3 out of 5

Joe Daly has the truly bizarre ability to make me want to scramble and read everything he’s written, forswearing it as genius, with the intent of adding all of his bizarre, drug-addled imagery into a referential pile which I can’t wait to sift through and analyze potential meanings… and then a few pages later, to make me ask myself what the hell I’m reading and why I’m reading it.

This is, I’d say, the general appeal of Joe’s work: the blending of affecting moments or sensations with the unequivocally mundane; daily life drudgery nudged into beguiling weirdness and then back again.  But as I experience that duality while reading, it demonstrates that what might appeal can also repel.  Joe maintains an Is it meaningful? / Is it nonsense? balance so well that you can easily keep going – through the near 600 pages of collected webcomic Highbone Theater, say – just as easily as you can put the work down, pretty convinced it’s not going to offer any revelations anytime soon.

Highbone Theater seems to meta poke at this a bit, as its pages-in-the-life-of musclebound, bearded, chubush-playing social misfit Palmer swerve into conspiracy theorizing about the secret string-pullers in the world, including those running the “theater” of Palmer’s existence, and their promising to now pull back the curtain as obviously as possible (before the book swerves into a run of snapshots of random, mostly context -less scenes, of course), but as usual with Daly it stops way short of trying to make any direct points with it.  All of Palmer’s thoughts and interactions function similarly, dipping into emotions we surely recognize and appreciate, then blown somewhat hilariously out of proportion before quick-cutting to another scene, the entire tale wrapped up in a silly search for meaning that might not be there, bookended by zen-like moments of Palmer’s acceptance of this.

What’s interesting is how Daly’s style has never really changed, but when he applied this template to short stories (a la Scrublands), it slots things too squarely into the comix camp, where an ending supposes we’re supposed to be able to glean something from what’s occurred.  But by removing chapter or story stops, even though Highbone can be read as a series of isolated tales as such, it removes this implication as well.  You get to just enjoy the show, and come to your own acceptance of its possible meaninglessness in due time.

Fantagraphics’ hardcover 6″x9″ representation of this is gorgeous.  Sewn binding and thick paper stock show off Daly’s thick line work and the color sections (which may be those moments especially real, or especially dream-like) supremely well; the book is durable and thick as hell, but also lightweight and totable.

Daly’s art is pretty consistent: Squat, amusingly doofy looking figures with a Robert Crumb influence, and, like Jim Woodring, a catalogue of recurring symbols or motifs, although, to me, somewhat without Woodring’s unconscious mythology.  The symbols are just, like, there dude.

Highbone’s dialogue is marked with an odd lack of timing between panels – sentences broken up across the page mid-phrase – which I can’t discern as being particularly purposeful so much as practical.

Is that another reflection of how Joe’s work affects me?  I mean, doesn’t affect me?  I could read this stuff forever.  Or… not.  And while that middling might be exactly what Daly’s going for, it makes it hard to muster up more-than-three-star feelings about it.