A comiXologist Recommends

GrizzlyShark vs. SeaBear #3

Story, art, and letters by Ryan Ottley

Colors by Ivan Plascencia

Oscar Wilde.  Aubrey Beardsley.  Charles Swinburne.  Ryan Ottley? Okay, hear me out.

You might think that a story about half a guy (the top half, if you were wondering), a big dumb redneck, and a zombie baby trying to navigate shark-infested woods and bear-infested waters would be more of a Dadaist piece of literature.  But Dada as a movement is steeped in political critique, and while you could try to map social or environmental issues onto GrizzlyShark, its comedic resistance to moralizing or meaning reaches past Dada to the Decadent art and literature of the late 19^th century.

Art for art’s sake is a simple concept: the purpose of art is in the pleasure of an individual’s subjective experience of the work.  It could be an experience of beauty, or eroticism, or ineffability.  The Decadents took this a step further, aiming for the shocking or even the perverse in an attempt to transcend the dullness of heavy Victorian sensibilities.  

In the case of GrizzlyShark, decadence is achieved through humor.  Sharks swim through the woods, munching people they are drawn to with a drop of blood, in spectacular fashion. How do GrizzlySharks breathe?  How do they move about?  And OMG what the heck just happened?  You know what, just hush for a minute and laugh at the munch-munching, okay?  It’s funny, and trust me, you could use the unadulterated fun.  It’s as important to your development as a person as contemplating the meaning of existence, or building schools in underdeveloped countries, or whatever moral, important stuff you do in your spare time.

Maybe I’m being a little facetious here.  But Ryan Ottley’s commitment to the ludicrous makes GrizzlyShark vs. SeaBear an absolutely delightful read.  And delight doesn’t have to make sense, it just has to shake you out of the mundane for a moment.  GrizzlyShark does this beautifully, so pin a hothouse orchid to your lapel, sip some absinthe, and enjoy the decadence of laughter.

Tia Vasiliou is a Digital Editor at comiXology.  She used to be an art historian, and apparently isn’t quite over the habit of theorizing everything.  You can listen to her theorize comics on the I Read Comic Books podcast.