An Experiment in Vulnerability: Rae Epstein reviews PERMANENT PRESS by Luke Healy

Our society does not appreciate the arts. Humanities departments in universities across the U.S. are struggling to maintain student numbers. Admirers of STEM subjects talk down to those outside the industry. Parents tell their artistic children to pick practical careers. Become a doctor, a lawyer… an accountant. 

Luke Healy’s Permanent Press is one man’s inevitable implosion in the face of an apparently stagnating artistic career. The comic features a frame narrative, providing context for two other comics that both focus on artists struggling with their work. The storyline is paced according to the original narrative, which contains two sides of Healy’s conscience. One side, evoking his neuroticism, depression, and artistic abilities, is represented by a cartoon version of the artist that slowly morphs into a rat. The second takes the form of the fictional Healy’s shadow, which represents his exasperation with himself. Filled with self-deprecating humor, the frame has a straightforward, simple aesthetic style that highlights the absurdity of its parts. Healy seemingly cannot help but mock himself and his high self-consciousness, which is possibly the only valid reaction left in the face of the inability to control one’s fate. 

The comics within his comic, however, are not primarily emboldened by humor. In fact, the first mini-comic, “The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion,” is by far the high point of Permanent Press. It’s a puzzle of contemplative elements and unlikely occurrences which satirizes plot as well as critiques how art is formally recognized. Like with Healy’s career, the creators in “The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion,” find their work unappreciated. 

Robin, the main character, is a playwright, who is asked to adapt a little known, award-winning novel called “Cuckoo’s Nest” for a BBC stage play. After a failed adaptation of Macbeth, she fears another disaster. Secondary characters include A.B. Cadbury, who is the writer of said novel, and Wally Milk, the “Cuckoo’s Nest” play’s set designer. Cadbury, it turns out, is a teacher who finds himself teaching his own novel to a very bored and very “not-getting-it” high school class (the story of “Cuckoo’s Nest” is included with thoroughness, making Permanent Press, at one point, a narrative within a narrative within a narrative). Wally, although he builds a brilliant set for the play, finds himself fired by Robin due to his slowness. 

“The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion” is a highly psychological work. What motivates and irritates each character is always clear to the reader even if it isn’t always apparent to the characters themselves. Healy does this in many incredibly skilled and subtle methods, all based on his ability to seamlessly meld seemingly disparate elements and media into one story. Photorealistic elements are inserted in the middle of pen-drawn illustrations, creating a striking contrast between what’s happening to his characters both on the surface and underneath. He often intersperses his work with scripting format, which carries longer conversations between the characters, leaving only the most pointed parts of these conversations within panels. And, of course, he still punctuates the comic with humor, which normalizes the absurd parts of the story. 

Ironically, after Robin finds herself struggling to adapt the ending of “Cuckoo’s Nest,” the weakest part of “The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion” is its own ending. It lands on a trite note, forgivable only by the endearment of its characters, all of whose arcs find smooth pacing and resolve satisfactorily. Of course, one could call this ending purposeful. After all, Robin finds the acclaim and apathy to the acclaim that Healy desires throughout Permanent Press. 

“The Big and Small,” the second mini comic in Permanent Press, unfortunately doesn’t hit the same notes in terms of stylistic choices nor pathos. Inspired by Healy’s father, who apparently often pressures Healy into becoming an accountant and believes that numbers are “reasonable… [and] have nothing to do with us and our bullshit,” “The Big and Small” is directed by numbers and how they relate to its two characters. Ultimately, although small details about Amir and Mo rapidly paint a strong picture of each of them, the numbers never truly connect to the rest of the story. They’re not thematic nor do they ever step outside the narration. Without the context of Healy’s frame storyline, one reading the comics would wonder why they were there at all. The only thing they represent are their creator’s deep frustration with his unsupportive father’s viewpoint. 

This is reflected in Amir, who plays trumpet in an orchestra. Neither the conductor nor Mo, his neighbor, appreciate his playing. He doesn’t seem to either, to be fair—he would much rather be making fetish videos where he eats tiny breakfast foods, which also nobody appreciates. Healy doesn’t delve any further into this, as he repeatedly interrupts with his conscience characters in the frame narrative, then abruptly ends the comic in the middle of the story. The end of the page literally tapers away as if to reflect the tapering of his fictionalized version’s mind as he falls further into a mental breakdown, represented by him transforming into a rat. 

“The Big and Small” has neither “The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion”’s formal ambition nor its humor, presumably because the fictionalized version of Healy is too emotionally exhausted at this point to attempt either. By the time Permanent Press ends, he’s in full rat form and sitting on the cliche psychiatrist’s couch, talking to his shadow. And it’s understandable how he got there—his main channel of communication, his art, is devalued by his parents, by his lack of awards from the comics community, and, ultimately, by himself. 

It would be nice to say that Permanent Press offers a “fuck you” to society and all of its dismissiveness toward arts and the humanities. But truthfully, it’s more of a message to other artists. Whereas it would be nice to have Robin’s apathy to her ultimate success or Amir’s persistent interest in making online videos, we’re all affected by external praise or criticism, or, worse, complete silence. Permanent Press is an experiment in vulnerability. It’s an artist’s book, an aid in laughing at one’s own self-doubt.

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Rae Epstein is the writer of comics Gently Murder Me and Rubies, and has written criticism under the name Ray Sonne. You can find her previous work on The Guardian, Women Write About Comics, Loser City, and Comics Bulletin. Her bark is worse than her bite. Find Gently Murder Me and Rubies at gumroad.com/rebeccaepstein. Follow her on twitter @REpsteinWrites

Exploding The Senses: Rae Epstein reviews CRAWL SPACE by Jesse Jacobs

I still remember the grass shivering, like we lived within a waking dream. We could see the plants sprouting, the sky’s womb-like curve, and how, maybe, if we reached out in just the right way the air would smear onto our palms like fresh paint off a canvas. I danced in that dream, trying to merge with it while simultaneously knowing it already possessed me within its physical dimension. The Earth was motherly. Beauty was within everything. I was a toddler again. 

This is how I felt while tripping on mushrooms with a close friend of mine in a local park just a few months ago. Mushrooms smooth out your consciousness, making the simple things the grandest you’ve ever seen, transporting you to a mindset long forgotten thanks to age. Providing that the trip goes well, most people report lifted moods. Some say they feel like they visited or saw other dimensions. Many never want to leave. 

In Jesse Jacobs’ Crawl Space, published by Koyama Press, these other dimensions exist inside of a washing machine belonging to his protagonist’s house. Crawl Space opens up as Daisy, the said teenaged protagonist, takes a new friend named Jeanne-Claude out for a trip across this rip in cosmic fabric. There they experience a number of incredible things, such as creatures shaped like teapots and color transferring into sensation. 

And boy is it sensational. 

Jacobs not only uses all the colors of the rainbow to evoke this otherworldly dimension’s beauty, but also builds within it a kaleidoscope-like movement. These colors wind and swell and burst, creating an effect so powerful that one cannot help but become absorbed by their intensity. Reading Crawl Space is too akin to hallucinating; it takes over the mind as much as any illicit substance. As long as one reads, one trips. 

But Crawl Space doesn’t entirely take place in this awestriking dimension. The comparatively dull physical realm, which Jacobs positions in the suburbs, is depicted in black and white. The suffocation of these suburbs — as indistinguishable from any other that Daisy, new in town, has surely already lived within — is further evoked by the blockiness of Jacobs’ depictions of Daisy’s house and the schoolyard. When in their normal states, as opposed to the unique rainbow forms they each take when visiting the other dimension, all of the kids have heads that are precisely geometrically shaped. Within the physical realm, you see, there are rules. There are rules in how matter is shaped, the rules set by your parents, and also there are the unspoken rules that link together relationships and create the valuable currency of reputation. 

One can control and manipulate these rules to an extent, which Daisy attempts to do. “Hey, can you not tell any of the kids in school about all of this? I’m still trying to fit in,” she asks of Jeanne-Claude, trying to set the parameters so that she can blend into her new home. In the past, her fellow students have spent time with her only for the experiences she can offer them, not because of who she is as a person. Like any other teenager, she wants to be just another house in a suburban lane rather than draw attention as a novelty. 

Unfortunately, Jeanne-Claude isn’t so dissimilar to the people who have used Daisy in the past. She almost immediately betrays her, and soon all of the kids at school learn about the magical washing machine. 

*** 

Like people who trip on mushrooms, there’s some disagreement between the kids in Crawl Space about the other dimension and whether or not its effects take place internally or externally. “It’s just chemicals in the brain,” says one of the more cynical individuals in a two-page spread of kids — most still covered in the other dimension’s abstract rainbows —  contributing their opinions on the other world. On the other side of the spectrum reveals something striking: the grid of human inventions is missing representation in one area. 

“I’m not normally a spiritual person, but it changed something inside of me in a very profound and permanent way.” 

We never see who says this, which is surprising given that they hit upon one of Crawl Space’s main elements. Jacobs, via expository narrative, states the other world’s source and form quite factually, as how Genesis explains the Hebrew God creating the world in seven days. Of course, the concept itself of there existing “several known worlds beyond the physical,” is more akin to other religions and spiritualities, such as Buddhism’s Ten Realms. What the kids experience in the main storyline is typically “reserved for highly enlightened beings.” With panic, we witness Daisy going so deep into the other world that she reaches some form of nirvana. This allows her to carry the world inside of herself even as the entrance to the cosmic rip is removed. 

(Religion makes sense! I shouted at my friend at some point in the beginning of our trip, uncouth and overwhelmed.) 

What defines spirituality? While the rules of the physical plane betray us as Jeanne-Claude betrays Daisy, spirituality — much like Crawl Space’s other world — contains no limitations. It twists and brightens you into something unique from all others around you, freeing you from the confines of the mere external. As surely as Thich Quang Duc burned and the Jews survived centuries of persecution, spirituality has reigned in times and places where literacy, science, and math have not. 

The rules of the physical plane do not work for Daisy. She doesn’t belong where she lives. Her parents are strict. She has no true friends. But when she finds the other world, she understands her place in the universe. 

“That thing will never survive out here in the suburbs!” she says while chasing a rainbow worm that Jeanne-Claude stole from the other world. In truth, that “thing” is herself. Jacobs highlights this via aerial shots of the streets, fenced in by neat rows of houses that are each indistinguishable from its neighbors. Crawl Space admits that we are all unique in our own way via Jacobs’ painstakingly individual rainbow designs for each kid, but most are not in tune with higher concepts that define how we’re unique. After all, when you grow up in a black and white world, without even a shade of gray in sight, it can be hard to see how the rules of that world can be different. How you can be different, both as an individual entity and how you connect to others. 

However, Daisy is already different. She converts herself so far into the other world that she does not, and cannot, come out again. 

*** 

But then again, perhaps we all cannot come out again if exposed to something as marvelous as a drug trip or a good comic. Both explode the senses, translating one experience into another. As surely as mushrooms split the qualities of a miso eggplant into four thrashing stages in my mouth does Crawl Space assemble colors and shapes into something so ecstatic that it activates something deep inside the mind. 

As cheesy as it sounds, Crawl Space asks us to acknowledge our own internal rainbow forms, to open our minds and envision a world that goes beyond the rules we live within. And by having us follow Daisy’s story, it asks us to do so with empathy and pure intentions. While Jacobs’ brilliant art and vision breaks barriers for how color and abstraction can be used to weave a narrative, we can break barriers in our own lives. 

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Rae Epstein is the writer of comics Gently Murder Me and Rubies, and has written criticism under the name Ray Sonne. You can find her previous work on The Guardian, Women Write About Comics, Loser City, and Comics Bulletin. Her bark is worse than her bite. Find Gently Murder Me and Rubies at gumroad.com/rebeccaepstein. Follow her on twitter @REpsteinWrites