2 out of 5

In the first issue of Hardball!, Chuck’s adults only series followup to Strips, the creator uses the opening page to remark on how Hardball! is going to be even more challenging (for readers. for himself) than Strips – in which Chuck had to juggle criticisms of the book’s shallowness or what others viewed as its intent against positive takes which seemed to grasp the writer’s desire to both draw naked ladies and write a semi-serious dive into sexual / social psychology. Each issue of Harball! also has a frontispiece: a detailed shot of a ball player in action, atop an overlarge pinup shot of a naked lady; this is accompanied by a quote from some named baseball player that, essentially, speaks to how seriously they took the game. You can see some of the threads Austen is likely wanting to tie together: in the same way Strips looked at college-aged kids trying to navigate some serious life questions while also being care free, sexual creatures, Hardball! might advance this forward a generation (kinda; the age of the Hardball! cast is curious), pitting two American past times – sports and sex – against one another, and how they each reflect the same or different sides of our collective psyche.

Anyhow, by the third issue of HB!, Chuck has kinda devolved to saying solely a very simplified version of that – I like baseball and I like boobs; why not draw both – and by the fourth issue, the frontispiece has no quote: it’s just an image of baseball and breasts.

Strips had 9 (+3 independent issues) out of an intended dozens to get its story going; Hardball! only made it to four. But even accounting for that, whatever “challenging” aspects Chuck had wanted to insert barely made it to the page. Austen is a long form writer; I have no doubt there was some plan down the road. However, even though Strips was sex-filled, we got at least a line or two giving us some indications of personalities guiding the grinding bods; HB! is frankly less graphic than Strips, while somehow also dialing down those personalities. We get, like, a sliver of info on lead “I could be a ball player but my past haunts me” Jan by the fourth issue; he pings off a slew of girls in the other three issues who hardly have identifiable traits beyond hair color; otherwise, even saying the series is just about boobs and baseball feels like a stretch.

Oddly, that is part of what makes this book interesting, or at least not without value: Austen is so unconcerned with standard comic book structure that the series takes on a surreal, play-like patois and pace, scenes kind of fading timelessly into one another and characters talking past one another excepting when we crystalize on one or two sequences that likely would’ve tied to the “ongoing” story of getting Jan to join a baseball team. It’s a bizarrely weightless read.

Visually, Mick Gray’s tones give things more weight over the swoopier lines of Strips, though the diversity of the cast feels absolutely minimal: Jan is defined, but some other males are interchangeable (including Jan’s friend, Eric), and almost all of the ladies are big-boobed blondes or brunettes. Viewed entirely as pinups, the art is pretty, just the whole thing tonally is a weird mishmash, as described above.