Oh! You pretty things!

Webcomic: Freedom Fries

Well, when you see all those beautifully drawn comics, slick to perfection but with desperately empty, cliché story - I guess everyone, once in a while, wishes to make a comic that looks so bad, with lined paper in the background, with uneven lettering and with art on level of stickfigure - if nothing, just to spite all those beautifully drawn exercises. But it's a gimmick, really. It's something that, perhaps, works at first, but if a reader has to progress through months of such comics, well, simply, noone will want to do that. Luckily, Liberty Cabbage, author of "Freedom Fries" realized that along the way.
His first few months - daily updates, what's more, three strips a day - were an exercise in a trash comic: lined paper, simple, improvisational drawing, hand lettering hard to read, no postproduction, which means that comics were uploaded right from the scanner with no levels balanced, a lot of grayish, muddled comics. Frankly, going through that part of the archive was a torture: I was able to comprehend what's going on in one out of three comics - and I really tried.
Now let's get it straight: I don't mind lined paper as long as it doesn't detract from the content of the drawing (though it usually does). I mind grey lines as opposed to usual, beautiful pitch black, but I am ready to accept that under some circumstances, they make a sense, as long as it's clear what's going on in the panel. I love hand lettering but only when it's professionally done and easy to read. I hate hand lettering that isn't in all caps, because that is never easy to read. I hate when artists are sacrificing readability of the text to a supposed statement: like when they are using some illegible gothic font for certain characters, so I have to strain my eyes all the time. I accept pencil-drawn comic but only if author is able not to lean his hand on paper and smudge all drawing that way. Readability of the comic is a must, a basic think, a starting point of the comic. From then on, artists take different paths, but readability is a must.
Luckily, Liberty Cabbage understood it after a few months and after he started cleaning up his comics before posting them, they became much better. My concern is, if it took him two months to start doing something so basic - how much time will he need for the next big leap? No doubt, Liberty Cabbage is progressing, but with which pacing? Perhaps he should speed up and learn faster.
But anyway, that painful phase is over so we won't talk about it anymore. Let's talk about what comic is now.

Art hasn't progressed much since the first days. Perhaps it's the burden and the blessing, that Liberty Cabbage’s character designs are so simple. Take Skippy, main character, for example: a circle for head, two eyes and a mouth. On one hand, there is no space to better your art through drawing this character. On the other hand, keeping characters so simple is what makes “Freedom fries” somewhat better looking than the average beginner's comic: see, if a beginner tries to draws characters with more realism applied, his comics will look horrible, yet he will progress faster, that's my opinion at least. But the bottom line is that “Freedom fries” has a certain cool, simplified look, that most of beginners comics don't. Here and there Liberty Cabbage will attempt to more graphical, action scenes, in which cases it's hard to figure out what's going on.

Now, you notice: comic's name is "Freedom Fries", we all know what it stands for. Author's alias is Liberty Cabbage which is reference to, perhaps, somewhat less known event from WWII, similar to the one of freedom fries. So the impression is that this comic is political, perhaps me sort of biting satire - also easily dated, as “Freedom Fries” are even now an old joke. But as it turns out, it's thing of it: “Freedom fries” is actually a comic that shifts from random to irrational humor, where politics is offered only through occasional references and stereotypes. Invoking freedom fries was, as it's explained on first page, just a whim. Comic was originally to be named "Skippy", and it's a good decision that it wasn't, as that name would hardly be memorable.
Ok, one step back: I said that “Freedom fries” shifts between irrational and random humor. These two are, by all means, not the same. While irrational comics respect certain logic, that logic is not the usual one, the one that we expect; yet, it's a logic reflective of the absurd in the real world. Meanwhile, random comics escape every logics, but, unlike classic "Andalusian dog", in webcomics this escape is not a product of conscious effort, but of lack of consistency, preplanning and thought put in creation a comic. Thus such comics fail. Freedom Fries is, therefore, hit-and-miss. It hits and gets a chuckle from us when it steers toward irrational, it misses and leaves us hanging and asking "is that all?" when it steers toward random (specailly when we start feeling that Liberty Cabbage doesn’t know how to finish the strip so he suddenly brings something completely unrelated in the game).

Comic hasn't got much of a story, its separate gags with no continuity. Skippy is the main character but there are a few other reoccurring characters as well - among others, God and Jesus; The main idea is that Skippy finds himself in a certain, sometimes surreal, sometimes comical, sometimes real-life situation; it's not important how likely Skippy is to find himself in that situation. This is, I believe, the best element of the comic as it relies on previously mentioned irrational logic: situations in which Skippy finds himself aren't fully explained, they're not very likely, and yet, there's a consistency applied through the rule that Skippy will find himself in one such situation in ever first frame of the comic; and then, given wide span of various of situations, this concept could've been purposefully used as a polygon for representing various aspects of life - whether “Freedom fries” does that successfully or not, is a different matter.
Skippy is, in basic, very stupid person who unintentionally goes around hurting and killing people; sometimes, as result of his negligence, sometimes of his ignorance, and sometimes of blatant lack of compassion. He is a sort of omnipotent presence here, a person who causes pain, yet never feels the pain (and even when he dies, he safely respawns in heaven (???) or in next comic). Relation of comic (and readers) toward him in undefined: are we supposed to like Skippy? Or hate him? Or take him as a comical relief? Seems like the author's answer is: "none. I don't care. I'm here just to goof off."
And it's those words "I don't care, I'm here just to goof off!" that float all over the comic and it's every segment. So I’ll bring them up again later, as I often get a feeling during the reading, that it’s exactly what author is trying to tell me.
Which brings me to the main point. I left the main point for the end because it needs longer explanation, so far I was talking about technicalities.

Here it is:
What kind of comic is "Freedom Fries"?
Answer:
It's a shock comic.
Yep, another comic genre that I'm ready to use even though it's not official genre. You know, all those comics whose purpose is to shock by offering extreme imagery, talking about extreme themes, etc. Some of the first shock comics like "Sexy losers" or "Jack" opened Pandora’s box, so now everyone thinks not just that about every theme is allowed, but that the sole purpose of freedom given by webcomics is to outshock each other.
I remember a guy once coming to Keenspace forums and complaining about how he got a letter by offended readers. His comic was shock comic and he proudly wore that title by naming all the gross things you'll find in it in hid banner. Purpose of his comic was, then, to shock - and yet he was surprised that someone was shocked by it. Even more, he laughed at those people, people who, maybe, saw his comic in a way he intended more than his usual readers. Then, what was he other than hypocrite?
Why do so many people make shocking comics, brag about how those comics are shocking, and then get surprised when someone doesn’t like them? To be edgy, I guess, because they think it makes them different, cool. It’s a sort of self-promotion, a setup in which you are a main star, you hold a central position, and your comic is there just to show how much ‘wacky’, ‘edgy’, ‘anti-establishment’ you are. Needless to say, comic suffers when it is in shadow of your self-promotional author figure.

Back to “Freedom fries”: you'll find some imagery of mad Bombers blowing up the mall, babies bashed by a baseball bat, people slaughtered so that their bones could be fed to dogs... On one hand, crude drawing makes these sights covered, diminished; on the other hand, it leaves them open to imagination. Which way you'll see it, depends on how much you'll stick around to think about the comic.
Now, about shock in comics, book movies: I am by all means not against it. Shock can have therapeutic effect; it can be cathartic: good horror films often are, after they’re finished you feel strangely fresh, clean, safe, happy to be alive. Shock can bring a message in a much more effective way: it can carve it in your head for a long time. Shock is a powerful tool that can be very effective if used smart and carefully. But you have to know how to use it; you have to find what is it that is so shocking in the scene, what are the sources and the consequences of it.
Why, two days ago, I was writing about “Deliverance”, film notorious for its sequence of sodomy and human degrading and humiliation – scenes that were horrific back in 1972 and contain a certain shock effect even nowadays. We are shocked because we get to know these characters, because it happens just as we started caring for them. We are shocked because we identify with them, because we’re partly living through their humiliation. The message of two civilizations, two ways of living, crashing into each others, remains memorable because of this shock. Finally, this shock is cathartic because characters have to stand up and respond to humiliation, and that’s what they do.
Is there any of this in “Freedom Fries”? Of course not. The shock of “Freedom Fries” can, perhaps, be summed the best by considering the title: Liberty names his comic “Freedom Fries” and then never mentions it again. Now, most of us will agree that freedom fries is a reference to a moment of recent USA history that they won’t be very proud of. Liberty brings up this reference in vain hope that people will be reminded of this moment and offended by bringing it up. He never puts a thought in why freedom fries are so unpleasant to recall of, nor any back-story or meaning of the phrase. He just knows that some people are for some (he doesn’t know or care which) reason offended by mentioning freedom fries, so he mentions them.
All in all, Liberty Cabbage shows not only the lack of will to think about his shock a bit more, but also a lack of knowledge of the themes he’s dealing with. See, when he shows a baby being bashed with a baseball bat, we are certain that he is able to put that image through with such ease simply because he not only never saw baby bashed with baseball bat in his life, but also because he never actually bothered to picture this sight in his head, to think about it’s consequences, whats and whys. For instance, one of the major disturbing concepts in that scene relates to the subject of continuity of human species: baby is a little man, that is, it is to be a man one day. Baby is future you, future me, baby is, perhaps a little Liberty Cabbage who still didn’t get to grow up enough to make a comic. Each of us was once a baby, and, while we cannot inevitable relate to a scene of bashing a puppy, we can relate to bashing a baby on an instinctive level.
Liberty doesn’t care about this. He just knows that people are, for some reason, offended by the sight of a baby being bashed with a baseball bat, so he shows this sight.
Further on, Liberty shows, for instance, sights of racial intolerance or, in extreme cases, molestation of black race. These sights are not thought out enough to be taken as a satire of racism, they’re not strong enough to be taken as real racism – they’re nothing. Again, Liberty veils with the statement that he doesn’t care, that he didn’t intend to give any message in the first place, which seems to be the tone and the defense to most of these comics.
Yes, you guessed it: Liberty has heard that some people are insulted by display of racism, so he shows racism.
Final example: He has God, Christ and Virgin Mary as characters. Let’s put on a side Virgin Mary, who has very little “screen time” and Christ who is pretty much a rip-off of Christ from “South Park”. But look at Liberty’s God: He is not a caricature of Christian (or any other) God. To be caricature, he has to bear certain resemblance to Christian God. However, Liberty simply doesn’t know enough about Christianity to make enough resemblance. Imagine a caricature of a guy named Joe. Now, imagine a stick-figure with and word “Joe” written by it, with an arrow showing to the stick figure. Liberty’s God is just as successful caricature of God, as is the stick figure a successful caricature of Joe. Liberty’s God is simply some character that happens to bear the same name as Christian God, but is not related with him in any other way.
Is this insulting to Christians? It’s hard for me to say, although nominally a Christian, my religious beliefs aren’t so strong. Perhaps such blatant use of the name “God” can offend someone who is more religious. But as you can see, Liberty has heard that some people hate jokes on account of Christianity, so he tries to make jokes about Christianity. And it all looks like making a parody of a film you’ve never seen in your life - based on trailer and words of your friends who actually saw the film.

What does it sum up to? Liberty Cabbage wants to shock. But he doesn’t put enough effort, and he, debatably, doesn’t know enough about shocking topics, to successfully shock. So instead he chooses to disrespect. He hopes that he’ll shock people by handling shocking, offensive subjects in a casual, disrespectful manner. Disrespect is hardly shocking. I know a lot of people who are disrespectful to everything, and who lack compassion, in real life. I don’t like those people, so why should I like the comic that has same qualities?

Then, of course, there’ll be people who will laugh at “Freedom Fries” (admittedly, I did sometimes – not at “shock” parts, mind you, those parts irritated me too much to make me laugh), there’ll be people who’ll laugh saying “Hah! He’s drawn a baby bashed by baseball bat!” How does Liberty manage to put this through? And, a question with the same answer, why is noone ever going to accuse Liberty of racism, misanthropy, cruelty?
Answer is not favorable: “Freedom Fries” looks like a work of a 8-12 years old child, from it’s beginners drawing to it’s casual handling of subject and lack of narration. And we know that 8-12 old kids can sometimes be unusually cruel, self-observed, numb at suffering of others. Thus, it’s likely that a child would draw a comic picturing there “shocking” scenes that “Freedom Fries” does: Simply, because a child of that age doesn’t know a lot about the world around it, it takes life for granted, death as something that happens to other people, and it’s maximum of pain is when it’s toy is taken away. Liberty will not be accused of racism, misanthropy, cruelty or any homicidal intentions because he will, through his comic and by an average reader, be perceived as a person who doesn’t fully comprehend the seriousness of themes he’s dealing with.
And grown ups often laugh at children’s oblivious behavior. They laugh when a kid, disregarding good manners, loudly asks: “Who farted in this room?” In same way, people may (or may not) find “Freedom Fries” naive cruelty amusing.

posted by Srdjan @ 12:21 AM