Michael C. Martin's
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Breaking the fourth wall is a technique from theater that got imported into comic strips. When a comic strip breaks the fourth wall, the characters exhibit knowledge that they are in a comic strip. This is hard to do well, especially if you're trying to be dramatic and need to maintain the suspension of disbelief. Fortunately, comic strips don't have to do either one of those, and vast numbers of strips break the fourth wall routinely or as a running gag. Of all the strips that do this, though, Frank "Damonk" Cormier's FRAMED!!! stands far above the rest. Framed's high concept claims to be "a variety of characters trapped in a G-Rated comic strip" - however, the characters' reactions to this probably rate the strip PG at least, and probably PG-13. The supporting cast is wide-ranging, including a rather impressive array of actual cartoonists (Damonk himself plays a fairly major role, and keeps getting trapped in his own strip; when this happens, his evil twin "not Damonk" fills in for him on the boards, does crossover projects, and the like. In addition to this unbounded approach to the comic's scope and writing, Damonk is aggressively experimental with his comic designs. You may need to do some horizontal scrolling on some strips, or even describe a gigantic spiral (complete with forks for choices, albeit in a way more coherent and less drastic than Scott McCloud's Choose Your Own Carl). Framed's greatest triumph is not in its unusual layout, nor in its often brilliant writing/sight/layout gags, but instead in the fact that despite the continuous violations of normal life and common sense, you find yourself playing along - willing to try to work out the logic behind this comic universe that he has created for you. It is this shift - and its success - that make Framed!!! worth a look. |