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Classic Comic Compendium: MOTHER PANIC – VOLUME 1 – A WORK IN PROGRESS

An interesting take on the celebrity-turned-vigilante format.

12/09/2024 11:00 am

John Workman is one of my favourite letterers. His work on The Mighty Thor during Walter Simonson’s run is probably one of the first times that I actually noticed and appreciated the craft of lettering. I saw his work as something different than many of the other letterers working on comics. Giving that I was a kid, I probably couldn’t articulate why it stood out, but in hindsight I think I’ve figured it out.

All letterers have to work with the layout and space on a page, so they all do this to an extent, however, with Workman’s word balloons, narration boxes, and sound effects, they always felt like a deliberate part of the design of the page. The way his word balloons and narration boxes often fall across a gutter. The way sound effects and unique word balloons work with the art. They always feel intentional, rather than incidental.

And he brought that wonderful design sense to one of the books for DC’s Young Animal.

“What nasty little thing did you see?”

Although, even with Workman’s letters, of the original four Young Animal titles, there was something about Mother Panic that set it apart. The first volume, A Work in Progress, by Jody Houser, Tommy Lee Edwards, Shawn Crystal, Jean-Francois Beaulieu, and Workman introduced us to Violet Paige. A character that Gerard Way described in the afterword to the first collection as a kind of riff on what someone like Batman would look like if forged in modern society. A somewhat brutal vigilante behind the mask and hot mess of a celebrity outside of it. Also in Gotham, but wearing a white costume.

It wasn’t just that this book fell under the shadow of the bat (and had an equally intriguing back-up feature in Gotham Radio from Jim Krueger, Phil Hester, and co. that evoked Oliver Stone’s Talk Radio). The terse dialogue and thorough introspection in the narration from Jody Houser gave a compelling dichotomy to Violet Paige’s character. The messed up family dynamics or the boarding school that experimented on kids, unwanted or otherwise. It was also that feel and look given to the book at the onset by Tommy Lee Edwards artwork.

Edwards has a wonderful, moody, scratchy style that I almost always want to describe as a “dark Simonson”. It’s much more than that, of course, with an impressive use of thick outlines, spotting blacks, and scratchy shadows to give the world Edwards is manifesting a gritty, lived-in feel. It’s interesting when it comes to depicting Mother Panic herself as the thick, blocky shadows disappear leaving the outline and details. Ultimately making the white of her costume and thereby the character stand out against the darkness. With him also employing a limited, largely blue and purple, colour scheme to his art.

The book also takes the structure of being told in three-issue arcs. Each arc with a rotating artist, here with Shawn Crystal and Jean-Francois Beaulieu taking over line art and colour duties for the second arc. Crystal’s style is a bit more exaggerated than Edwards’, more angular, giving a different twisted flavour to the Gather House arc. Though Beaulieu’s colours continue the scheme lain out in the first arc and everything is tied together through Workman’s impressive letters.

“Beyond beauty, beyond perfection, there lies only horror.”

Outside of Doom Patrol, of all of the Young Animal books, this is one that I would have expected to have had a longer life. Possibly even outside the imprint. Though post the Milk Wars crossover, there were some time-related changes that may have made things weird. It was because of the setting in Gotham, the ties to the Bat family, and the darker aspects that set it apart from the more weird heroes ideology that I thought it might have legs.

But, it was still good while it lasted. Mother Panic – Volume 1: A Work in Progress by Houser, Edwards, Crystal, Beaulieu, and Workman is an interesting take on the celebrity turned vigilante formula. With an intriguing twist on the tragic backstory, both in the relative orphaning and in the path towards abilities, and an eccentric cast of supporting characters. And, damn, did the design of the book look good.