Public Domain #8 // Review
They have a few artists to interview. They’re looking for a colorist. There’s someone who seems to have a problem with...wet. There’s also someone who just...really likes brown. When they meet the right person...they’ll know in Public Domain #8. Writer/artist Chip Zdarski continues his comic-book industry-based comic book with a bit of wit and wisdom that continues to hang together like a solidly competent sitcom should. There may nt be a whole lot of depth to it, but the workplace atmosphere of a comic book studio is a fun place in which to place a sitcomic book that has its own style and flavor.
Once they’ve interviewed the colorist, they still have a small matter of concern over finding a letter artist. That’s not going to be easy considering letterers are...well...letterers. It’s kind of a weirdly specific sort of design work that calls for a very specific kind of personality that can be a bit difficult to fit with everyone else at the studio. Of course...once the right people are assembled, there is still the small matter of a million other things that seem to be lurking around every corner of the studio.
It’s an ensemble comedy with a large family of people who are all more related to the work than they are to each other. It’s not the most original sort of a situation, but Zadarsky keeps the interactions between characters coming at quite a few different skewed angles that keep it all quite interesting and enjoyable from beginning to end. But in the end, it really IS little more than another large ensemble sitcomic book. And there isn’t enough in the heart of the book to register much of an impression beyond the surface level.
Zdarski has a sharp an nuanced sense of human drama the ills through a series of scenes in a way that keeps everything visually interesting without totally overpowering the fundamental humanity of the characters that are being presented on the page. Zadarsky’s overall script work could easily make for a pretty dull and unengaging sense of interpersonal interaction were it not for the fact that he really knows what he’s doing with the art. There’s a cleverness to the characterization of the characters emotionally on the page that carries a lot of weight and momentum from the front cover to the back.
The series has reached its eighth issue. The basic novelty of Zdarsky’s calm, earthbound sense of characterization is starting to wear a little bit thin. It’s been fun so far, but it’s difficult to imagine much of the rest of the series registering much of a pulse as things get started. If the series is going to continue, there’s going to need to be some sort of a sense of progression that give the cast of characters a place to be that isn’t just...cranking out the next issue of the series. So far Zdarski has been quite limited on any sense of conflict driving the whole thing forward.
Grade: B-
