Self Help #1: You Have to Help You

They say everyone has a twin out there somewhere. That turns out to actually be the case in the new series Self Help as two people who couldn’t be more unlike each other come face to face. Self Help #1 introduces readers to both (hopefully compelling) sides of the coin and sees what happens.

Jerry Hauser is an unassuming man working for Dryvyr in West Hollywood. He happens to very closely resemble self help guru Darren Hart. Self Help #1 tracks them both over the course of a day. Jerry ferries passengers here and there, many of them commenting on how much he resembles Darren. When his daughter gets out of school in the afternoon, Jerry watches from a distance as she leaves school and arrives home. Meanwhile, Darren warms up for an upcoming seminar by taking a bath and intentionally dropping his bottle of water so his assistant Cassandra has to pick it up for him. At his seminar he tells everyone how only they can help themselves. And in a strange quirk of luck afterward, Darren and Jerry encounter each other.

Darren is a massive hypocrite. Maybe he wasn’t always. But by Self Help #1, he’s a spoiled brat can’t be bothered to pick up a bottle of water while he’s in the tub. He is the very person that he cautions about in his seminars–the one taking advantage of others. But strangely, without that bathtub scene (and perhaps one conversation late in the issue), Darren wouldn’t necessarily be unsympathetic.

Jerry, on the other hand, is not an unlikeable man. But it’s hard to root for him. Self Help #1 doesn’t give him much of a personality. It doesn’t even make clear what Jerry’s level of discomfort is about being mistaken for Darren. In many ways Jerry is a cipher. He’s a generally positive cipher, but a cipher nonetheless. That may be intentional on King and Kellerman’s part. The lack of a detailed background muddies the water in the issue’s final pages, and it’s hard to know who to root for.

King and Kellerman also include a bit of irony throughout that adds some uncomfortable humor at the end.

Self Help #1 never tries to play a mystery of whether the reader is seeing Jerry or Darren. After each character is introduced, context makes it obvious. But Ignazzi truly sells how different these two men are. The characters are essentially twins, though Ignazzi never draws them with identical expressions. The only time Jerry and Darren look truly identical is when they are together and laughing. The rest of the issue is full of contrast.

Jerry looks tired and frustrated most of the time. There isn’t much difference between when he is around people and alone. In that regard he comes across as honest. Darren, on the other hand, seldom does. He is usually angry and condescending in a way that Jerry isn’t. Where the narrative doesn’t plumb the depths of Jerry’s character, Ignazzi’s art makes him a real, honest, and at the very least tolerant person. The reader might not jump up and down rooting for him, but they’ll like him more than Darren.

Darren’s two largest solo scenes, at home in his bathroom and on stage at his seminar, feel cold. The particular blues and purples Mascolo chooses do not create an inviting atmosphere. Cassandra’s dark outfit provides a strong contrast to the environment. None of the people in the seminar contrast in the same way despite not wearing colors strictly identical to the scene’s overall look. Cassandra, who does push back on Darren as much as she can get away with, stands out visually in a way no one else does–even more so than Jerry.

Chalgren’s lettering is unremarkable and, while not detracting from the issue’s visuals, brings nothing additive to them. Sound effects are depicted in an identical font and yellow color regardless of what they’re connected to. That same color yellow is used elsewhere when people in Darren’s seminar are shouting his name. And again for both a character talking off panel at one of Darren’s seminars as well as when Jerry talks off panel. It’s bland.