Broken Frontier

Hot off his collaborative efforts with writer Dino Caruso in Caruso Comics one-shots A Cautionary Tale and Crossroads, artist Paul Quinn puts forth his first solo work in Pop Culture Junkies: a book about a duo of young comic shop owners, the daily trials and tribulations of running said shop, and their quest to hold high the aspects of pop culture they love, as well as give the proverbial (and sometimes literal) finger to the bits they despise.  Toss in a new-hire girl and the dynamic gets fleshed out and fun.

PCJ, at least thus far with a slightly shorter-than-average #0 ish and a full-length #1, is episodic and covers a wide range of comic and pop cultural trends, most notably the behavioral trends of the fans and the readers, the collectors and the buyers and the sellers.  Quinn puts forth a snarky and - while hyper-realized into a comic-strip sensibility - still recognizably slice-of-life book.  The dialogue and tone channels Kevin Smith and Clerks, and also Rich Koslowski’s 3 Geeks, eccentric characters living up the fanboy lifestyle, talking about what they love, getting into somewhat outlandish situations and taking extreme measures to correct them.

Quinn’s humor is cutting, definitely sidles the line of being straight-up black, and for some this may come across as overly critical or cruel, though never is a scene far from a certain all-purpose whimsy, a free-loving Archie feel that keeps things light-hearted even when the events turn slightly adult.  The dialogue is direct, to the point, a no-holds-barred this-is-how-I-feel diatribe on pop culture and its many splendors, and Quinn proves a deft enough humorist and scripter to keep the book entertaining throughout, occasionally blunt in a way that’ll make some blink but always, every panel, every word balloon, stylishly put together.

Issue #0 is a solid introduction, both to the characters and the voice of the book.  The main two guys, Auggie Callahan and Declan McBailey, have a staff member call in and quit on them, and so the search is on for a new-hire!  A side-splitting series of interviews commence and the third and final regular is added to the cast by the end.  Then in #1 a day in the life of a lowly comic book employee, and on a Wednesday of all days, is explored with a focus on dealing with the difficult customers and a somewhat revenge-fantasy for the comic shop employee (or for any of us who’ve so much as stood and listened to the more loony fanboys of the world).

Quinn’s art for PCJ also suggests Archie and 3 Geeks, a characteristically old-school teen book look that allows for an effortless read.  The expressions are completely intuitive and the layouts and language similarly so.  The pages of issue #0 are classic in design, the pencils clean and crisp, and then issue #1 aims for a slightly more expressionistic slant, as Quinn goes a bit looser with the art and playful with the designs of the pages themselves.

All in all a very fun comic, and a style and flavor we’ve been missing in the comics field since the mid 90’s.  There’s Knights of the Dinner Table for the gamers out there, and PvP for the electronic world, but I’ve been aching for something like PCJ to satisfy my self-aware comic geek part of me for some time now.  I’m pleased as punch that Quinn’s taken the plunge and made this book and I hope it lives a long, lengthy life as its correspondingly-themed predecessors did.  PCJ is an excellent book, and even better, reading it makes one want to go to the comic shop!  Doesn’t get better than that.

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To see samples and see the PCJ video trailer, go to http://www.myspace.com/popculturejunkiesthesite

For ordering copies of Crossroads or other Paul Quinn drawn Caruso Comics, go to http://www.carusocomics.blogspot.com and send Dino a message.