Drawing Blood #2: The Downward Slope

The only place to go when you’re on top of a mountain is down. Shane “Books” Bookman began that fall in Drawing Blood #1 and it only accelerates in Drawing Blood #2. Whether part commentary, part autobiography, or just the tragedy of an eccentric creative person slowly losing it all, the story grows both more touching and ridiculous in this second issue.

Books gets away from the Lithuanian gangsters at the beginning of Drawing Blood #2 with the unlikeliest of help: a camera crew that he’d given permission to document him at a previous comic con. After the Lithuanians scurry away, Books takes the camera crew to Broadway to the site of his troubled stage adaptation of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Books is holding auditions for a female main character and after a number of uninspired hopefuls make their way across the stage, a woman named Kourtney puts on an audition that knocks everyone else out of the running. It is the shining moment of Books’ day but unfortunately not a harbinger of things to come as it’s followed up by a PR meeting for a Ronin Ragdolls movie, a drunken cell phone conversation in a bar, and midnight sushi.

Reading Drawing Blood #2 is like following an existential collapse in real time. The first issue established the inciting incident. But with this issue, Books’ has started a full-on downward spiral. But perhaps most interesting is the way Books appears to have been on a slow descent for a long time. Books hasn’t been able to draw anything new in years. One of the gangsters that threatened Books’ life also wants a signed sketch. The company that bought Books’ characters wants to use him as PR for their upcoming movie that he isn’t making money from. Books’ brother, who he reaches out to in this difficult time, will barely talk to him and pointedly refers to having left Ragdolls because of their differences. Books’ theater adaptation of Metropolis, funded with the money he made selling Ragdolls off, is plagued by disasters. Frank’s death in the first issue may have accelerated Books’ collapse, but in many ways this issue makes the case that he’s been heading here for a long time. As Books sees it, everybody runs out on him.

The single page flashback in Drawing Blood #2 returns to when Books created Ronin Ragdoll with his brother. The scene’s final line is him saying that they can have fun creating the characters because no one is ever going to pay them big money for it. The irony, of course, is that that is what eventually happens.This line operates on a number levels. It’s almost certainly a callback to Eastman’s own experiences with the genesis of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It can also be easily read as a meta commentary on comic books becoming part of massive media empires that are cutting big checks to acquire. Beyond that, on maybe just a subconscious level, there is perhaps a measure of sadness in the suggestion that creativity of all stripes is lost as something becomes bigger and more money driven.

Like the first issue, Drawing Blood #2 contains both flashback and hallucination sequences. The hallucinations in this issue don’t feel like as big a departure artistically as they did in Drawing Blood #1. The color is more vibrant than the rest of the issue, but Little’s finished art doesn’t quite come off as a change in the perception of reality. Books’ appearance in the hallucination sequence is surprisingly similar to the real world. The flashback sequence with finished art by Eastman is spot on when compared to the previous issue and, like in that case, will call to mind Eastman’s most well-known work. Given that there is some kind of autobiographical component to the series, the style choice makes sense.

Books constantly has a hangdog if not outright sad expression during the issue. Even during the opening scene with gangsters he appears more in that frame of mind than fearful. Bishop is consistent on this score from start to finish. The only exception is during the audition scene when Books meets Kourtney. His face is bright, almost beaming, for roughly one page. It’s a light in the wilderness, and the reader is lulled into a place of thinking Books might rally for the rest of the issue. The sequence makes it all the more disheartening when he doesn’t.

A drunk sequence precedes Books’ hallucination. He’s wandering out of the bar and thinks he sees Kourtney from the audition. Peer sells the effect with blurred colors and near psychedelic panels. As a crowd of people become more visible and Books realizes that it never was Kourtney, the sequence calls to mind the experience of concentrating really hard while intoxicated to process one bit of important information.

The choice to use lined notepad paper as the caption boxes for Books’ thoughts does fit the series’ overall vibe. But when Esposito bolds the font to add emphasis, the words are more difficult to read. This is largely owed to the font style chosen–the letters are very close together. But visually it is less than ideal.