One can only imagine what madness prompted Fantagraphics, The Publisher of The World's Greatest Cartoonists, to release Shouldn't You Be Working?, a collection of drawings that Johnny Ryan did over the course of two years while on the clock at a Seattle urological clinic. Perhaps in a state of panic at seeing Chris Oliveros eat some of their lunch by publishing lavish artbooks by "their" artists, R. Crumb and Chris Ware, Fanta chose to strike preemptively, publishing Ryan's sketchbook (to use the term loosely) project without bothering to look at the pages first. Or maybe Ryan simply owns some compromising photos. Or maybe they aren't kidding when they explained why this book exists by saying Ryan "locked himself in Kim Thompson's Mercedes and refused to come out unless we published this collection" on the company's Web site. If there's anything that Working inspires, it's speculation.

The closest thing one has to compare Working to is a cartoonist's sketchbook, and the top cartoonist sketchbooks in print are R. Crumb's. They provide a different angle on the creative mind of one of the few artists in the medium's history who can correctly be considered "important," and they are thoroughly edited. The editing is the key here: When one reads Crumb's published sketchbooks, the most astounding thing is how essential every drawing seems. One is left with the impression that they are looking at the crème de la crème of Crumb's sketches, not just any old crap he happened to draw.

In contrast, Working practically bills itself as "any old crap." It gives the feeling that you're looking at every single doodle Ryan made at that clinic. Whether or not there actually was an editorial process involved in the publication of Working is beyond the point; the material presented gives the strong impression that there was not.

There are a few funny gems in an endless heap of densely arranged, meaningless drawings. These drawings are not funny, not insightful -- many of them aren't even that well-drawn. Page after page of random bunny-faces, people-faces and robots can't be redeemed by a funny Hitler gag here and there. Very early on in the reading of Working, you are struck with one thought: "What a waste."

Bart Beaty, in a review of Ethan Persoff's Top Notch back in TCJ #209, once did some speculating of his own. In regards to Notch, also released by The Publisher of The World's Greatest Cartoonists, Beaty wrote:

Is it possible that a single comic could shake your faith in a publisher? That one comic could be so totally lacking in aesthetic merit that you're left wondering about the standards of the editors and publishers?

Beaty, of course, was taken with a hunger for hyperbole the day he wrote those lines. He goes on to call Notch, "Arguably the single worst comic that Fantagraphics has ever published (and I'm including in that count the entirety of the Eros line)."

It would be a tough argument to make, as would be the argument that the book somehow diminishes North America's premier artcomics publisher. Beaty never gets around to that argument; he is merely being bold to illustrate just how bad he thinks Top Notch is. So we'll answer the questions for him:

Is Top Notch (or Shouldn't You Be Working?) the worst comic published by Fantagraphics? No, not if you're counting Eros, which Beaty is.

Can one book shake your faith in a publisher? Not unless the publisher has only released a handful of books.

But how a book reflects on its publisher is a question worth raising, particularly when that publisher is Fantagraphics, considering recent events.

If Fantagraphics' recent, well-documented encounter with financial hard times brought one thing to the forefront of artcomics readers' minds, it was just how important Fantagraphics is. The hottest topic on the message boards was not what had caused this financial near-disaster, but, rather, how would the hole in the comics-publishing pantheon be filled should Fantagraphics collapse.

The answer quickly became clear: The hole would not be filled. Fantagraphics publishes more books in one year than all of the other artcomics publishers combined -- and though some would argue the point, the consensus opinion would have to be that, for the most part, the quality of the established artists published by Fantagraphics puts a good portion of other publishers' rosters to shame. In short, Fantagraphics publishes more comics that people care about than any other company, and its death would mean that many of those comics would end up going unpublished.

Fantagraphics is, certainly, aware that its customers' attachment to them is different than a typical merchant-customer relationship. During their plea for money, Gary Groth and Kim Thompson clearly asked that customers purchase books not only because the books were worth buying, but because Fantagraphics was an institution worth saving. The result was something that resembled a public-radio pledge drive -- a goal was set, heartstrings were tugged, valuable premiums were offered and the goal was met. Fantagraphics would live to die another day.

But by inviting the public in to act as patrons -- to publicly say, "Please, save us," and then be saved -- Fantagraphics has left itself open to increased scrutiny of its publishing practices. When you buy something under the umbrella of cold capitalism, you don't think of the money spent on the item as something that will help keep the company that produced it in business and uncompromised. But when you're made to feel that your purchase is -- at least in part -- a donation for a good cause, you naturally expect to see your idea of that good being done with your money.

If Fantagraphics truly is important enough to save, then it is important enough to criticize. What Beaty meant when he implied that Fantagraphics was lesser for having published Top Notch was that Fantagraphics holds its books up as the gold standard for the artcomics world, and readers tend to agree. So when Fantagraphics publishes bad art -- such as Top Notch or Shouldn't You Be Working? -- the standards by which we measure artcomics are distorted. It is Fantagraphics' burden, having taken on the mantle of king, to live up to the title.

Working is particularly unsettling as a publishing choice because it does not simply look like bad art. It looks like lazy, hastily thrown together, not-very-well-thought-out art. The mere idea -- a collection of office doodles -- sounds ridiculous. One wonders how it even got past the idea stage. Then, one wonders how the publisher could have seen the material and still given it the greenlight. Finally, one has to wonder as to how the publisher of those Crumb sketchbooks failed to take a stern editorial hand to Ryan. You can almost smell the publisher's bad decisions as you read the book.

I have never seen Fantagraphics' financial records. I don't know whether or not Working made money. Whether it did or not, one can assume that had Fantagraphics not published it, they could have and would have published something else with roughly the same production costs. Viewing Shouldn't You Be Working? from that perspective, one is left with the same impression as before -- what a waste.

There needs to be lively, continuing debate on the choices publishers make. Fantagraphics has obviously made some choices lately that hurt it. I seriously doubt that Shouldn't You Be Working? helped, though I also doubt it could have hurt that much, either. Regardless, it is a book that did not need to be published by any company, much less the self-proclaimed king of the artcomics mountain.

Far too often, the decisions of the Xeric Foundation bewilder. For every Inside Vineyland, there are usually three or four XXX Live Nude Girls. It isn't hard, however, to tell where the board's tastes lie: The drawing is the thing, not the story. To see this, one can look to Brian Ralph's Climbing Out, or Farel Dalrymple's Pop Gun War. Both are packed with lush illustrations, but slight in content. Barring the occasional exception, such as Vineyland, where the work can be honestly appraised as good in general, Climbing Out and Pop Gun War are representative of the best Xeric recipients -- visually stunning books where the storyteller is capable enough to keep the story from getting in the way.

WitchDoctor, by Kenjji, at first glance looks like this sort of book. On the surface, it has slick visuals and appears plot-driven. The implication is that WitchDoctor is a ride of a comic -- sit back, try to relax, and don't bother thinking about it until later on. But WitchDoctor is a book plagued by both visual and narrative problems.

One surmises from the cover -- its implications of a comic-book company behind WitchDoctor and other comics, and the whole "Protector of the People" bit -- that WitchDoctor springs, at least in part, from corporate comics. After reading a few pages, you realize it springs entirely from them.

One can see what it is about Kenjji's art that initially attracted the Xeric board -- he can certainly draw. The illustrations are slick, attractive and sweeping. Unfortunately, they are also disjointed, making for a jumpy reading experience. Kenjji spends too much time playing with perspective. WitchDoctor is full of awkward, confusing close-ups. Characters always appear ready to spring into action -- which would be fine, if the characters spent less of their time in psychiatrist's offices and academic conferences and more time in action. Visually, WitchDoctor lacks substance. One gets the distinct impression that Kenjji's visual development is rooted entirely in contemporary mainstream comics, and that he lacks the exposure to other kinds of comics that would allow him to envision his own story as looking like anything other than a superhero book.

That it looks like a superhero book and sounds like a superhero book presents another problem for WitchDoctor: Thus far, it is not a superhero book. For all its claims of preternatural gifts and "True Voodoo Action," there is very little action in WitchDoctor. Other than a couple hallucinations and a quick, awkwardly presented fight at the end, WitchDoctor spends much of its time trying to sound smart.

The protagonist, Dr. Jovan Carrington, is an expert on something. We don't know what exactly it is that he's an expert in. Early on, we're told he is a psychiatrist, but he also appears to be an expert on African culture, Haitian history and God-knows what else. Carrington receives a "World Society Award" at a conference. But the attempts at imposing a once-in-a-lifetime intellect on Carrington are transparent, failing to stick. It is obvious that the author has no real idea for who the character is, only that at any given moment Carrington should be the wisest person in the room.

Carrington's speech, for example, is a nightmare. Kenjji wants so badly for Carrington to sound smart that he strips away all recognizable humanity from his voice. In a letter in which Carrington asks a former lover to become his therapist (the potential conflict of interests this presents is never addressed), Carrington writes:

Due to our intimate history it occurs to me that your counseling comes with the added benefit of trust, common knowledge, and familiarity that will make my diagnosis and recovery effective and discreet. I intend to discuss the variety of conditions I am suffering as soon as possible but I must take a moment to assess the situations and their mitigating circumstances. I will make arrangements to travel to your city soon and hope that a brief office appointment can be arranged.

Obviously, our hero is not going to be winning anyone over with his magnetic personality. Perhaps the reader is meant to identify with his bad grammar and run-on sentences?

The worst part is that Carrington is like a black hole for ill-informed pseudo-smart talk. Characters that almost seem to have personalities start talking like Carrington when they start talking to him. The lover/psychiatrist jumps awkwardly from greeting Carrington with a sexy whisper in the ear to distant analysis. Another character shifts from a thick, phonetically-spelled, slang-filled Haitian accent when Carrington is not around to saying things such as, "I had yet to mention... your father has attracted peculiar enemies," in Carrington's presence.

Kenjji never gets around to showing Carrington Protecting the People, or doing much of anything at all. Most of WitchDoctor is chewed up by complicated back-story or silly dialogue meant to make the character look like an intellectual that achieves the opposite. It is unfortunate that someone with Kenjji's talent for drawing is so limited in vision that his idea of great art is a smart action comic that fails to be smart or to portray any interesting action. It is something worse than unfortunate that the members of the Xeric board, who should know better, agree with him.