Ah, yes.  The Unfunnies.

For those of you who haven't been keeping track, Mark Millar's four "Millarworld" books - Unfunnies, Chosen, Run and Wanted - are creator-owned titles which he's putting out through a variety of publishers.  Since he's a writer known almost exclusively for his work on other people's characters, it's certainly a wise move to try and get some of his own work out there.

So we have two books coming out from Image, and one from Dark Horse.  And then there's Unfunnies, which has ended up with the plucky underdogs at Avatar.  And the reason for that is quite simple.  Until fairly recently, Avatar used to be purveyors of rather crap porn.  Up to a point, they still are.  But they've also carved out a surprisingly successful niche as the people who'll take stories from cult writers which no major publisher would touch with a ten foot bargepole.

As a result, Avatar have published some of the most grotesque horror comics by Warren Ellis and some of the more offensive comics by Garth Ennis.  That's also opened the door for them to produce some collections of slightly reheated Alan Moore and Frank Miller work.  Oh, and Steven Grant's got a series coming out with them soon (My Flesh Is Cool).  And they somehow got the license to Stargate.  That one still confuses me.

Anyhow, Avatar have made a very bright move by taking on all these lunatic side projects from well known writers.  It's taken them from a minor porn publisher to a moderately credible indie.  It also means that they end up with books like Unfunnies.  They're probably the only people who would go near it.

Unfunnies bills itself as a horror comic, a description which should have the Council of Genres on the phone to register a formal complaint.  Set in a world of loveable cartoon animals, Unfunnies has that world go horribly wrong.  Kiddies' favourite Mo The Crow is arrested for possession of child pornography on page three - human child pornography, oddly enough - and whisked off to jail, leaving his beleaguered wife to eke out a living through fetish prostitution.  Somewhere lurking in the background is a bizarre plot suggesting that characters have either been manipulated or taken over completely by a human called Troy Hicks, who is represented in the art by photos.

When you're making jokes about kiddie porn, you can pretty much guarantee nobody but Avatar will touch the book.

The question is, however - what is Millar trying to do here?  The book is openly offensive.  It revels in it.  The back cover blurb has a five star review from Rich Johnston proclaiming that Unfunnies proves that all the taboos have not been broken, and then proceeds to announce "Welcome to the most depraved comic book of the 21st century."  This is, bluntly, the selling point.

Now, in the world of the arts, offensive product can broadly be divided into three categories.  First, there's the stuff which is genuine hateful - Skrewdriver, for example.  Or Robert Kilroy-Silk.  Second, there's the adolescent stuff which is just out to play the shock card for its own sake.  Finally, there's work which ventures into deeply offensive territory en route to some higher goal.

Since Unfunnies is so keen to promote itself on the back of its offensiveness, the obvious assumption is that it belongs in category two.  Then again, the cover goes on to claim that Unfunnies is "disturbing" and "a journey through the dark side of the human soul like Magnolia or Happiness".  This doesn't entirely win me over, to be honest.  I think Todd Solondz is one of the most overrated directors in cinema, and I absolutely fucking hate his film Welcome to the Dollhouse, a film premised on the staggeringly exciting observation "Wouldn't it be shit if everything was shit?"  I have rather more time for Paul Thomas Anderson, mind you.

Anyway, the suggestion is clear that beneath the hype, Millar and his artist Anthony Williams are aiming for something beyond simple shock comedy.  To judge from the interviews and publicity, Millar seems to have in mind some kind of unholy cross between Meet the Feebles and Jam.  And the first issue delivers on... well, on the first half.  The shock value is there.  But you'd be hard pressed to call it disturbing.

At this stage, what we have is an oddball black comedy which will appeal to a very narrow audience.  Depending on where the Troy Hicks plot is going, it could develop into more than that.  For the moment, this is a book for very hardcore, very open-minded Mark Millar fans.

Rating: B-

back | continue