MARY TYLER MOOREHAWK
Cartoonist: Dave Baker
Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
Publication Date: February 13, 2024
One of the primary items of comics writing I did was a overview of Everyone is Tulip for Comics Bookcase again in 2021. That graphic novel – by Dave Baker, Nicole Goux and Ellie Hall – was amongst my favorites of the 12 months, and one I take into consideration frequently. Three years later, I nonetheless comply with that inventive workforce in each their collaborations and impartial work. All that to say, not solely do I actually get pleasure from Dave Baker’s work however I even have a private attachment for the place I discovered his work relative to the place I used to be in my life. The connection between viewers and creator could be healthful if correctly mirrored on, but additionally harmful because it creates expectations and assumptions which will find yourself being unfair to the truth of the work being produced and mentioned. Art and fandom, particularly now, is a very tough line to stroll.
The steadiness between actuality and fiction, in addition to the situations that produce a work of artwork and the implications it may possibly have on individuals is basically the thesis of Dave Baker’s latest graphic novel, Mary Tyler MooreHawk. This comedian is simply as tough to write down about because it was to learn. Rather than a easy pulp journey like Baker’s Halloween Boy, this graphic novel cuts between a fictional narrative and a “true” doc based mostly story surrounding Dave Baker himself.
Mary Tyler MooreHawk turns into a three-part combination of Jonny Quest, Danielewski’s House of Leaves and Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock. We open with a distinctive, enjoyable, pulp journey extra consistent with what an viewers usually expects of Dave Baker’s work. The world is stuffed with distinctive creatures, characters that point out elaborate histories, technological jargon, and other people we aren’t meant to know or perceive. In these opening adventures, we meet our title character who embodies the smiling adventurer archetype alongside nervous however succesful allies. In explicit, I discovered Cutie Boy to be among the many most enjoyable and compelling characters in the entire work. One might maybe write a entire sequence simply on this type, and in the event that they did they could find yourself with one thing like Halloween Boy.
However, from there the opposite post-modernist influences begin to turn out to be obvious. We notice we aren’t merely studying a pulp journey however a commentary on the historical past of a particular form of media, and the human faces that create it. Through a sequence of doc based mostly interviews and tales, we study in regards to the idea of Mary Tyler MooreHawk and the connection “Dave Baker” has to it and its creator.
As a commentary on fandom, we see Baker right here rendered into two distinct beings, the artist and the fan. We grapple with the all too acquainted want to know every part, to gather every part, and to pursue a rabbit gap of fiction solely to be confronted with the roadblocks of actuality. At the top of the day, all fiction is made by individuals, by particular materials situations. How does that alter our understanding or appreciation for that work? Baker interrogates not solely the fan facet of this but additionally the inventive. How do these expectations affect the work, what elements will probably be erased or in battle with the viewers an artist is attempting to succeed in?
The e book design performs a main half in how this expertise connects with the reader. We transfer from kinetic motion oriented artwork with half a dozen issues taking place on each web page to one thing resembling extra like a journal article or journal. We abruptly decelerate to take inventory within the historical past behind the adventures we’re studying but additionally begin to surprise in regards to the work that goes into each minor journey in our fictional actuality. Each of Mary Tyler MooreHawks adventures follows an animated sequence episode of the week format, full with summaries of all of the related characters. But as this construction is repeated again and again, it is sophisticated by the evolving historical past we study. The characters come alive not simply as gadgets inside the story of sci-fi motion however as representations of actual individuals, as compromises from a manufacturing standpoint, as entities that transcend the imaginative and prescient of 1 individual.
Baker right here is making an attempt a very bold and worthwhile undertaking, and the e book is largely in a position to make that work. For higher or worse, he is sporting his influences on his sleeve and that connection to different actual world objects can improve the themes he is discussing. Though they’ll additionally turn out to be a bit distracting, significantly in the direction of the top. However, I nonetheless discovered myself enthralled by what was being performed. A gentle horror builds by means of the studying as you see your self within the fictionalized Dave Baker. Every element of how he conducts his investigation and the way the story of Mary Tyler MooreHawk is laid out feels acquainted for anybody who has a deep connection to a work of fiction. We study of the exploitation all of us intellectually understood was there however generally select to disregard. But on the similar time, we internalize the hope of the ultimate product, that the fiction takes on a lifetime of its personal exterior the situations that made it. The comedian then turns into about understanding that materials actuality, not erasing it for the sake of low-cost thrills. If the fiction speaks to us, we owe it to ourselves to know the individuals behind it and to not view them as merely names on a web page.
Mary Tyler MooreHawk is a dense, fascinating work. It’s a graphic novel that can require a number of reads, and whereas it may possibly from time to time really feel too on the nostril or too indebted to its influences, there is an necessary critique right here price contemplating. It stands out as an experimental and worthwhile evolution in Baker’s type, and can absolutely be seemed again on as certainly one of his finest works.
Verdict: Buy
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