Andy Hartzell: the Blog

Shadowland

For me, Deitch has always trumped Crumb as the ultimate underground cartoonist. Crumb’s stories read like they bubbled up spontaneously from the overheated id of one warped individual. Deitch’s stories read like they bubbled up from the overheated id of our whole warped society.

Because of their roots in long-decayed pop culture, I think Deitch’s comics are actually best experienced as individual stapled installments. Preferably all ratty and torn, discovered in an attic somewhere. I read all the “Shadowland” pieces in their original incarnations, as one-shots, two-shots and anthology entries. Reading them again between the covers of a single book is both rapturous and a little disappointing.

Rapturous = the first half, the chapters revolving around hard-bitten clown-faced Al Ledicker. It’s a lurid coming-of-age melodrama: a childhood spent in sideshows, whorehouses and magic-lantern parlors–enough to turn any clown evil. It all builds to a spectacular climax, with shocking revelations, secrets revealed and just desserts gaudily meted out.

Disappointing = the second half, where we follow the subsequent history of several of the characters, and where we get the back-story explanation of some of the more surreal characters (the gnomelike “Gray ones”). There are some good moments, but Deitch’s storytelling has gone soft. The tone is elegiac rather than bloodthirsty. Following the tangled plotlines becomes more difficult, with less payoff. This part of the book seems to have been drawn after a hiatus of five or six years. I’m wondering if this was the period when Deitch fell in love, got married and temporarily lost his edge.

In any case, he seems to have regained it with “Alias the Cat.”