First Review of ATTITUDE 2 Appears



James Heflin gives the anthology the full treatment in the Valley Advocate:

Forget the Lasagna

Attitude 2, Ted Rall's compilation of alternative cartoonists, goes beyond Garfield



by James Heflin - March 11, 2004



The real news is usually found on the comics page. Doonesbury , Bloom County and Boondocks have all been torchbearers for higher truths than the often-constricted views of mainstream news copy, and that's just the comics page in daily newspapers.



If you couldn't care less that a cat likes lasagna or that Cathy's having a crisis about what freaking bathing suit to buy, peek between the covers of alternative weeklies, and you'll find plenty of comics that refuse to play dumb. This Modern World often brings news stories into play that get short shrift in the mainstream press; Ted Rall casts a harsh eye on the Bush administration with his crudely drawn strip. Rall, also a writer whose work can regularly be found on alternative news sites, compiled the book Attitude, a fine introduction to the world of "alternative cartoonists."



Rall continues the project with Attitude 2 , which features interviews and a sampling of work from 21 cartoonists whose work is regularly found in alternative weeklies. Many of them may be familiar -- Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, Marian Henley's Maxine and Eric Orner's The Most Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green, among others, have appeared in the Advocate.



The cartoonists range from merely being alternative because they feature gay characters to being downright disturbing. Neil Swaab's Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles pushes the envelope more than most, focusing on a pedophile teddy bear who leaves far too little to the imagination. The non-pedophilia Mr. Wiggles strips are often gruesome or explicit enough to embarrass a sailor. Swaab says his strip is about "laughing at the darker aspects of life, finding humor in the sickest regions of the human psyche." So it's not Family Circus , then.



Unusual styles are on offer, too. Greg Peters uses clip art, photos and drawing in combination to produce Suspect Device, a strip that takes on the eternal circus of Louisiana politics in grand style. His deft combining of styles makes for the most visually impressive strip in the book. David Rees also uses clip art to great effect, providing a dissonance between a strait-laced look and adolescent-voiced skewering of the logic behind current political moves (Clip art guy with necktie #1 -- "Oh my God, this War or Terrorism is gonna rule! I can't wait until this war is over and there's no more terrorism." Clip art guy with necktie #2 -- "I know! Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War on Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore? It'll be just like that!").



If you like your cartoons to focus on humor rather than political fire, two major standouts are evident. Max Cannon's Red Meat ("miasmic molasses for the masses") plies a strange brand of humor that's either immediately funny or just plain inexplicable. His drawing style is somewhat like Rees's clip art, plainly drawn, iconic and decidedly un-dynamic, usually featuring three frames of the same drawing with different dialogue. His very Bob Dobbs "pipe-smoking Dad" character happily espouses some unusual notions. In one strip, he offers someone an "odd job": "You know ... I'd happily pay you four dollars to thrash around on a vinyl tarp covered in melted butter while I throw oranges at you." In another, he goes trick or treating naked for UNICEF. He also gets up at five and enjoys the "sublime anticipation" of waiting for an apricot to explode in the microwave.



Jennifer Berman makes a major play for the "funniest" crown as well, offering single-panel comics that rely on a peculiar variety of humor somewhat akin to Gary Larson's Far Side . Sometimes it's gut-splitting (though just the words without the visual don't make quite the same impact): the Dalai Lama gets excited at his birthday party -- "Wow! Nothing! Just what I always wanted!" A male dog eyes a comely female: "I wonder what she looks like with her collar off!"



Rall's entire book is a fascinating break from the tired, expected lightness of the daily comics page. The humor here takes far more risks, and the politics move far beyond the safety of journalistic attempts at objectivism. Attitude 2 would be worth a look just for the interviews that reveal intriguing glimpses behind the actual strips, but the book also serves as a useful starting point for further explorations of these cartoonists whose work is often harder to find than Garfield, if far more worthy of print.