Previously at Broken Frontier we covered Steve Willis and Edward Bolman volumes from Tom Fellrath’s Phoenix Masters series, both of which explore absurdity in the extreme with a humorous, all-ages bent. Joe Hutchinson’s mini-comics also touch on absurdity in a humorous way, but with a horror (or disturbing) element clouding every story. This book, however, is a family affair collecting more than 20 short comics stories by Joe, as well as contributions from two more Hutchinson Brothers.
Who are the Hutchinson Brothers? Joe, who wrote and drew the majority of the stories within; Dwayne, who wrote and drew the ‘At Home With the Roachmeisters’ comic strips within; and, Daryl, who is an accomplished illustrator in his own right, however, here he serves as editor and production crew, reformatting his brother’s work from the original mini-comics and adding colour. Besides publishing prolifically as Anthrax Press in the 80s, details of the lives and fates of the mysterious Hutchinson Brothers remain elusive. Let’s just let the comics speak for themselves then.
Hilarity ensues rather quickly in this book, with the second story of the collection, ‘Rex, a Dinosaur Legend: Wise as Solomon, Strong as Hercules’. Tyrannosaurus Rex is king of the dinosaurs, he proclaims two dinosaurs competing for the same human cut him in half to share and one little dinosaur that cuts in line to meet King Rex gets his arm ripped off. Rex has nightmares about a meteor shower that wipes out his kind. He gets his subjects to carve a rocket out of solid rock! The narration throughout is full of anachronisms, such as Rex invoking George Washington’s name or arguing whether to launch from the Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral. Things go south when the meteor hits, setting up a twist ending that lands perfectly. How Joe gets so much body language out of a bunch of dinosaurs pretty much just standing around with their mouths open, we’ll never know. The texture of the forty-year old art and brand new colouring is really effective at building an atmosphere for all the jokes to play out.
One of the standout short strips in Joe’s Comix: Wild Kingdom is the, conversely, chilling and heroic, ‘Fortress of Solitude’. Twelve-year old Ryan is excited to show his friend Calvin his new tree house, but Calvin doesn’t understand why he isn’t interested in making out with girls and drinking and storms off. Stealing paint from his Dad, Ryan starts painting his tree house, when a human-sized mosquito flies into the wet paint. Very angry, the bug makes Ryan nurse him back to health. Meanwhile, Ryan makes up with Calvin and invites him over for a sleepover. The mosquito won’t leave, but vows to be on his best behaviour. Calvin shows up with booze and drugs and the boys (and bug) party late into the night. When Ryan wakes up at noon the next day, Calvin’s shrivelled husk is laying beside him. The mosquito is sitting in the corner, bloated from drinking Calvin’s blood! In true monster movie fashion things go downhill from there, though the story does end on an oddly positive note.
‘My Fish Told Me of the Craving’ is another horror story with the absurdity taken to such extremes as to become almost existential. Joe (Hutchinson?) is a depressed cartoonist looking for companionship, so he gets a fish. A cannibalistic talking piranha! Of course, the two quickly bond over Iggy Pop and Friedrich Nietzsche. The narration switches to something out of a hard-boiled crime paperback, as Sam (the piranha) controls Joe’s mind, forcing him to kidnap a “lady of the evening” to murder and feed to Sam. The colour, at this point, switches from cool blues and violet to sickly greens and yellow, depicting Joe’s slow descent into madness when Sam tries to force him to kill again. The twist ending is EC Comics-worthy in depravity, with a closing panel dissolving in a most poetic manner.
Joe Hutchinson’s art is unique in depicting humans with extended heads, long (or non-existent) noses, and spiky hair. This “ugly” vein of cartooning was fairly prevalent in 80s mini-comics, but usually in straight horror or humour. Joe Hutchinson melded both genres seamlessly in a style that seems both familiar and unlike anything seen before.
Other brothers Dwayne and Daryl perform very well in support roles. Dwayne has a clear-line cartooning style that is perfect for his ‘At Home With the Roachmeisters’ gag strips, fun stuff. Daryl serves as editor and colourist, deftly rearranging A6 mini-comics layouts into an A4 format. Daryl’s colouring is an essential part of this collection, not merely colourizing b/w art, but adding mood and emotion to Joe’s harsh linework.
The Hutchinson Brothers lay bare the ridiculousness and the disgusting in the animal v. human v. dinosaur dynamic that is showcased in Joe’s Comix: Wild Kingdom. We can’t wait to see what Tom Fellrath has planned for future Phoenix Masters releases.
Joe Hutchinson (W/A/L), Dwayne Hutchinson (W/A/L), Daryl Hutchinson (E/C/A), Tom Fellrath (Series Editor, Publisher) • Phoenix Productions, $30.00
Review by Gary Usher
