3 out of 5

‘Brilliant in theory / disastrous in execution’ is lightly printed across the back cover.  ‘Jellyfist’ was Jhonen’s idea – collaborate with Jennifer Goldberg, give her free reign to draw some vague scripts for a book of 1-2 page riffs.  Had it just been left at that, ‘Jellyfist’ would be a shrug of disappointment, starting with mad genius for a couple of pages – Jhonen perhaps freed up to just be silly by not having any artistic worries and Goldberg’s ‘Slave Labor Graphics is the only place for me’ art style perfectly goofy as it can’t care too much about the surreal words / worlds its depicting – before devolving into poor comic timing and fairly unfunny gags.  What makes it worth the experience was whoever’s idea to include a seemingly ‘live’ commentary running down the side of each page, Jhonen vs. Jenny, communicating assumedly via some online interaction while Jhonen scanned in the finished work for submission.  In this commentary, the genesis of the book is exposed somewhat, from fun to plodding chore, as Vasquez’s scripts apparently got more and more detailed to ward off Goldberg’s increasing delays with returning pages, the delays – I’m guessing – only causing the perfectionist inherent in most creative-types to spring to life inside Jhonen and sweat the details he’d should’ve theoretically been able to avoid by splitting the duties up as designed…  So a project of inspired random collaboration became a chore, and it’s absolutely apparent in the strips, even though I don’t think they’re fully assembled in chronological order, some mentions of what’s first and last set a general timeline, and the commentary is in order, our two insomniac’s personalities becoming less veiled page to page.  Jhonen’s self deprecation flip-flops to more openly pick apart Jenny’s lack of ‘acting’ in panels and missing the point of some scripts – and this could all be jest between two friends, though I generally agreed with his statements – and Jenny alternately seeking praise for select panels and then making the obvious joke to follow Jhonen’s more illustrative random one.

Now I’m not a Jhonen fanboy, but this book does underline why I enjoy reading his work – get beyond the need to make a point in JTHM, and he’s undeniably an inventive dude.  And get further beyond that to where he’s creating without thinking, and you get some wonderfully ridiculous stuff like most of Squee! and Fillerbunny and the parts of this book that really work.  Second Now: I’m not saying Jenny’s a Jhonen follower.  Looking at her website – and there are panels in Jellyfist where she really went to town where this comes through – there’s more of a ‘classic’ cartoon influence to her work like Chuck Jones (mentioned in the book) or John Kricafulsi, but I don’t think her writing chops sync well with Vasquez’s, hence my reference of that joke to joke ratio.  We can be a particular type of funny or creative, but the loud and wacky guy in the room generally grabs attention, so we are apt to insert a bit of loud and wacky into what we’re doing, even when unintended.  So while this is undeniably Jenny’s art, when the creative struggles started to happen, you can see this trade off of talent going back and forth.  It’s weird stuff, and wouldn’t at all be visible without that commentary.

The book is an appealing package: 5″ or so high by 7″ or so wide, it’s small and baggable, with stiffer paper stock of a brown, dirty looking tint and a truly odd (and mostly appealing) color scheme of light blues and off-reds and browns.  This scheme matches some strips but is a horrible match for others.  Jhonen mentions color at a couple points in the commentary and I can’t help but wonder if this looked different at some point, and then was given this color wash at some point (every page seems to pull from the same muted 4 or 5 shades to my untrained eye) before printing.

I don’t think the book is quite Jhonen enough for JTHM-only fans, but Fillerbunny readers and Zimmers should fine some things to enjoy.  And there are enough gags in here to make you chuckle, with some warranting guffaws.  Overall it’s a failed experiment, but getting to peek behind the curtain makes it, for better or worse, pretty fascinating.