Monday, April 18, 2005

The idea of structure and storytelling being the point of the work in comics isn't especially new. When it's pulled of well, as with Watchman and Brat Pack, it can be a glorious story experience as well as a fascinating exercise in deconstruction. Badly handled use of metatext is, of course, pretty awful on the eyes and minds of those who have been abused by it. Deciding not to hide anything at all, however, is a completely new approach and James Turner's Nil: A Land Beyond Belief from Slave Labor is one of the freshest comics I've read in the last few years for taking analytical and surreal work into an entirely new direction as well as providing a coherent, enjoyable story (unlike, say, The Filth.)

I've spent the last hour or so trying to come up with a way to easily give you the gist of this book with no real satisfactory results. Instead, here's a breakdown of what kicks off the story:

• Our hero, Proun Nul, destroys memes and contains idealogical outbreaks for a living.
  
• He lives in a Nil, a nation dedicated to Nothing and at war with Optima, their cheery neighbors.
  
• He drinks a lot of coffee, his boss regularly abuses him, and he's in love with a girl who'd rather pretend he didn't exist.
  
• He's accused of murdering the abusive boss and finds himself linked to terrorism before being sent to the front lines of the war with Optima.
  
• At the same time, the government of Nil is enacting more and more restrictions upon the populace in pursuit of Nothing.

Handled in another matter, this could be a pretty by-the-numbers, academic wank comics experience, but it's the density of story and deconstruction that really pulls you in - there's always something to look at and you wonder what the hell is going to happen to Proun Nul next as his life falls apart.

At first, Nil's look was offputting to me - the death's head iconography of all the characters with the vector-based graphic design made me feel like I was reading something a little too clinical, but Turner manages to balance plot with satirical statement perfectly and the propaganda-derived art suits it perfectly once you get the swing of things. The reader is explicitly assaulted by the messages promoted by the government of Nil, barraged by ads and constant footnotes and asides pointing out the failures of random individuals, and this isn't distracting in the least; it provides more world-building in an entertaining way that just adds to the total experience.

This slab of fiercely funny comics is $13, which is a bargain - I would have paid $20 for it quite happily. You can visit the Nil website here.