Guest Reviewer Month: Dara Naraghi on The Ineffables
Full disclosure time: I’ve known Craig Bogart for a long time. We live in the same city, belong to the same writers/artist collective (PANEL), and have even lettered some of his comics. So is this review completely unbiased? No. Would I sing the praises of his Ineffables series even if we weren’t friends? You bet.
Because it’s that good.
But let’s take a step back, since I’m assuming most of you haven’t heard of The Ineffables by creator/writer/artist Craig Bogart. And I don’t blame you. It’s a self-published, black & white indie comic that’s not distributed through Diamond. So unless you’ve caught him at a convention or read the comics online, you wouldn’t know about this gem. Which is why I’m going to steal Craig’s own words from an ad copy and fill you in on the basics:
“The Ineffables is a science fiction/political satire series about a loosely knit band of investigators driven by insatiable curiosity. They do not function as heroes or crime fighters, but rather explore the strange occurrences and scientific anomalies that regularly manifest amid the streets and towers of the peculiar metropolis they call home, Mystery City”
There. That’s all you need to know. Well, OK, maybe I should talk a bit about the protagonists as well. Let’s see, there’s Chet, the hapless fringe journalist who may or may not be immortal. Clarity, who is a sentient work of abstract art. And of course Mason, the scientific genius Easter Island totem. (I’ll let you discover for yourself how a time-travelling Abraham Lincoln and the Ronald Reagan Android also play into the cast.)
True to its tagline - “Mystery tales from the borders of comprehension” - The Ineffables evokes the sense of awe and wonder of Golden Age comics, without wallowing in self-referential fan wankery, veering off into parody, or wearing an ironic trucker hat. It’s Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis’ wild ideas and bizarre worlds, without the pretentiousness or the misanthropy. This is a series full of adventure, humor, fisticuffs, weird science, sly politics, and plain ol’ fun. You remember fun, right? It’s what comics used to be. And The Ineffables delivers fun by the truckload, without any of that grim-and-gritty, rape-as-a-plot-point aesthetics that modern comics are drowning under.
Want an example? How about the time when animal rights activists broke into Ineffables headquarters to liberate Schrodinger’s cat from the lab? Or the short story in which Mason constructed a model of our universe on a 1-to-1 scale, so that it could be consumed by Gormuu The Devourer, leaving our universe intact?
Craig’s one of those guys who makes me smile with joy at his clever writing, while simultaneously gritting my teeth in jealousy for not thinking of the ideas first.
Given the imaginative (and at times, surreal) storytelling , it’s little wonder that he cites Steve Gerber and Bob Burden as two of his biggest influences. And on the art front, he draws inspiration from Kirby and Ditko, without becoming a cheap imitator or uninspired hack. One of the best things about knowing Craig for as long as I have has been seeing the evolution of his artwork. A self-taught artist, he’ll readily admit that his first couple of issues of The Ineffables is less than stellar in the art department. But as you read through his books, you can see him come into his own with each successive issue. The work he’s producing now is just lovely to behold, full of wild machinery, expressive body language, and clean lines.
Ok, so there you have it. The Ineffables. A comic you may not have heard of, but certainly one that’s twice as clever and thrice as fun as any you’re currently reading. And Craig Bogart, a creator with a true love for the comics medium, and for telling original, inventive tales within its boundaries.
You can thank me later.
-Dara
PS. I forgot to mention that The Ineffables has been nominated twice for a Day Prize. Or that you can purchase copies (including the first 3 full-length issues for a mere $5) at Craig’s website: www.theineffables.com. Now go. Feed some coins to his pocket, and some good comics to your imagination.
