Frezno's Comics Challenge: The Straight Story Six Part 5 (Material)

Welcome back, once again, to the Comics Challenge. We are just a little bit late because I spent the last days of November on a weekend trip, and I did not get to do this before leaving because I was focused on finishing Non-Specific November Writing Month. I did indeed hit my word quota, and I still need to finish the story, but with 50k in the bag I can let that rest for one more day and get back to my comic book obligations... and fuck me, what a comic book we have here. Material Volume 1 (there sadly do not appear to be subsequent volumes) is a tight and poly-authored little thing that nevertheless contains lots and lots of depth. I'll go as deep as I can, but I only need scratch the surface long enough to wring some coherent words and analysis out of the book. Which I'm good at doing, and will do so now. There has been a running theme throughout the TV shows I've covered on the blog between 2022 and 2024, a concept which I coined a phrase for: The Dark Heart Of America. From the ugly historical microcosms of Quantum Leap, to the systemic rot lurking in the id of small-town America in Twin Peaks, to the battle against crime and the darkening of one's soul in Miami Vice, it's been there. Material is a comic about the dark heart of America, but the way in which it's told and the heady concepts it plays with are of definite interest.

At its heart, Material tells four stories at once, none of them interconnected but all of them intertwined with the material reality of 21st century America. A college professor disillusioned with the commercialization of art, trying to regain his creative spark. A drug-addled actress and ambitious screenwriter trying to express themselves through avant-garde film without selling out. A black teen harangued by corrupt police, facing down brutality and the stark hostile reality of existing while black in America. A Middle Eastern man struggling to heal from the trauma of the torture he experienced at the hands of America while imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. As I said, none are interconnected, but it's notable that the four handily pair into groups of two: one pair about capitalism and art in the modern age, the other about the pain and strife minorities in America feel. You get just enough glimpse into the lives of these people, and the lives they touch, to connect with and empathize with them. They're satisfying stories, at times heavy and heartbreaking, but in the end stories of people just trying to get by, stuck in the middle of the ichor-beating Dark Heart Of America.

As a comic, it's doing some interesting things. We once again work with the nine-panel grid, sometimes widening a row out to make a visual point or emphasize a particular emotion. At times the stories bleed into each other, as with a good jump cut: my favorite example of this is the last panel of one segment with Adib saying the word "Run", and the first of the next being a panel of the professor having a run. The colors are also different for each segment, with all four having two main colors that they focus on. From the blue and orange of the actress, to the yellow and blue of the black teen, to purple and yellow for the Middle Eastern man. They're all distinct enough that your brain knows, before you even see who's speaking, what story you've picked back up on, and give the proceedings their own identity and life. Every story also shares a color with at least one other story, adding even more connections without being narratively connected. Then there are the footnotes. Far from the sprawling labyrinth of a House Of Leaves or Mary Tyler Moorehawk, these are just little suggestions which accentuate whatever point is being made in its respective story. The professor's has lots of academia cited, the actress has films and essays about films... but the black teen's footnotes are primarily names of other folks who were the victims of police brutality. The footnotes are a suggestion for further thematic influence in the case of the former two, but for the latter they're an example of furthering the point of the story.

It all has a very journalistic bent, and it makes one wonder what comics journalism even looks like. It's this. Telling a story, citing your sources, and reporting on the material condition of the world. Adding to this even more are four short essays which act as an epilogue for the comic, each of them tied in thematically to one of the stories. With essays on Franco Berardi, the CIA and torture, Lindsay Lohan, and police brutality, they're clear postscripts to the ideas and thoughts offered by the comic. One final thematic tie between tales becomes clear, and it's a good thought to close on. One of the professor's lectures concerns legendary comics artist Jack Kirby, musing on why he swore off comics after devoting most of his life to them. The answer the professor offers is "business", and the essay on the CIA and torture connects to this at its end, and let's just take one more lesson from Unflattening and follow that old adage, "a picture is worth a thousand words":

The professor's lecture on Jack Kirby, by the way, is footnoted with a quote of Kirby's: "Comics is journalism.". Material, at the very least, proves Mr. Kirby right. To twist another quote from a comics character Kirby helped define: Material Is. It is journalism, it is raw and real in all the right ways, and a fantastic comic book with depths upon depths, and even further reading for one to engage in if they want to truly unflatten themselves, not just to comic books, but to the modern world. We're winding down the Comics Challenge now, with only four left if I'm right. The journey will end a year removed from where it began, and then finally I'll learn what the hell is so good about the goddamn Straight Story. In the meantime, happy holiday and we'll be seeing you again soon for more of this.