Broken Frontier

Stuff and Nonsense.  A.B. Frost.  Preface by Thierry Smolderen.  Fantagraphics Books, 2003.

As 2006 draws to a close, our thoughts turn to the milestones of the year.  What was the best comic book, or graphic novel?  Who was the best writer, artist, inker?  What distinguished itself, in its originality, its humor, or its power to move us?  Attempts to pin down the best among the mountains of brilliant and diverse comics published in the US in any given year are notoriously difficult, since it is not possible to give equal weight to every candidate.  Moreover, aesthetic preferences may vary mightily from one reader to the next.  Still, the exercise of selecting the best leads us to another, and very interesting question.  What makes a great comic book?

As I see it, there are three properties that any comic book must possess in order to be any good at all.  These are narrative power, dynamic and lively art, and unity of text and image.  A great comic book is one that displays these properties as an interdependent whole, so that, for example, the narrative power vibrates in the dynamic art that propels the story. 

Distinguished comics historian Craig Yoe, (creator of the astonishing Modern Arf series of anthologies exploring the relationship between art and comics), recently mentioned A.B. Frost’s 1884 Stuff and Nonsense as the first great American comic.  Reprinted in an anthology of Frost’s comics by Fantagraphics in 2003, Stuff and Nonsense collects four of Frost’s original comic stories (Stuff) and sixty illustrated limericks (Nonsense).  In the preface to the Fantagraphics collection, Thierry Smolderen, (eminent comics historian and President of Coconino and Co.), explores the relationship between Frost’s experiments with sequential narrative and photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s experiments with moving pictures. 

The experience of reading Frost’s stories is sublime, something like watching a short film, as the momentum of Frost’s sequences induces a feeling of having slid head first down a slippery chute.  Yet it’s something more, too.  Frost not only propels the reader forward in time.  He punctuates his greased forward motion with swoops, springs, and pregnant pauses.  In just a few short panels, Frost gives the reader a powerful sense of motion, and puts the reader physically in the action.

These effects are particularly apparent when reading the first story in the collection of Stuff, “The Fatal Mistake.”  A doomed cat eats rat poison, and the poor creature’s suffering is so palpable that we are almost relieved when the inevitable end comes.  We involuntarily hold our stomachs in sympathy while the miserable kitty tries to outrun the pain.  Each panel is a confrontation between kitty and human while the poisoned cat tears across town towards the waterfront.  The result is a kind of “whoosh-bang” effect, as the streaking kitty (whoosh) shocks each human encountered (bang).  In addition we feel the upward shot as Frost makes us spring into the air with the cat, enhancing the intensity of the pure convulsive jolt when cat confronts human.  If there were sound effects, they would sound like this: Whoosh – Sproing! – BANG! – Whoosh – Sproing! – BANG!  We still feel the air rushing in our ears when “The Fatal Mistake” comes to its tragic end.

Story and drawing form an inseparable unity in the dynamic and very physical slapstick of the stories in Stuff.  In the sixty limericks of Nonsense, text and image form a perfect union.  The limericks, written by Frost’s brother in the style of Edward Lear, are each explicated with two drawings, one placed above, and one below.  The upper drawing sets the scene, and the lower drawing makes the joke. The drawings depend on the limericks for sense and meaning, and the limericks depend on the drawings for delivery of the punch lines.

Take, for example, the story of the boy who steals green apples.  The limerick reads,

Bobby stole of green apples a quart
By the owner thereof he was sought
Those green apples he ate
And he wished ah! too late
That when chased by that man he’d been caught.

The drawing above shows Bobby running with the apples, a rather smug smile on his face, while in the distant background we see the farmer chasing.  Frost’s drawing is so lively and descriptive that we can see Bobby’s attitude, and hear the farmer shouting at him, details not included in the poem.  The drawing below shows why Bobby wishes the farmer had caught him.  He’s writhing on the ground in pain, the green apples having given him a terrific stomach ache.

Or consider one of my favorites, the story of the scientist who defeats a robber.  The limerick reads,

This ruffian deadly and gruff
Thought the “old un” would drop quick enough
But the scientist read
From what science has said
And completely demolished the rough.

In the above drawing, the ruffian and his dog are both pretty terrifying.  The reversal in the bottom drawing is complete, adding an immense dose of humor to an already funny verse.  The utter defeat and fatigue of the ruffian and his dog would be funny enough, but are even funnier because the dog’s tongue is sticking out, and the robber is tugging at his collar for air.  These tiny details result in a truly hysterical punch line.

A great comic book doesn’t have to be funny, as being comical isn’t a requirement of the modern publication called “comic book.”  But being funny is a rare ability, and Frost is hilarious.  His command of the qualities of a great comic book distinguish Stuff and Nonsense, earning it a place in comics history as quite possibly the first great American comic book.  And since he brings the funny, we’ll keep reading him.  After 122 years, that may be the biggest distinction of all.