By Jon Chandler
Here we have ‘Then The good Comes’ in which Jon Chandler’s alter ego ‘Ripper the Fuckin’ Elephant’ is tattooed into existence for another adventure.
Ripper joins his buddy Particle Man who seemingly has the answer to Ripper’s agonies over creating comics – a Smokester Machine’ ™ . The Smokester ™ extracts the perfect comic strip cleanly and mathematically directly from the brain, no messing around with ink required. It's something of a philosophical musing on what it means to be a ‘parody of an underground comics artist’. And it’s very funny!
Ripper sets to work with the Smokester™ (or the Smokester™ sets to work on him) and sure enough the perfect comic ‘Devil Watch’ is extracted from poor old Ripper who’s quickly reduced to neutrinos. In part two of the comic, Chandler gives us ‘Devil Watch’ and it’s laughably crap. Intentionally so. It makes ‘Draw or Die’ a little gem and a worthy addition to the Boobytrap canon.
His is really an original voice and he has a fully realized mini-universe, a cast of characters and inventions who seem to represent his world view – silliness, sci-fi possibilities, philosophical ambling on the nature of life, death and creating comics. It’s pitched in a playful tone that’s impossible not to admire.
And of course it’s really well drawn. Chandler uses the small format (it’s square, man) ingeniously. Many pages can be read in a circle. My favourite thing about his artwork is the elliptical quality. He dispenses with backgrounds and yet the drawings are perfectly balanced and well composed. Everything suggests the warp world they inhabit yet in reality all we’re given is just a doorway or a shadow. Not easy to achieve but excellently executed.
‘Draw or Die’ can be read for free here, but it’s really such a nice little fetish object, it’s best to buy it here.