Broken Frontier

Glenn Ganges works for a dotcom company.  Basically, a bunch of friends get together and work on the internet.  At the end of the day they “work late” by playing a first person shooter.  Meanwhile, the company is on a downward spiral that seems headed for the abyss.

Ganges #2 is the 27^th installment of the “Ignatz Collection”.  This series of oversized magazine comics is a rotating collection of new works by some of the world’s best cartoonists.  Gorgeous to look at and always thought provoking, the series is the most ambitious comic project on the market.  A broad spectrum of the indie market is covered from the fantastical to the mundane.

Huizenga’s work definitely gravitates towards the mundane.  Our protagonist is a slacker to the extreme.  He has an odd relationship with his wife.  He is very unsure of what his job actually entails past a stupefying understanding of computer jargon.  He is prone to daydream. 

The honesty of the character leads one to believe that he is autobiographical in nature.  Sure, the plot of this story could have been culled from Grandma’s Boy or Douglas Copeland’s Microserfs, but Glenn is genuine.  He may be the most pathetic of heroes, but as a human being he is one of the most sympathetic.  Identifying with this everyman is not hard to do.

The real accomplishment is how the story feels mundane.  Ganges is surrounded by absurdity.  His boss is very close to the Kevin Nealon character from Grandma’s Boy.  He is all motivation, but no substance.  He is the guy who was at the right place at the right time.  Glenn’s wife is a breathing oxymoron, who will cuss Glenn out for playing a corruptingly violent video game.  The game that is his life blood at work is full of impossibilities and convenience.

Yet, Glenn somehow remains a boring and directionless pawn to fate.  He is intelligent, but resigned… no, devoted… to apathy.  In this attitude, Huizenga speaks towards an entire generation’s status quo.  He is focusing on a generation that learned to play instead of work.  A lot of the country’s current woes rest squarely on this generation’s shoulders.  In the end, the most terrifying problem we face is that we are completely inadequate to carry this burden.

Huizenga’s art is an allegory to the story.  He is a consummate cartoonist.  His caricature is loose and consistent.  There is not the detail of Jim Lee, but the whimsy of Schultz is missing as well.  In the video game prelude, he shows an amazing eye for design, but uses computers and cubicles through much of the story as a marker of consistency or in Ganges’s eyes to display the doldrums of his life.  It all uniquely matches the ramblings of our titular character.

The most impressive area of his art is the transition between the reality and daydream sequences.  Through subtle line changes, Huizenga creates differing worlds that are wildly separated, but hauntingly similar.  All in all, it is a remarkable achievement in cartooning.

By holding an unflinching mirror up to a vast majority of a generation, Huizenga is rallying a call to arms.  It is time for happenstance to stop being a motivational factor.  Ganges is a modern morality tale of the highest order.