I could sometimes be accused of arguing that if there were only ever one superhero story that I think should be a required piece of reading for anyone interested in comics studies in the least, it would be "Onion Jack." This story took me completely by surprise when I read in on Free Comic Book Day 2005. I sat quietly for a moment as I let the wonderfulness (that's a technical term) of what I'd just read wash over me. This was the first of "The Arguments" that I wrote, so probably the least self-assured.
On “The
Amazing Life of Onion Jack” by Joel Priddy
First appears in “Superior
Showcase” #0, given away for Free Comic Book Day 2005.
Anthologized in the 2006 America’s Best Comics anthology.
Formally, we have
a very simple style. Four by four panel
layout that is only broken twice in the whole 10 pages. Characters are little more than stick
figures, though Priddy’s genius with them is to give them personality through
both bodily and facial expression. This
links to McCloud’s ideas of iconic abstraction, though not simply with facial
feature. We recognize, though it is
enhanced by the dialogue, the reactions of various characters as being ways we
ourselves react. Given to the experienced
reader or to the novice, this comic would make perfect sense. It reduces the conventions not only of the
form, but of the particular genre into abstractions that are
understandable. The regular panel
structure also lends to the readability, but from a more experienced point of
view demonstrates the sort of storytelling that is possible using a very formal
method (à la the
sonnet in poetry). The fifth page, a
full-page shot of a Nazi robot, utilizes a collage technique for the giant
robot. We could perhaps link this to
Jack Kirby, who got his start in comics around the time of the second World War,
and who had a growing predilection for collage throughout his career.
Content-wise, this
comic draws on almost every trope of superhero history of the last 70
years. It links explicitly with the
formation of superheroes with Onion Jack’s first five panels, a faithful
retelling of the origin of Superman. We
also see resonances of the origins of Spider-Man, Green Lantern, Thor, and The
Flash, interspersed with what appear to be amusing anecdotes about Jack
becoming a chef (Priddy, “Onion Jack” n.p.).
Interestingly, Jack’s superheroing career begins pre-Superman, in 1934,
perhaps recalling us to pre-superheroes such as Doc Savage and The
Phantom. The scene set in 1938 has Jack
attempting to fly, but deciding against it.
This is contrary to many of the superheroes who appeared in Superman’s
wake, who were really just thinly-veiled versions of the Man of Steel. The Forties depict, as was the case with DC
comics, the formation of a superhero group to combat the Nazis. The wedding scene is also indicative of the
kinds of stories that begun to be told in superhero comics after the second
World War, ones that re-inscribed the “traditional” values of mid-century
American life.
The sections
starting with 1969, and ending with 2005, offer commentary on one of the great
criticisms of the superhero comic, and character: the inability for growth in
the genre. Priddy takes the opposite
tack and allows his character to age, in some ways offering a portrayal of not
simply the superhero comics, but their fans as well. Justice’s pronouncement “I hate these new super-heroes” (Priddy, “Onion
Jack” n.p.) could very well have issued from the lips of fans of the earlier thirties
heroes who were hitting their forties by 1969.
Northrop Frye comments on this in Anatomy
of Criticism when he describes the “comic strips, where the central
characters persist for years in a state of refrigerated deathlessness” (Frye
186). The final three pages chronicle
Onion Jack’s eventual retirement and death, inserting, or re-inserting what was
earlier presumed a joke about being a chef.
The fact that, upon his death, this becomes the central defining characteristic
of his life asks us to question the superhero comic, where every issue, month
after month, depicts a character who puts on a costume and battles foes mundane
and extraordinary. Again, this appears
to be asking of fans why there is only interest in a single facet of the lives
of character upon whom so much importance is placed, and why there is such
desire for unending stories.
Priddy’s “Onion
Jack” tells an epic superhero story in 10 pages, eschewing the flashy art
(imagine this tale told by Alex Ross), and placing the genre into the context
of a story, an artistic structure with a beginning, a middle, and an end. He manages to give us as diverse a universe
and as humorous and touching a story as many mainstream superhero comics, if
not more so than the vast majority.
Coming in the early 2000s, this tale has had time to digest the tropes
of the genre and offer a critique and celebration of superheroes all in the
space of one short story. It questions
not only the genre, but the fan-culture around the genre, and takes to task the
notion of the two-dimensional character that is unfortunately prevalent in
superhero comics. More broadly, it also
asks us to question the roles into which we are forced by circumstance and
socialization, rather than those that we might choose for ourselves, thus
breaking from McCloud’s oft-quoted “crude, poorly-drawn, semiliterate, cheap,
disposable kiddie fare” (McCloud 3), and into a more thoughtful, more literary
realm.
What we must bear
in mind is both the fact of this strip being published in a small-press comic,
and Priddy’s position as a professor (though I am unable to determine where
exactly he teaches) (Priddy “About Me”).
We must question then whether this problematizes the inclusion of “Onion
Jack” on any kind of canon or reading list, as it seems to fall in line with
Bourdieu’s thoughts on the cyclical nature of literary production, by the
“power [of academia] to define its own criteria for the production and
evaluation of its products” (Bourdieu 115).
Though Bourdieu himself does not level a value judgment against this
process, simply noting it as a process, it is incumbent upon us, as
representatives of academia, to question whether such a process is the best way
of disseminating and evaluating what is “the best which has been thought and
said” (Arnold viii).
Bibliography
and Works Cited
Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy. Authorama. N.p. Sept. 2003. Web. 4 Oct.
2013.
Bourdieu, Pierre. The Field of Cultural Production. Ed.
Randall Johnson. Columbia UP, 1993.Print.
Clough, Rob. “ArtComics for Beginners: The Best American Comics 2006.” Sequential Art Researchand Literacy Organization. 24 Sept. 2006. Web. 27 Sept. 2013.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding
Comics. New York: DC Comics, 2000. Print.
Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000. Print.
---. “The Amazing Life of Onion
Jack.” Superior Showcase 0 (2005),
Adhouse Books. Print.
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