Found this one on Amazon Prime last night. Never heard of this 2022 black comedy about the comic book business but I decided to give it a look.
High school senior Robert is a budding young artist who eschews the more popular super-hero style of artwork in favorite of funny animals and “bigfoot” cartoons. He has an artistic style that closely resembles that of underground comic book legend R. Crumb. He has talent. He just needs a break.
Robert is encouraged at the beginning of the film but his oddball, eccentric art teacher. When the teacher dies (not a spoiler), Robert drops out of school and moves to Trenton in pursuit of comic book work.
But that prospect is long in coming. In the interim, Robert takes two part time jobs. One, the obvious one, is in a comic book store. The other job is working in the office of the public defender. And if you think his art teacher was a bit of a weird-oh, the characters he meets when he goes down the rabbit hole are extremely bizarre.
There’s his landlord/roommate who never seems to leave his basement. Robert’s friend Miles (winner of the Tiny Tim look-a-like contest), constantly begs Robert for a critique of his badly derivative comic book art, a crazy woman in a pharmacy, the usual pathetic losers who seem to perpetually haunt the comic book store and other assorted strange looking and acting individuals.
Warren is one of those people. He has a criminal record and seems to be an extremely anti-social person. But when Robert learns that Warren once worked for Image Comics, his status in Robert’s eyes goes up dramatically. Here is a connection to the world of professional comic books.
Trouble is, Warren worked as an assistant color separator and not as a comic book illustrator. He doesn’t want to talk about the job, but Robert persuades him with cash and chocolate chip pancakes into giving him a lesson.
Things do not go well.
FUNNY PAGES is a quirky delight. It’s a black comedy that will have you laughing one minute and cringing the next. It’s a low budget, indie film with a cast of unknowns who all deliver great performances. My only complaint (and it’s a minor one) is the cramped, claustrophobic visual style in which tight close-ups seem to dominate the narrative. These suffocating close shots serve to accentuate both Robert’s trapped situation and the bizarre characters that surround him.
Overall, a nice little surprise of a film. Definitely worth your time if you’re a fan of comic art in any form or media. Check it out.
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