By Derf
Black & White, 144pp (Softcover)
Published by Slave Labor Graphics, $15.95
In this "graphic historical novel", cartoonist Derf (not the bassist from Fear) tells a fictionalized account of the punk rock scene in Akron, Ohio at the turn of the 80s, using a trio of high school kids from the local farm town of "Richford" as protagonists. As the book's characters helpfully explain, Akron turned into one of the country's "new wave" hotspots in the wake of Devo and Chrissie Hynde, and when the book's main character gets a job as a bouncer at the (real) punk rock nightclub called The Bank, he meets, hangs out with, and even bowls with legendary figures like The Clash, Lester Bangs, and Stiv Bators. The punk rock scenes are juxtaposed with the kids' hormone-driven escapades at high school and the titular trailer park. It's entertaining, but by the end, it seems like less than the sum of its parts.
The main character is Otto, a.k.a. "The Baron", a trailer park resident and unapologetic "band dork" who revels in his outsider status. As "The Baron", he speaks in a self-consciously grandiose manner, refers to himself in the third person and quotes Tolkien constantly (even to Wendy O. Williams on one occasion, much to her bafflement). At the beginning of the book, he is enlisted by two of his schoolmates to drive them to Akron, and is soon drawn into the punk rock scene, becoming first a bouncer at the club and later the lead singer of a band. He's a memorable persona who shows Derf's knack for characterization. In the pre-internet days it seemed like every school still managed to have at least one student who reveled in "geek culture" like Tolkien, Japanese sci-fi and Soldier of Fortune magazine, and Derf captures that spirit without lapsing into caricature. Even minor characters like the snide biology teacher and the middle-aged barmaid at The Bank ring true.
The book is episodic, and many of the individual scenes are quite funny, as when Otto offers his marching band spats to Klaus Nomi as a gift, or tells the Ramones about the epiphany he experienced watching Joey hawk a giant loogie. Back "home", we follow the boys as they stalk the girls they're horny for and watch as a pregnant bible-thumper attacks one of the school bullies with a fork. An extended sequence where Otto takes Joe Strummer and Lester Bangs to the local Coliseum to vandalize Journey's tour bus is probably the book's high point, and these comic bits, combined with sympathetic characterization, give the book most of its heart, soul, and entertainment value.
But when Derf turns his attention to "bigger issues", his reach exceeds his grasp. The book tries to be about the punk subculture as well as the individual characters, but unfortunately, the author doesn't seem to have any particular insight into the punk scene to offer beyond the stories he recounts, and as a result, the musicians themselves (as characters in the story) are completely uninteresting, and exist solely to advance the book's storyline (and, presumably, to give the book a little more "street cred"). Otto's interaction with these legendary artists reveals exactly nothing about them besides trivia (Nomi is a weirdo; Williams uses a particular brand of shaving cream to spray on her tits; The Ramones, um, eat hamburgers, etc.). It's particularly disappointing in the case of the Clash and Lester Bangs (who is traveling with them for the Village Voice); Bangs's real-life essay about traveling with the Clash in 1977 (from NME) is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking pieces available from the dawn of the punk era, but this fictionalized version doesn't delve any deeper than Joe Strummer's unlikely statement that he's been "almost Stalinist" lately and needs to lighten up.
When the main characters discuss music themselves, it gets even worse. Where their everyday conversations are witty and believable, their discussions about music never rise above the level of a Rolling Stone essay or (shudder) a VH1 documentary. Ignoring the "show, don't tell" rule, Derf simply has his characters state their "point" baldly, using awkward, banal sound bites like "This belly-up rustbelt town... a hotbed of punk rock! It makes no sense at all!" or "I can't believe The Saints and The Clash will be drowned out by Aerosmith!!" This approach reaches its nadir when The Baron states what seems to be his (and the author's?) main cultural thesis:
It's the damn hippies! They are the first generation in human history that refuses to give way to the next generation! So it's their music that fills the airwaves. Because they own the fucking airwaves!
There's no question that American radio was a dismal wasteland to a punk rocker in 1980, but it's hard to imagine anyone listening to the then-current hits by Diana Ross, Kenny Rogers or Billy Joel and thinking "If only I could get some relief from this non-stop HIPPIE MUSIC!" The reality is that "new wave" was actually starting to cross over into the mainstream by then (by way of hits by The Cars, Blondie and Gary Numan), MTV was right around the corner, and the fetishism of the hippie era (epitomized by the summer of "twenty years ago today" nostalgia in 1987 and the canonization of "Classic Rock") was still several years off. Ironically, the only stations who were likely to spin an occasional hippie act like Cream or the Jefferson Airplane at that time were the same big-city "Progressive FM" stations who were also playing new wave artists like The Pretenders and Devo.
This may sound like nit-picking, and it probably is, but this book isn't simply set in 1980, it tries to be about the punk/new wave movement of that time, and Derf doesn't have anything profound (or even interesting) to say about it. This is apparently intended as the "big cultural statement" that sums up the era, but the characters simply wind up parrotting the conventional wisdom, circa 2008.
That sort of anachronism -- and other, smaller examples throughout the book -- can't help but take the reader out of the narrative if he's old enough to actually remember the original punk era (i.e. the book's primary potential market).
If Derf had simply concerned himself with the adolescent hijinks of his characters, this book would have been a lot more successful, even if it were still burdened with the "tell, don't show" exposition that pops up again at the end, as Otto delivers a spoken summation of the "message" of the book (spoiler: reality is better than fantasy) that literally concludes with him stating "That's what I've learned this year!" like the main character in an ABC Afterschool Special
The artwork also suffers (although not as badly) from the same sort of stiff awkwardness that afflicts the characters' musical discussions. In the same way that the dialogue tells you what the characters are thinking without sounding like a genuine conversation, the artwork shows you what is happening without invoking the spirit of real bodies in motion. Derf draws with a bold, confident line in a style that's reminiscent of Robert Crumb and Peter Bagge, but without the fluidity and expressiveness of their art. His panel layout and "storytelling" is flawless -- you can always tell exactly what is supposed to be happening -- but the end result tends to look static. When someone throws a punch, for instance, we see the fists clenched, the arm extended, the "motion lines", and the "impact burst", but the end result still looks posed, without any sense of action or energy.
Taken as slapstick, Punk Rock and Trailer Parks is entertaining and occasionally hilarious. It's an enjoyable read, but the misguided pop-cultural commentary and occasional anachronisms will probably take some readers "out of the story" periodically. Still, the characterization is strong and the jokes are usually funny, and that's more than you can say about most comic books.
