Broken Frontier

Andy is the new title from Bohemia Comics following the exploits of a Charlie Brown-like character and his quest for an unrequited love. With art by the legendary Chris Giarrusso, this would be quite the book in and of itself, but the chaps at Bohemia didn’t stop there – where the comic leaves off, Andy’s story concludes in a full-length feature film titled Armadeggon for Andy. BF takes a close and critical look at both.

When I first agreed to taking a look at Bohemia’s upcoming new one-shot Andy, I had no idea it was going to be packaged along with a full-length, feature film DVD. In fact, being a comic book reviewer by and large, I didn’t give the DVD much more than a shrug and a dispassionately mumbled “cool” before writing off what I was sure would be a short, poorly constructed, homemade endeavor of a film that might – at best – retain only loose connections to the events within the comic. In a very backwardly snobbish way, my initial reaction was that I was a low-budget independent comic book reviewer; I had little time for low-budget independent film (the nerve!).

So, tossing the slim DVD aside, I cracked open the comic and this is what I found within:

Andy’s world is a perfect hybrid of Archie, Peanuts, PS238 and the motion picture Brick. Andy himself is a single-minded Charlie Brown with one and only mission on his mind: to acquire the love of popular and pretty Bethany – the girl he’s had his eye on since the third grade. The comic opens on the first day of Andy’s freshmen year in high school; he, along with his role-playing cohorts Eugene (the Dragon Lord) and Cliff (Sir Cliff the Knight), and Goth-girl Adeline maneuver their way through the first few days of a brand new school-year, but Andy manages to complicate everyone’s lives with his obsessive need to capture Bethany’s attention. It seems alphabetical seating is keeping our hero from sitting anywhere near his would-be girl, and so along comes an issue-length struggle to abolish this (according to Andy) oppressive, outmoded force of unfair regulation.

The humor of the comic is outstandingly effective, with more laugh-out-loud moments for fandom to chuckle over than even Rich Koslowski’s The 3 Geeks managed in its day. Andy himself is an average guy – an eternal geek, yes, but not overtly so. Unfortunately, he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, and his penchant for running damn-the-torpedoes headlong into unyielding social obstacles brands him with the sad stigma of being an inevitable and eternal loser. Yet while Andy’s simple-minded courage is his comedic draw, it’s generally the supporting cast that brings the book into truly comic heights.

The most outlandish yet effective of these characters is Eugene – the aforementioned Dragon Lord, who is never without his dragon cloak or his two minion underlings. In many ways (and much like the overweight Allen of 3 Geeks, whose far-fetched characterization also managed to somehow be the most true) Eugene is the most instantly recognizable of the bunch, and in this way the most effortlessly comic. His grandiose manner and oversized ego, regardless of his being overweight, heavy-handed and quite frankly ridiculous, never seems to hamper his effect on the others. He is the king of his own personal hemisphere, which some follow, others acknowledge, and none outright scorn (such is his power!).

There is one brilliant moment where writer Marc Dworkin places Eugene into the a hilariously natural positioning within the infamous Chocolate Factory of Willy Wonka, but other than this one subtle derision, it’s primarily Eugene’s unstoppable, amaranthine pomposity that gets the giggles going – a perfect representation of geekdom in this modern age of ubiquitous online role-playing and media-empowered genre entrenchment. Whereas Allen was the paradigm of the 80’s/90’s comic-guru whose self-confidence was only a feather-weight away from crumbling under the pressure of social judgment, Eugene represents the power inherent in the new millennium’s geek – he’s still an outcast, but one that’s unapologetic and who wields a significant status within the realm of social standings, even amongst the mainstream!

Beyond Eugene lies his henchmen – Squick and Chuck – who are the perennial pariahs that kowtow to their Dragon Lord’s every whim and equally bear the brunt of being the popular kids’ target of constant ridicule. Both bring in a good number of hysterical gags and Chuck indelibly gets one of the best running gags of the book, wherein he freely gives up his locker to avoid being stuffed inside it. One additional character worth his own mention is Arvid, the King of the Nerds, who resides in a shadowed, hidden hideout deep within the walls of the school, there guarded by two minions who wield apparently working lightsabers, and where he secretly maneuvers and controls the ins and outs of everything school-related.

Moving further down the list of dramatis personae, there’s Chip, the steady jock boyfriend of Bethany; Sir Cliff, the most even-headed of Andy’s friends; Adeline, the egregiously face-pierced, token Goth-girl; and finally Bethany herself, the somewhat empty-headed blond cutie whom Andy has his heart promised to.

While all these characters are perfectly stereotypical to some degree or another, Dworkin never allows the material to feel overwrought or typical in the least. In fact, the only comic series that can measure up to the wild ideas and dead-on humor of Andy is Dork Tower, Nodwick, PS238, and little else besides. Add to this the artwork by comic genius Chris Giarrusso, whose every panel is pitch perfectly wrought to evoke the furthest level of humor possible as exacted by the script, and this is far and wide one of the best humor comics any reader might find. Every character gets their time in the spotlight, their own subplot, and all together they weave the world of Andy into a hysterically unforgettable one. When I closed the comic (which, by the way, is a one-shot and a complete book in and of itself), I felt satisfied in a way that no comic had made me feel in quite some time.

Yet…it doesn’t stop there. I slept on my pure enjoyment of the one-shot, and found that the characters and events stuck with me, replaying themselves fancifully over and over again in my head all throughout the following day. Late the next night, my eyes providentially stumbled upon that which I had forgotten that I had forgotten – the DVD. I had time on my hands (and in the end, I figured I really just couldn’t ignore the puppy), so I popped it in, flipped off the lights, and regardless of my love for the comic, prepared myself for the worst.

Sometimes, the unexplainable inexplicably happens – the movie was amazing. Shot on video for an obviously non-existent budget (don’t go in looking for Clerks 3), the movie does make a strong case for being the next Clerks 1. Titled Armageddon for Andy, the film takes place during the final days of Andy’s senior year, during the handful of moments that climax in the dread cert horror of senior prom. All the characters of the comic are here, though some more so than others (and even some that were merely passing fancies in the comic wind up with major parts to play in the film!). The same style of humor which the comic did brandish is emphatically locked within the film – but only temporarily. The creators grant the viewer a recognizable style only so long as to draw them in, offering a comfort zone of familiarity before it uncompromisingly yanks the proverbial rug out from under our collective feet.

To backtrack, the film opens inside a classroom, a scene which depicts Andy (played by Edward Griffin) still pinning after Bethany (played by Marcy Rylan) who still has eyes only for quarterback star Chip (played with gleeful abandon by Michael Carbonaro). The teacher of the class speaks out against the ongoing war, a war which may, at any time, lead to nuclear Armageddon. Shortly after this sequence, the rest of the cast from the comic are introduced and the situations between them revealed to have changed not in the least; except that prom is fast approaching and, as usual, Andy has a plan. What is this plan and how will it lead to the grand finale of the entire Andy saga? Well…therein doth lie the film’s true genius.

While the characters of Eugene and his minions are equally as hysterical in the film as in the comic – Eugene as played by Timothy Gillespie is an especially effective onscreen representation (and he also happens to be the film’s producer!) – still does the movie’s primary draw come from what it and its character evolve into, rather than merely being a live-action interpretation of the same-old, same-old. I should take this moment to also mention that the background, cold war/nuclear winter scenario was bizarrely stressed throughout the first half of the film, and initially I did not think this to be a terribly effectual device, but then came…the twist!

Andy’s obsession with Bethany, when at last the magic day of prom is reached, heralds an eerie slide into something far greater than mere comedy, propelling the film into the blacker regions of satire and human behavior. Without giving away what I consider to be the greatest sense of plot evolution since…well, hell, I can’t think of anything comparable! Anyway, without giving it away, the film weaves the many themes and characters of Andy into a shocking, unexpected, and definitively final ending. There are rumors of a second movie coming soon, picking up where this one left off and titled Genesis for Andy, but that may just be the filmmakers’ sense of humor (I suspect that it is).

The acting of the film is a mixture of good and bad, some actors giving professional performances (Chip, Eugene, and Bethany are all notable for their near-perfect deliveries), while others are inevitably only able to give an amateur, undisciplined quality of presentation. Andy himself thankfully grows into a fleshed-out character as the movie progresses, presented as a little too pat at the beginning (which may have simply been a natural fault of the comic book version of the character, who was always meant to be decidedly one-dimensional) and into a fascinating figure of moral depth and complexity by the end. Additionally (at least on my admittedly second-hand, unpolished copy) the sound of the film is a touch spastic, with overly loud music and difficult-to-hear dialogue in numerous areas. Still, if you can risk waking the neighbors and can simply pump up the big V, then the movie is an effortless ride to take.

There will additionally be required a default suspension of disbelief to enjoy the film as all the actors are obviously of far too advanced in age to be actual teenagers (not even seniors – I’ve never seen this many receding hairlines at a college, let alone a high school!). To a certain degree, it was a miracle this film turned out as well played as it was, as all the actors were more or less the crew (the end credits are hysterical in their sheer redundancy). But beyond this one relatively minor flaw, the film picks up everything the comic was able to successfully garner and elevates it to a natural, absolutely believable, frightening finale.

I’ve honestly never seen a movement between a comic book and a film that has worked as faultlessly as Andy and Armageddon for Andy. It is the greatest surprise find for me so far this year, and I recommend both the book and the movie to anybody who can get their hands on it.

The comic book can be purchased at the  ComicXpress store while the film, as far as I can tell, is not yet up for widespread distribution.

However, go to the filmmakers’ website www.bohemiafilms.com and bug the nuts out of them and I bet they’ll sell you a copy! Even if they won’t (or can’t) you can get all screening information at the site, so go there already!

Also, as I just have to plug this – the music of the film was outstanding, especially the music from the band The Kelly Project, so go to their site and buy some great tunes, too! - www.kellyproject.com.