HeadstaticFools Child Comix
By Jay A. Hacker III
Review by Fletcher Adams
The Least You Need to Know Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool!
A 2003 Xeric Foundation grant recipient, Headstatic is a 200-page anthology of comix. Over the course of over 75 different stories, Hacker presents comix with dozens of different styles, tones, moods and themes. The upshot of this is that theres a good chance that every reader will find something that will appeal to them. On the other hand, its a scattershot approach for every hit, theres bound to be at least one miss.
As much as I love my alternative comics, Ill admit my favorites out of this collection were leaning towards the more traditional narrative Eve in Flames, Greed and Infamy, The Last One, The End of the Beginning and The Sly One. Hackers humor comix varied more in quality. While there were some cute ones (especially the homage ones, done in the styles of Picasso, Kirby, Seuss, Kane and Miller, among others), I found they leaned a little too much towards University newspaper quality (in fact, some were culled from Hackers college strip, Jus Kiddin).
There were a quite a few of Hackers serious/artistic strips that I rather enjoyed as well the palatable alienation of One Bad Trip, the clever use of airline safety brochures in Learning to Fly and the dictionary narrative of Big Bullys Defining Moment all showed his ability to work outside the normal boundaries of comic book storytelling.
Given that Headstatic is comprised of many different types of comix, created over several years (including many done in the style of), I found it a little difficult to get a real feel for his work. Hacker also tends to lean towards very short strips. That being the case, I found I tended to enjoy the book more when read in short doses, rather than a marathon session. Those criticisms aside, both Hackers writing and drawing show real promise on many different occasions. I would enjoy reading a second project by this creator, especially if it were a little more focused.
The Bottom Line While not every story in Headstatic is a gem, there are a number of successes. Hacker also gives his readers good value for their money with over 75 stories for $12.
