I remember seeing the first issue of Schizo when it came out. It was published by Antarctic Press but looked nothing like their usual faux-manga or anthropomorphic titles. From memory this was the first out of a couple titles that tried to fit in with the "indie/alternative" titles of the era. This book, however, was unlike most any title on the stands at the time. I had seen Brunetti's work in an 80's or 90's title named Biff Bang Pow. The strips by Brunetti were crudely written and drawn with a character named Leck that was a precursor to the "Ivan Brunetti" character that appears in Schizo. The Schizo title was a giant leap in technique and skill.
The first issue took Crumb's misanthropy to a severe level, but ultimately wasn't too much more than that. The second issue stepped up the blackness in the humor, but also stepped up the nihilism in Brunetti's worldview. It was basically a long suicide note. The third issue continued this theme, with the humor getting blacker still.
After the third issue Brunetti published a book of gag cartoons called HAW! The panels were all ink-black jokes based on rape, mutilation, pedophilia, AIDS and other subjects that only those of us with the blackest of hearts could laugh at. Around the same time as the release of Schizo 4, Brunetti released a follow up gag book titled HEE.
Schizo, throughout the four issues has seen Brunetti's advancing talent do a smoother job of explicating his themes. With this new issue he has fine tuned his illustration style into a timeless distillation of character design. All shapes and angles, his characters are frequently delineated with just a handful of brushstrokes. The character "Ivan Brunetti" appears as a Ware-ian collection of bubbles in one story, and a Charlie Brown-headed stick figure in others. He appears as a design approximation of Otto Soglow's Little King and as a Schulz character in his cover-featured Peanuts homage "whither Shermy?" Each of the stories here appears as a one-page feature cartoon, approximating Dan Clowes' Eightball 22, but all these influences don't pull you out of the strips because Brunetti writes each as though it couldn't have been drawn by anyone but him. Even a series of biographies of great artists (painters, philosophers, writers, actors) are told in a style that is distinctly Brunetti's.
His artwork has achieved an assured minimalism. He provides just the right amount of detail for the story to move forward, forcing the reader to decide for themselves which panels should hold the most weight. Most stories hold to a grid format, and the few exceptions put the focus on design, such as the Piet Mondrian biography which assumes the form of the Dutch painter's most famous work. Brunetti's brushwork is frequently masterful, with line weights and supplied texture furthering the design without distracting from it.
The stories are almost uniformly cynical, even the funniest moments continue to be born of black humor. The occasionally touching moments generally come in the biographies, all of which are still distilled into their life-sucks-then-you-die essence. If the author's depression isn't likely to instill that negativity into your own mindset, this book can provide the cathartic release for the reader that one can hope it does for its author.
1 comment:
I am amazed by the development in Brunetti's drawing style over the past few years. He has evolved from a merely competent artist, enjoyable mainly for his sick sense of humor, to an impeccable craftsman, a very pure cartoonist; and it is evident that a great deal of sweat and toil that went into this transformation. You describe his new style very well with the phrase "assured minimalism". In 1998 I never would have expected Ivan Brunetti to produce something as beautiful as Schizo 4. I can't stop looking at it. Not even reading it, just looking at it. Anyway, nice post on a really kickass comic.
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