A Devil On His Shoulder: Dan Raeburn's "The Imp"

(This essay was commissioned by Quimby's Bookstore for inclusion at their website and catalog.)

There are several paradoxes to deal with when writing a review of The Imp, a zine by Dan Raeburn which once a year disseminates a specific section of the world of comics. The very idea of writing a critical examination of a publication which exists to be a critical examination is an act so absurdist as to make Beckett proud. Mr. Raeburn rightly opines that it is not his opinions which make his essays interesting but instead the subjects of the essays themselves; but clearly it is precisely Mr. Raeburn's opinions, and the way he expresses them, that raise the quality above the self-absorbed and amateurish pap of most 'fan'-based nonfiction. Each issue of The Imp is an unapologetic glorification of a particular cartoonist's skill and mastery of the medium, within an alternative culture that currently places snide postmodern bickering on a holy level. Yet Mr. Raeburn's writing never reaches the puff-piece lows of an Entertainment Weekly, instead standing as astute examinations of a particular artist's oeuvre and subthemes. Each issue is also extremely long (issue #3, the subject of this review, tops 30,000 words) in a world increasingly driven by sound bites; yet Mr. Raeburn insists that this kind of space is needed to fully realize a well-fleshed critical analysis and, indeed, the essays are never boring nor long-winded but instead more fascinating the further they go.

I suppose a good starting point would be this simple declaration: Dan Raeburn writes the best critical analysis of comic books just about ever seen in the history of the medium. It was a wise decision on his part to delay the publishing dates of each issue to the lengths that he has: it is obvious that the man has spent almost every waking moment between issues researching and writing on his next subject. In the current issue (focusing on Chris Ware, creator of "The Acme Novelty Library" and "Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Boy on Earth") Mr. Raeburn lists over thirty different previous interviews he has pored over in preparation of his essay, recommends another twenty books if you wish to really get at the heart of the artist, mentions at least half a dozen people he conducted primary interviews with, and admits that he interviewed Mr. Ware himself for over six hours. He also confesses that the current essay we hold in our hands had been rewritten from scratch at least three times, all because of the beginning paragraphs of each previous version and how they mistakenly set the wrong tone for everything that had originally followed.

This attention to research and well-planned organization is apparent from the first pages of The Imp. This is no normal zine-based review, with its hasty and incomplete biography followed by a few sentences along the lines of "This guy fucking rocks!" No, Mr. Raeburn's writing is intelligent, philosophical, oftentimes spiritual, and at some points so heady that it threatens to go over the reader's head. Issue #3 of The Imp delves into such subjects as Chris Ware's childhood and lack of father figure, theoretical questions concerning the Nature of Art, and Mr. Ware's obsession with ragtime music and how it can be directly correlated to his visual work. There are entire sidebar articles nestled within concerning Mr. Ware and robots, a first-hand guide to the real Victorian images the artist parodies, and a history of fake ads in the comic medium. The author even goes as far as acknowledging the various criticisms of Mr. Ware's work over the years; but instead of explaining them away, Mr. Raeburn actually admits their validity as an attempt to show that the artist's limitations are actually a boon to his work, not a detriment.

Dan Raeburn, like the majority of zine and comic producers, has an almost frustrating level of modesty about himself, and The Imp reflects the ideal that it is not the author's opinions which are important but merely the subject matter at hand. (Indeed, I have met Mr. Raeburn at several events about town now, and compliments of his publication are always met with an "aw shucks" smile and an attitude of sincere surprise that anyone besides himself would enjoy his work.) It is a very Midwestern way to be -- which of course is why so much of the best underground literature over the years has come from Chicago or from people raised on its blue-collar principles. The fact of the matter is that The Imp would be just another forgotten, rambling rant of a zine if it was not specifically for Daniel Raeburn, a man whose ability to add 2 and 2 together to equal 168 far surpasses almost all others currently working in the "alternative press." Reading his books, one is almost tempted to slap the author around, reminding him that his cognitive and deductive skills as a writer could be effectively applied to a venue with a much larger exposure than the slip-shod world of self-published magazines. At the same time, one wishes to hide this fact from him; at the rate he is going, Mr. Raeburn will come to this conclusion on his own sooner than later, leaving us readers with a void at our comic book shops we will sorely miss.

Ultimately The Imp is not just an entertaining and intelligent endeavor but a noble one as well, a sincere attempt to add historical significance to a medium sorely devoid of one. Comic books have always been a subversive, underground world, and for every Robert Crumb who stands the test of time there are a hundred other geniuses who die an obscure and never-recognized death. (The first two issues of The Imp have focused respectively on Daniel Clowes, creator of the perennially-underground Eightball, and controversial Christian pamphleteer Jack Chick. Issue #4, Mr. Raeburn promises us, will be devoted entirely to contemporary Mexican "sex and death" comics.) Recording and critiquing underground culture for posterity's sake is very much an unappreciated labor of love, and we tend to pity the poor bastards who choose to do such a thing even as we respect them for the effort. Thank God for us that Mr. Raeburn not only elects to champion the unsung heroes of our current arts community but that he does it in a strictly non-academic and entertaining way that allows us to be a part of the fun. The world of comics -- and our world in general -- would be a little more empty without The Imp.

Copyright 2000, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved.