CR Review: Thingpart




Creator: Joe Sayers
Publishing Information: Self-published, web comic, strip format
Ordering Information: Site

Thingpart is one of those pure gag strips where instead of following a cast of characters from situation to situation, the general approach and recurring themes act as the attachment stand-in. The most famous recent example on the comics page was Gary Larson's panel The Far Side, whose readers grew used to Larson's targets and the way in which he drew and made use of cows. A prominent example on-line is Nicholas Gurewitch's due to break out even bigger any microsecond Perry Bible Fellowship. I assume Thingpart is compared to PBF: they both use advanced stick figures that look 90 percent Dennis Worden/10 percent Carol Swain, and they seem to find humor in many of the same contrasts and constructions, such as a pointing out the gossamer thin wall between certain social constructs and the outright cruelties of the natural world.

A lengthy comparison between Sayers and Gurewitch would be unfortunate in that it could make Thingpart sound derivative when its virtues aren't borrowed ones. It's worth noting, however, that a great difference between the two features is that Sayers' work is much more visually cool. There are no sudden bursts of color or intrusions of different art styles, and the work within each panel fairly sits there. Figures and backgrounds share a lot of the same line weight, providing much greater resonance to the strips on off-hand office or at-home stupidities that put glitter and glue on the banality of everyday life. It also puts a lot of pressure on Sayers' gags. Taking into account Charles Schulz's statement that he might draw funnier on a day the gag wasn't quite there, it might be harder for a cartoonist working with Sayers' visual iconography to provide a drawing that might divert attention in that way. Since he updates irregularly, this isn't a problem the way it might be for a daily cartoonist who like it or lump it must step up to the plate every day. But it does suggest that this is a strip unlikely to be remember by its fans for visual high moments. It rises or falls with the general look and the specific gag.

Luckily, Sayers' gag work proves to be solid. In fact, most of the gags are what I would call old fashioned, at least in tone and temperature. Many of the gags are silly, cute. They generally lack the heat of jokes told by Ivan Brunetti or Evan Dorkin or Johnny Ryan, the flashes of anger that peek out that we get used to and even depend on seeing. One doesn't get the sense that anything in Thingpart really constitutes a criticism of something, the classic comedian's method of redressing imbalance. Ironically, Sayers seems more comfortable with jokes that rely on people laughing out loud after being exposed to blunt reversals rather than those that make someone's head nod as a greater context is revealed. He's like a boxer with a good jab wearing extremely poofy gloves, or a firework that emphasizes light over force. Maybe the most interesting thing about Thingpart if you read a bunch in a row is that there's little in the way of thematic progression or even noticeable craft development within the strip so far. Except for a shift in the interface, I wasn't able to identify a single visual or verbal touchstone that would allow me to know which strips were done a year ago and which were done last week. That's kind of a rarity when it comes to reading someone working in the strip form over time, and I'm not certain what it means -- that Sayers was a fully-formed voice before starting his strip? The strip isn't posted enough to force improvement? It's hard to know for sure. One can't help but hope for further refinement in all aspects of the strip's making; its promising newcomer vibe will start to grate after a while. Thingpart's a solid performer, and as long as he wants to keep making them, I'll be looking back in. A lot of what you get out of it depends on how much its modest virtues mean to you.

I apologize for stacking the strips to make them readable on this page



 
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