Power Up

Doug TenNapel created Earthworm Jim, which means he pretty much has lifetime credit with me. The last few years I've been looking into some of his comic work, buying any of them that sounded interesting (or making a note to buy them later). So far, he's 4 for 5 in producing comics I've really enjoyed, and Power Up (written and drawn by TenNapel, lettered by Jennifer Barker) is one of the 4.

Hugh works at a copy store for a demanding boss. He and his coworker Doyle are also putting together a pitch for a video game, "EarthDog Jim", but Hugh is never quite ready to pitch it to a game company yet. Amidst all this, he buys an old game console at a yard sale. The game that comes with it appears pretty dull, until he finds an extra button. The extra button brings anything on-screen into the real world. Initially, this means various power-ups: extra lives, force fields, triple shots, etc. Hugh eventually realizes he can bring the gold coins in the game out, as well. Pretty soon he's only thinking about what else he can get out of the game, how they can make his life easier. Much like the Monkey's Paw, nothing quite works out right, because he doesn't consider the effect his actions have on his wife Valerie, or his son Matt. Then it's a question of whether he can survive the final boss long enough to put things right.

There are certain themes in Power Up that I've seen in several of TenNapel's other works. The main character has usually stalled out in life, usually by choice. They have a chance to change things, to take a step forward, but won't do it. They're too afraid of change, or failure. I think for the main character in Iron West it was change, but for Hugh, it's failure. It's why he keeps insisting the presentation has to be perfect. Because if it's perfect, they can't turn it down, right? Otherwise, why would anyone be interested in something he came up with?

There's also a tendency for the main character to retreat into some more childish response first. Hugh falls back on his video games, charting exactly which power-ups he's gotten, throwing money around like a fool to try and show how great a husband, father, and provider he is. In Iron West, the guy kept trying to make a go of it as a card shark. In Cardboard (we might get to it next week), Mike uses grief to avoid moving forward.

This isn't a complaint, because I think it's TenNapel writing about familiar experiences for himself. He's a creative person, which requires putting yourself forward while risking being shot down. It's not always a profitable enterprise (I would have laughed at the line about assigning all the rights to ones work to a company in a rapacious, one-sided agreement, except I'm pretty sure that's what actually happened to TenNapel over Earthworm Jim), which is more concerning if there's a family to support. There's a fear of failing them, and all that fear makes it tempting to withdraw to less complicated things with no attachments, and no true risk.

TenNapel keeps things fairly basic with his page layouts. Every page is between 2-7 panels, with the majority at 5 or 6. One nice thing is he saves the 2 or 3 panel pages for when it's something big. Most of the climactic battle is done with 3-panel pages, but some other critical scenes are as well. The moment when Hugh lets the game go to his head, the moment when he tried to use it to help Matty. Beyond that, he changes up the spacing well, both to control the pace, but also to give certain panels more weight. On one page, the bottom two panels might be of Hugh and Valerie sleeping. The first panel is their legs and torsos, the second one their heads. It makes you slow up a bit, right as we've reached the end of a hectic day for Hugh. He needs to rest, so let's not rush to that next page. Just take in the tranquility. In another sequence, the first panel is of Hugh, confused at what he did wrong, but it only takes up make a fifth of the top third of the page. The remainder if Matty telling him what he did wrong, as he looks at Hugh (and us) with angry tears in his eyes. Hugh's self-absorption is less important than the fallout of his actions, and TenNapel weights the panels appropriately.

I also like how TenNapel draws people. Most of them, even the ones who look weird, look real, but not in a photo-referenced way. It's exaggerated, but in that same way that some people just look a little odd. And a lot of the panels are close-ups on one character's reaction or expression, so he has to be up to the task there, and he is. Hugh's impression of his boss, Mr. Krekorian, works at least as much because Hugh has managed to shift his eyebrows to resemble his bosses, as because of him putting his finger under his nose to be a mustache.