The Jamar Chronicles #1
Jamar Nicholas
Reviewed by Darren Hick

There's a difference between knowing how to use a tool, and knowing how to use a tool to construct a coherent sequential narrative. Jamar Nicholas, creator behind The Jamar Chronicles is reasonably proficient in the former, but somewhat lacking in the latter.

The Jamar Chronicles is the story of a comic-book artist (surprise, surprise) who falls asleep at his drawing table, and wakes up in a parallel universe. It gets a little more vague from there on in, but Nicholas endeavors to enliven the mix: there's a cosmonaut (or, perhaps "dimensionaut" would be more accurate) with a techno-speak computer sidekick, a talking scroll that seems to have stolen either Milk or Cheese's eyebrows, and a cluster of unusually tough-looking nurses. I have to imagine following issues are intended to bring these various strands together into one big knot, but that, of course, remains to be seen.

Is there some story potential here? Perhaps. It doesn't excite me, personally, but, then, maybe you're into this sort of thing. (See sidebar) In terms of story, the plotting and scripting are coherent enough, if vapid and essentially eventless. And the fact that the lead character carries the nom de plume of the book's creator transparently enough implies a personal commitment on the part of Nicholas. But a good story requires something more than a basic grasp of storytelling and an attachment to one's story. It relies rather heavily on the ease with which the reader is able to involve himself in the story. And in comics, a good deal of this relies on the art.

A professor of mine from my college days would have applied the tailor-and-the-seams analogy here. When I buy a coat, the last thing I want is to see what's holding it together. I want to get into the coat without the seams showing through. I just want to enjoy the damned coat. And there's more to a well-tailored coat than simply that it keeps me warm. (For the preceding, to get the analogy, for "coat" read "story," and for "seams" read "technique.") Personally, I'm more partial to the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain analogy. Seeing who's pulling the strings -- or, more importantly in this case, the strings themselves -- doesn't add a thing to the experience. It didn't do much for Dorothy, anyway. What does any of this have to do with comics? Quite a little bit. Let me explain.

Jamar Nicholas seems to have a fair grasp of the tools he's using, if still at an experimental stage. In fact, he takes every opportunity to integrate every element of art at his hands into his work. Nicholas experiments with thin-line, thick-line, big-foot cartooning, stylized realism, Zip-a-tone, crosshatching, sprayed ink, and every other technique he's picked up along the way. He further experiments with camera angles and panel sequence on nearly every page. And it's quite simply too much. To go back to the coat analogy, the garment doesn't hang well. It gets hung up on its own experimentation. The very nature of the art gets in the way of the story it's trying to tell. In other words, it becomes difficult to see the coat for the thread. That is, its technique (or, rather, myriad of technique) overshadows the story it's attempting to impart. Panel-to-panel movements between utterly different styles -- between carefully-rendered, semi-realistic images to highly stylized minimalism -- is, in and of itself, inherently unsettling. Having to stare at an image for long moments simply in order to decipher what is being shown tends to place a bump in the road of the story. The depiction of the story is decidedly uneven, and if it were possible to achieve motion sickness while sitting at my desk, this would be the book to do it.

Seeing the man behind the curtain belies the experience. One isn't meant to pay attention to the man behind the curtain, because one will then, out of necessity, pay too much attention to the man. There's a reason Dorothy returns home after discovering the Wizard.

The Jamar Chronicles is a sophomoric effort. But therein lies some hope. Like a sophomore, Nicholas is part way there. He's picked up quite a few techniques, and is still learning what works for him, and what doesn't. He's a good distance from his goal, yet, but he can still achieve it. Most importantly, he has to learn how to temper himself. The Jamar Chronicles reminds us that in some cases, the art in a comic is less to be encountered in and of itself, and more to be experienced as a tool through which we are meant to encounter the story.

The Jamar Chronicles #1 carries a $2.00 price tag. Don't ask me where you might find it. Ask Jamar. You can contact him by e-mail at Jamar_Nicholas@prodigy.com, or by snail-mail c/o Sweatshop Press, PO Box 20855, Philadelphia, PA, 19141.