Graphic Novel Review – Goon: Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker

Writer: Eric Powell
Penciler: Eric Powell
Cover Artist: Eric Powell
Publisher: Dark Horse
Publication Date: November 2007
Format: Hardcover

Pulp seems to be in these days in all mediums and let me just say: It’s about time. It is inevitable such a phase will be sniffed out by charlatans (and in some cases have already) and we will soon be drowned in the coming wave of mediocrity but we should not let I had been waiting for people to once again take heed of another man who seems always a step ahead – one Alan Moore in this regard and while I am not sure if Powell gives a damn I’m pleased to see a minor pulp-renaissance occur and Powell is part of that in comics. I should note that I while I have read some scattered issues of Eric Powell’s Goon, I am not an authority on the series as a whole. I am not reviewing the Goon’s adventures in its entirety, but a hardcover collecting an arc that takes place in an original graphic novel and titled Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker. As I have said before I think all comics should be published in this manner so I love seeing the product.What you find is a completely accessible book that will allow us to visit three stages of Goon’s life and succeeds as both a current adventure and allowing you to get the gist of the character without seeming obtrusive: Lifelong streetwise crook who has worked himself to be the big fish. Pretty basic concept that allows unlimited opportunities and quick assimilation no matter when you want to tell a story. Afterall, there are crooks everywhere, and there has been a long American-romantic love affair with crime. The world you are in is your own, except there are brushes with the fantastic – an Eastern God, a cursed book – aspects that are assuredly not normal but are choices that aren’t completely out of leftfield. They could be real; in the reality right next to ours, too the slightly mad, or those slightly more perceptive – take your pick – and what you are left with is a Polanski directing Big Trouble in Little China but take it back 80 or so years.

The current Goon is dealing with a takeover from somebody who has information that only somebody who has broken bread with you can have and what is apparently – an beautifully more apparent – his right hand has gone missing. On top of that we get this incredibly atmospheric story from his past as he consolidates turf power, meeting with the Triad, and finds what has the look of love. On the back cover Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker is described as a ‘formative chapter from Goon’s early years’, so of course it’s about a dame – I don’t where the female Life Dojo is, but not only are all men given life by women – we learn life’s hardest lessons from them. And that classic image we formulate of that same girl that walks into a 40’s P.I. office or once resided in a Matt Baker’s sketchbook that just kind of stroll into our lives and makes things…more interesting. What I found in this experience is the presence of two distinct stories, the former is forgettable and latter is truly – and I think a bit surprisingly – fantastic and it has nothing to do with a dragon. What is supposed to occur is a layering that acts as an echo and source of tension in the current story from the past, and the flashback provides a soul – in this it is partially successful.

”This aint funny”

While a admittedly starting a funny book in this manner is indeed funny, humor always seems a second away, it is there, but it resides underneath – Powell is able to show humor in an atmosphere that doesn’t call for it. We could be having fun and we may later, but we got to handle shit right now and Chinatown is ultimately about handling your business and loyalty. We can laugh later, or better yet, we once laughed and perhaps more than anything we want to see a chuckle.

For any men who have those chapters in our lives that would not have not have taken a turn for the fictional in thinking the possibility of getting knocked was a daily thought and ultimately not surprising if it became an outcome – you know when every house you frequent has bent blinders on the windows because every car that goes by gets a thorough look-over and mentally-cataloged – we have all met a woman that we at one point propped up as an excuse to enter the real world, to give it all up, to go straight, to live happily ever after, a view that can be seen as romantic but is more a door to the skewed, controlled-madness that to often turns from a phase to a lifestyle. At any rate, either way it is an acceptance and desire of being shackled. To catch a dream we would bet against reality and the first rule of gambling is the house doesn’t lose. I think there may be danger in Chinatown when viewing the female characters that may lead one to conclude a stance or agenda by the writer. Let me first say that stances and agenda don’t tend to bother me – there are all types of people in the world and a creator should be able to use any of them in that context. What we have in Chinatown actually are women who merely refuse to rescue Goon from himself – he on both occasions is the pleader and while neither Bella or Mirna are examples of what we would likely attach with the word ideal – they were certainly desirable to Goon and in this story they are depicted as any other – wandering their own way, and the exception (Franky) is the power in the story, but not I feel an accusatory one. There is a lot of truth in these pages or ones that I find to be – if we all had some competition and gods to kill right after our heart is broken I dare say a lot of Playstation controllers would have been saved.

Franky is a ridah. You are going to have your circle, but you are also going to have your ace – and the segments of Chinatown that felt the most emotional were the actions of Franky. Simply put, this guy holds it down; he takes care of Goon and does so in a way that defines the strongest of bonds – he doesn’t have to tell him about it. Proven, the guy that is down forever, that let you look past him once, forgave you – and possibly loved him (Goon) more for it. I felt myself oddly moved by some panels where Powell taps into the essence of friendship – if you ever lost your ace, the last pages of Chinatown, brings back memories. Powell exhibits the ability to render more than emotion, but relationship as well as anyone I have read in sometime and you can see it in a phone conversation Goon is having when someone questions the loyalty of Franky – there is no answer because the question has no substance – it is a verbal absurdity that can’t be heard, as if a foreign language to a mono-lingual mind. Absolute trust is a rare commodity and in that instance we want to warn him that such is foolhardy, we can almost taste betrayal around the corner – but the more powerful outcome is to see him justified.

These are themes we are all familiar, that we know carry gravity and they do in what would seem telling the part of Goon’s life that would in later incarnations look like a scab. It’s ugly, but it protects something tender, a layer closer to you and they work really well but there is a what I perceive as a weakness in the conflict – the situations and feelings are wonderfully captured and framed magnificently by Powell’s art and story-telling tone but they are in someway betrayed by a hokiness that oversteps even the obvious pulp sensibilities of the series itself. It is a story that should be an amazing, poignant; certainly familiar, but in a manner that is never outdated, and it is until we get the reason in the story why Goon has to beat something up. I want to say that the story would have been an excellent chapter, perhaps a deviation, that didn’t require the actual conflict in the current storyline. I realize that such a statement possibly may grate on existing fundamental Goon traditions that I’m not aware of but the conclusion and dynamic involving Mr. Wicker comes off as severely campy when in the presence of an otherwise beautifully rendered story. I guess some could say that it is that very element that makes Goon, but it doesn’t come off as charm in Chinatown it come off as a burden. Powell may have felt the same (admittedly, more likely not) as he does choose to end the story with the thread from the past and due to that, Chinatown is able to conclude with its better half in some way insuring the aroma of satisfaction as we close the door.

I collect original comic art and while across the board I feel much of the modern work is a bit overpriced and I expect that to correct itself after a surge of awareness and the market stabilizes from an influx of buyers and while I think more vintage work will keep escalating as legitimate, relevant, pop-art there are some contemporary artists who have even seen their work go to another level and generally on creator-owned work – a Mignola Hell Boy page, an older Wagner Grendel page, a Keith Maxx page, a Smith Bone pages, a Sim Cerbebus page and while Powell I don’t think has achieved quite that status, Goon pages have shown to be very desirable and you can tell why from thumbing through Chinatown. While some comics seemed to be filled mostly with panels to lead to the next, Powell finds reason for each individual one. Splash pages almost seem to have become added strictly for the purpose of selling them at premium prices in the OA market but Powel utilizes them for a purpose on story– not comely to begin with, we see a man buckle, we see realization, we see a man gain clarity and he has to look at himself to find it. He stood before a mirror to bear witness his own pain and like a man he would not learn from his mistakes he attempts to conquer them. From the perspective of art, Powell can really do no wrong – it’s absolutely gorgeous and while it is an industry that traditional lies in duos and even more in current comics, something about comics that have only one name next to ‘by’ – for what I think obvious reasons – have a more cohesive vision. It is here, where it seems you will most likely find true creative outlets that remind us comics are art, in an industry that is more and more a factory production line.

I fee like I’m riffing VanderMeer and the Post, but somewhere within Chinatown and the Mystery of Mr. Wicker is a great story and I think we can find the lines of separation quite easily. I think I love Chinatown but the Mystery of Mr. Wicker I could have done without – it doesn’t deliver what is weird in the manner that I think pulp masters would see translated today, it comes as quite goofy and honestly has the feeling of being thrown in. I come away from my first prolonged experience with The Goon with a definite interest in reading more; Powell is undeniable as an artist and with Chinatown we see a storyteller that is able to capture a classic and mundane story and infuse it with personality that makes it Goon’s classic story and through it, ultimately a recommendable read and in Mystery of Mr. Wicker we get the feeling that we haven’t seen the best of Powell – that perhaps there may be a haphazard inclination to include certain elements just to have them in-story and I think what we wanted was Anthony Shaffer and we got Nicholas Cage instead.

I’m going to cop more Goon for Franky baby.