Finally, this issue answers the important question: What happened to Chip Zdarsky when the superheroes crossed over into our world? Zdarsky, artist Phil Hester and inker Ande Parks kick Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw off their own book to get weird with it, alongside colorist Dee Cunniffe and letterer John J. Hill, in Image’s Crossover #7.
Zachary Jenkins: Donny and Geoff are gone for an issue, as is our entire cast, but we’re keeping this Crossover rolling with Zdarsky, Hester and Parks. But over here in the real world, I’m still crossing over with my buddy Dan from Gatecrashers. You ready to talk about a book that is nearly incomprehensible to people who aren’t on Comics Twitter to an unhealthy degree?
Dan McMahon: HOW WOULD THEY KNOW, ZACHARY?! How would anyone understand this outside the void of Twitter? As someone who is nestled in this void, though … I love it. I also have read so much Venom lately to get back in the goo mindset, so I was ready for more of Donny, but Chip is one of my favorites, so I was pumped about this.
Something Is Killing the Eisner Nominees
Zachary: This is a comic about a comic creator. He’s in hiding, a failure at burger flipping by the name of Dave Murray. What we know is that he’s actually a man in hiding, failed Toronto mayoral candidate Steve Murray, better known as Chip Zdarsky, the guy who talks to Applebee’s on Facebook. He’s on the run after the death of Y: The Last Man writer and Under the Dome showrunner Brian K. Vaughan. Steve believes that now that comics characters have come to life, they are going to want to kill the creators who made their lives a living hell. It’s a very meta plot, one pulled pretty famously from Grant Morrison’s Animal Man. I’ve argued that this book is pretty pretentious in the past, did you feel the same way as you started this issue?
Dan: I didn’t expect this book to do something like this. As someone who writes a character version of themselves every week, it’s a self-indulgent act that can often make it very easy to poke fun at yourself. After the narrator in the first arc, I thought this book was a little pretentious, but then as we got toward the end, it felt like the writers were dunking on themselves to a point. It’s trying to balance being cool and meta. I don’t know how often it succeeds in either, but I think this was the strongest single issue because I am in on Chip’s bit.
Zachary: Being in on the bit has never been more important. We’ve talked a lot about this book and how serious it takes itself, but this issue found the right balance. It had a deeper, more human connection than we have had thus far in the series. Maybe it’s because we parasocially know Zdarsky, so there was less heavy lifting to do, but it felt like this was a character piece first and a profitable collection of Easter eggs second.
One thing we’ve both enjoyed since issue #1 has been Shaw’s art. I thought Hester and Parks did a great job evoking his style while still making it feel distinct. What did you think about their showing?
Dan: I know I’m not allowed to say naughty words on this website, but gosh dang is Phil Hester’s art a frickin jam with Ande Parks inks. The distinction between the real Chip and the comic one is so neat. It’s been something great across the series. Having read enough of Chip’s work to get a feel for some of the themes, this one is a real nail on the head. It uses the framework of what Cates and Shaw built to tell a different type of story. Donny doesn’t have the fondest of feelings for me, but I really would love to talk with him about if this was the idea all along. This is the series I keep wanting to come back to no matter what.
The Chip of Two Worlds
Zachary: The book becomes entirely unhinged when Steve meets a character he created — Chip Zdarsky from Sex Criminals #14. This requires a wild amount of context, forcing you to have read a completely different series and to have a working knowledge of the creator’s online presence circa 2016. I, being a broken and perpetually too online man, had this. Dan, did you?
Dan: I love Chip, I love the idea of being a much larger character online than you are as your true self. I have not read Sex Criminals, but I know the idea of Chip, so this landed with me. But if I was devoid of either? I would be lost and this wouldn’t read as anything other than a comic writer making jokes to a very specific audience.
Zachary: For anyone not in that audience, the short version is that Zdarsky came to attention in comics with Sex Criminals, a series that made national news when Apple censored the second issue. At the time, Zdarsky’s partner on the series, Matt Fraction, was going by the Twitter handle “Butt Stuff Werewolf,” and Zdarsky’s online persona matched that energy. By the 14th issue of the series, Zdarsky had come into his own as a writer, with credits on acclaimed series like Howard The Duck and Jughead. The chums wrote a scene where a fictionalized version of Fraction, anxious and near suicidal, talked to a fictionalized version of Zdarsky, a pompous asshat, about the book instead of actually writing that section of the fiction. It was well received and further cemented Zdarsky as a caricature. Well, now that fictional Zdarsky is in this comic, written by Zdarsky, about a different fictional Zdarsky. Clear enough?
Dan: If people know me or the work I love doing, I am very much in the zone of being a character and writing in a blend of fiction and meta narrative. So this kind of story works well for me. It is quite interesting to think that he was doing this kind of stuff in Sex Criminals but is now writing Daredevil, among other big-name books.
Zachary: That’s part of the inner conflict of the Zdarsky. He is the jokey jokey clown man, and even now as the writer of grim stories like Stillwater or Daredevil, he is seen as comedy first, tragedy second. That part of the issue, the conversations between Chip and Steve, really landed for me. I think sometimes we all want to be cuddled by the physical manifestation of our id while being told that they love us.
Dan: Sometimes all we want is to find some way to love ourselves. It’s not an easy task.
But Doctor, I Am Zdarsky
Zachary: As much as this is played as a joke, I have a lot of thoughts about how online notoriety creates an exaggerated, semi-fictional version of ourselves; a version people glom onto as the real deal. Sometimes it is outside our own making. I’ve had the pleasure of people claiming some pretty hurtful things about me based on what they inferred from mixing out-of-context information with assumptions based on the character of “Zachary Jenkins” that I play online. So this comic, essentially being Chip Zdarsky wrestling with how people view him as a goofy asshole clown? That resonated with me.
Dan: I have had at least 10 people write “Dan McMahon” in the past month in the GC52 series. I don’t have the online notoriety that you do, but I hope it comes off that I do put my soul on the page of everything I do. The turned to 11 Dan we see on Twitter and in my work is just a much louder version of myself. I am extremely insecure, constantly worry if I do enough and constantly questioning my self worth. Being able to write and almost play an extremely confident character version of myself is what I do, so this story worked. The scene where Chip is spooning Chip could be played as a joke, but for me it worked really well. It reads as if he is trying to balance those two characters to find a balance in himself. I might be overthinking it all, but this issue made me excited to see what weird stuff comes next.
Zachary Jenkins: I talked about this a lot when I wrote about I Breathed A Body, and I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but there’s a weird dynamic when people assume that “turned to 11” performance is who you always are. There’s something poetic about that verison of Chip sacrificing himself to save Steve Murray. At a certain point, I think those parts of us need to die for us to truly be who we are.
Stray Thoughts
- I once saw Zdarsky drinking a Tim Horton’s coffee outside a library in Columbus, Ohio.
- Very excited to see the stars of PlayStation TV’s Powers joining this comic.
- Bring back PlayStation TV.
- #Crossover4PSTV
Zachary Jenkins runs ComicsXF and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of all this.
