Typhon Vol. One
Edited by Danny Hellman
Dirty Danny Press, 192 pages, $24.95.
This is the latest and third anthology to be edited by Danny Hellman, a.k.a. “Dirty Danny,” the first two being volumes one and two of Legal Action Comics, produced expressly to get the word out about (and perhaps net a dollar or two for) Hellman’s legal defense against a $1.5 million lawsuit brought against him by Ted Rall.
With the lawsuit having withered away, at least for now (as noted in this interview with Tom Spurgeon) Hellman seems to have focused his energies on producing a more ambitious collection, the net result of which is Typhon. Appreciably larger and in full color, it’s a considerable step up from the last two books. I might even dare to say that it’s pretty excellent, a rock-solid compendium of known and little-known talent, that blend together extremely well.
Like the Glenn Head-edited Hotwire Comics, Typhon owes a considerable amount to the “edgy” anthology books and pamphlet comics of the 1980s and ’90s like Cruel and Unusual Punishment and Zero Zero. Whereas current acclaimed anthologies like Mome and the Best American Comics line have a decided emphasis on narrative and literary asperations, Typhon interests lie much more with the surreal, grotesque, distrurbing, or just smart-alecky though rarely at the expense of craft. That’s not to say there isn’t any overlap, there is, but many of the stories that make up the contents involve blood, drugs, body fluids or just general violence. If that’s the sort of thing that puts you off your tea and crumpets, consider yourself warned.
It would be tough for me to say that any of these works are merely interested in the potential thrill of shocking the reader with their outrageous behavior though (although you could probably make a case with Rick Trembles genuinely disgusting story about his fascination with anuses — that’s possibly the first comic I’ve ever read that actually made me feel physically ill). Although not a themed anthology per se (and thank goodness, as those type of books rarely achieve any sort of high signal to noise ratio), many of the stories in Typhon are interested in exploring man’s darker, seedier natures. Some of them do it overtly, as in Rich Tomasso’s maybe-true story of a classmate obsessed with Satanism or R. Sikoryak’s genuinely unsettling serial killer monologue as told by Droopy Dog. Others, such as Tim Lane’s “The Manic Depressive From Another Planet” and Hawk Krall’s “Summer of Seven Eleven” do so in a more oblique, or at least less graphic, fashion.
And this is usually the point in any review of an anthology where the critic starts piecemealing out the various stories and rating them one by one. I’m going to try to avoid that here, but I will point out the notable entries, or at least the ones that stuck with me long after I had closed the book.
I haven’t been aware of Derek Ballard’s work before, but his story of knights battling dragons has such an elegant and graceful, yet highly stylized line that I want to track down more of his work. D.J. Bryant’s surreal tale of an author confronting himself has one of the most bizarre and engrossing wind-ups I’ve seen in awhile. I enjoyed Rupert Bottenberg’s short formalistic gag a great deal. And Pshaw provides some of his best and most intricate work yet here, a fanciful and psychedelic diatribe on the importance of being ecologically conscious that manages to avoid becoming didactic through its constantly inventive (and at times mind-blowing) layouts.
There are a few missteps to be sure. I already mentioned Trembles piece, and there were a few other, better left unnamed pieces that fell flat. But even if contributors share an overall interest in the dark and perverse, there’s such a variety of style and talent on display that it would be hard to argue that Typhon suffers from a thematic sameness. This is a superbly rich anthology and Hellman proves himself to be a judicious and smart editor.
Besides, any book that gets Pat Moriarty out of comics retirement can’t possibly be bad.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I bought one (I heard about it on the Comics Journal forums) and I am glad that I did. It’s a nice book, overall.
September 11th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
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