small, independent ones.

While a lot of seriously great work has come out of the serious/indie camp, if there's one thing I'mm disappointed in, it's the severe lack of variety among the stories they publish. While everybody and their pets (myself included) are complaining about the dominance of the superhero in mainstream comics, few people seem to realize that the independent comics scene is largely dominated by memoirs, autobiography, and slice-of-life stories.

I don't mean to suggest that these books are bad by any means. I love me some Tomine and some Thompson. Blankets is one of my all time favorite comics, Box Office Poison boasts some of the most realistic character development I've ever seen, and Maus is a book that deserves close to every rave review it gets.

What I mean to say is that while the content and the conceit of these books is intending to be comparable to the Fiction and Literature section of your local bookstore, the breadth and variety of these books is lacking. Would it really hurt to give us some stories in the realistic vein that aren't just about guys working in convenience stores or going through breakups? As much as I enjoy some of these books, when I'm reading them, I usually can't help but feel that these writers are just documenting themselves and the people around the. Isn't that kind of easy?

Ed Brubaker once said in an interview that discovering Harvey Pekar was like discovering punk rock. Just as the gritty 3 chord rock of the Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and The Damned set a stark contrast to the emerging glitter and sensationalism of rock music in the 70's, Pekar's focus on everyday issues ranging from domestic disputes to returning overdue videotapes was revolutionary in a time when the field of comics wasn't just dominated by genre, it was perceived as a genre. And just as punk rock was a call to arms for many short haired folks with musical ambition and a lack of technical proficiency, Pekar's comics carried a similar message: You don't have to construct big universes and have flashy art. You can just write about yourself.

Fast forward 30 years and Pekar's model has become the norm in independent comics, with some cartoonists like Joe Matt and Adrian Tomine arguably doing better work than Pekar himself ever did.

However, to say that the breadth of realistic fiction is writing about the jobs you worked in college, the messy breakup you had last year, or realizing you forgot your change while on the way to the laundromat is just as silly and narrow-minded as thinking a comic book has to contain guys in tights shooting lasers out of their orifices. We now have plenty of guys in the medium that have mastered the slice-of-life concept, but where are the Mark Twains, the John Steinbecks, or even the John Updikes of comic book fiction? Where are the writers that painstakingly research and write about people they have next to nothing in common with?

Enter Jason Lutes, who seemed to have known about the very thing I'm talking about long before I ever had the idea and long before I had even heard of him. As early as in 1996, Jason Lutes had published his first graphic novel, Jar of Fools, a story about a cast of characters as broad as a young alcoholic, an old retired magician hiding from a kind of mandatory living sentence at an old folks home, a frustrated barista, and a father-daughter team of grifters living on the streets. Now, I don't know much about Jason Lutes's life, but I'm willing to bet that his years of being a cartoonist and an art director don't overlap much with the characters in this story. Score one for research.

It's not the best graphic novel ever done and it's not even the best graphic novel Jason Lutes has ever done (though personally I suspect Berlin might qualify on both counts after its completion). However, what it is is a very compelling story about human hurt, longing, compassion, and friendship, as we see the various characters' plotlines intertwine. Despite how little I have in common with just about any of these characters, their charisma and quirks really shine through their interactions.

Watch out for this guy. As soon as he starts putting out comics on a more regular basis (Christ, issues of Berlin seem to come out only once a year), there's a chance that he just might author the Great American Graphic Novel. That is, assuming James Sturm hasn't done it already.