Rip Haywire, the sometimes-square-jawed hero of the strip
named after him, commits deeds of derring-do in the manner of Olde Timey
adventure strip heroes but at the rate of one adventure a week instead of one
lasting six months in the mode of yore. Rip
Haywire is one of the strips picked up by United Media through the offices
of its (now former) acquisitions editor, Ted Rall, who sought to revitalize
newspaper comic strips by injecting off-beat comedy from cartoonists who
normally ply the waters of the alternative press or waft about on the Web.
Concocted by Dan Thompson and launched January 5 this year, strip rehearses the
adventures of the eponymous Rip (great name), a soldier of fortune (an
unabashed mercenary, it develops) in the classic mold, “who lives for danger,”
accompanied on his travails by his cowardly dog, TNT, and his “venomous
ex-girlfriend Cobra,” who, like her former beau, is rendered in geometric
visual shorthand — simple lines, simple shapes. Rall found the artwork “stunning”
and extolled the strip’s appeals: “Blending melodrama with deadpan humor, Rip Haywire is not only a loving update
of thrilling golden-age comics like Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates, but is also a witty satire of the action
genre in general. Thompson’s masterpiece spoofs all manner of macho icons from
action movie heroes like Schwrzenegger to tv shows like ‘24.’ I was instantly
hooked,” he concludes.
And so was
I when I read a brief description of the strip as a silly send-up of the
adventure strip genre. But I was put off
somewhat at first by what seemed to be confused story lines. Each daily
installment blurted out a fragment of a story but seemed to abandon plot
whenever a joke demanded it. Eventually, however, I figured out Thompson’s
contrivance. Plot and continuity are of no concern to him: his objective is to
arrive at a punchline that ribs adventure strips and action heroes, and “story”
in this context serves merely as a kind of motif, the atmosphere in which such
jokes might be made. “Atmosphere” requires nothing resembling a story.
Atmosphere is the trappings, the accouterments of action and adventure. To this
end, Thompson gives us a couple of panels to establish appropriately exciting
atmospherics, and then he springs the joke. The jokes are sometimes lame, and
too many of them depend upon TNT and his addiction to kibbles and bits. Dogs
aren’t Thompson’s satiric target — are they? But it’s fun to hear the rattle of
tiny tin drums and the blat of a bugle calling us to arms and adventure once
more on the funnies page.
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