Litmus Test #7
Nick Mullins
Reviewed by Darren Hick

Wow. Why is Nick J. Mullins limiting himself to the mini, Xeroxed format? I just don't get it. Let me explain...

This issue of Litmus Test begins with "Marionettes, Part II," a Japanese bunraku play about a seductress and her honorable nephew. Bunraku, Mullins explains in his introduction, is a theater form in which "the puppeteers remain onstage during the performances, dressed completely in black. If their skill is sufficient, the audience forgets that they are there at all." And Mullins translates this beautifully onto the comics page. Throughout the play, one sees only occasional white-on-black outlines of figures behind the life-sized puppets, the word balloons portraying their voices (the voices of the puppets, that is), curling like smoke past the marionettes, before finding the actual singer. A delicately maintained balance -- while the puppeteers fade, almost invisibly, into the background to make us forget this is a play, Mullins allows glimpses of the stage curtains here and there, always reminding us of the otherness of the story.

It's a truly fantastic adaptation of one medium by another, and beautifully, gracefully constructed. The puppets' faces, of course, are lifeless, capable only of opening and closing their mouths. But like the bunraku puppeteers, Mullins uses body language and gesture where facial expression is unavailable -- adding perspective and emotively-enhanced angles to an already effective and affective story. His art, itself, is simple, carefully capturing the sculpted texture of the marionettes' faces, the rumpled folds of their kimonos, the soft, stuffed hands of the secondary puppets, who will not need digits for the manipulation of their hands.

The play Mullins portrays is not based on any existing bunraku, and is thus all the more amazing. Mullins is not merely a powerful artist and strong craftsman -- he is a subtly powerful storyteller. A classic story borrowing from both Western and Eastern traditions, "Marionettes" is told in song -- not only a strong plot, but a strong execution.

The bunraku finishes after 11 pages, and the tentative film Mullins has constructed between the play and the reality the play is performed in is shattered. The crowd applauds hesitantly, the violinist, the singer and the puppeteer take the stage and bow. One imagines the story over, but it continues into the kitchen of two of the theater-goers, who discuss the life of the singer. It's the historically-researched story of a fictional singer, almost fairy-tale-like in execution, as told by the wife of the couple. The art, though again minimal, is produced with a strong sense of texture, making the scene more solid, more gritty, somehow, than the story in the play -- Mullins' weaving of story and art in this work is truly powerful.

Backing up "Marionettes" is the short "Six Horses and a Shovel in Oberlin, Ohio." Based on a ghost story actually circulated in Oberlin, where Mullins lived for a couple of years, "Six Horses" is strongly researched in terms of architecture and fashion, and shows a bit of Tony Millionaire influence (though this seems more likely coincidental than actual). The story itself, however, is decidedly less fanciful than Millionaire's work. A visceral, Victorian tale of love, death and psychosis, Mullins' short story is portrayed with icy pacing and blocking.

And, though less skillfully drafted than "Marionettes," Mullins again engenders the comic with his focus on texture. Long, scratchy penlines invest the art with a scratchboard style, a sense of frozen movements appropriate to the nature of the story -- a style that is torn asunder by the frantic movements in the story's climax, when Mullins' scratchboard technique explodes into a manga-esque frenzy of blurred violence.

Mullins' book is without question one of the most able books I've seen this year, in self-publishing or in the mainstream. Contact him immediately.

Litmus Test #1-8 (except #2) are all currently available from Nick Mullins at 416 Gold Ave., Felton, CA 95018-9637 for $1.50 each.