3 out of 5

I really dig Joe Daly’s Dungeon Quest, though maybe I can’t explain why.  I have no idea what the point is, and it’s not that it’s overly exciting, or that it even has a plot I can excitingly relate beyond the general concept, but something about the dedication to put it out in such a straight-faced style really appeals to me.  “Scrublands” was, I think, indie comics introduction to Daly, and though now I can see some of the roots of Dungeon Quest in it, overall I’m glad I didn’t read this first because it’s possible I wouldn’t have come back for another Daly book.

“Scrublands” is sort of a mix of short comics, some surreal, some random, most in the vein of Sacco / Crumbish indie stuff, reality suffused with one level of weirdness or remove, allowing for some straight-forward mind-ramblings.  But “Scrubs” isn’t just an anthology – these pieces seem to be made to go together, characters from each popping up here and there, the beginning and ends of the book short 1-4 pagers that surround the massive, wordless and circular “prebaby.”  This is what gives the collection strength and readability, is its willingness to experiment and yet mindfulness of cohesion.  So it’s not just a smoke-a-bowl fantasy, it dabbles in that and then drizzles some kind of method on top.  This is mostly what hints toward Dungeon Quest, but thankfully Daly dropped the drugged hipster philosophizing from that book, because that’s what sinks Scrublands to me and ties it back to the scene I don’t dig – I enjoy an artist opening up his mind and letting thoughts flow, I don’t enjoy when those thoughts are overly preachy and try to wind around the preachiness by being glib or putting a punchline afterward, like “I know I sound like a jerk,” shrug, chuckle.  “Scrublands” isn’t too bad about this, and it’s relegated to those beginning and end pieces, and maybe just one or two panels in each, but it’s enough to make me want to turn the page and not revel in Daly’s awesome art, which has that stiff Sacco-esque quality to the figures, but the backgrounds feel a bit looser, which gives a nice juxtaposition to the sort of geometrical arranging of points of view Daly tends to use.  The inking will also remind you of Sacco (or anyone else in that heavy line, individually hashed shading style), but when the stories get less grounded in reality (like the super fun Aquaboy), the overall look loosens up a bit more, looking cleaner, more relaxed, more unique, and this is what would also carry over to Dungeon Quest.

Color gets a special note here – some of the pages are black and white with a page tint, some of them use a specific color scheme (“My Dagga,” a silly pot-related tale, uses a potty green as its only coloring, yip yip), and some – “Prebaby” – feature thick, deep colors, almost like pastels.  I’m not sure if I can attribute any meaning to the color choices, but it makes the book very pleasant to the eye.

“Scrublands” is a tad obnoxious.  If you like your Pekar’s and Crumb’s – stuff I consider leaning toward more obnoxious – you’ll probably think that Daly was on his way to becoming a Chester Brown or Joe Sacco, starting weird with Scrublands and then working toward more legit stuff, so maybe this collection and its hints of stuffy-nosed indie ” ‘I’m so observant’ observations about the world that we all make and like to feel justified in our uniqueness for making them but ha ha we understand we’re just part of the machinery just cogs I’m so normal and depressed weepy weep ha ha drugs are cool” will put Daly on your map of writers to include on your shelf to namedrop and wax philosophical on.  If you’re like me, and started with D.Quest, digging its no-bones weirdness, “Scrublands” is like looking through a friend’s family photo album – it’s a little boring, and you lack a connection to a lot of what’s going on, but you keep flipping through, intrigued by the hints and clues that you spot that point the direction to the person you now know.  A valuable experience, but perhaps only in retrospect.