SAM ZABEL AND THE MAGIC PEN
Graphic Novel by Dylan Horrocks
222 7x10-inch pages, color
2014 Fantagraphics hardcover
$29.99
The Magic Pen of the title symbolizes the power of the imagination. It is an instrument that makes comic book pages live: alive, the people and adventures on those pages become, to the reader, real. That’s the premise at the heart of this book by New Zealander Horrocks. But we don’t find out about the pen and its properties until at least halfway through the book. At the beginning, we meet cartoonist Sam Zabel, who suddenly finds himself in the comic book King of Mars where he is surrounded by naked green women — surrounded and nearly raped. Next, he meets Evan Rice, the creator of The King of Mars, who tells Zabel how he acquired the Magic Pen from an old cartoonist named Joe Curtis.
After that, intelligible chronology fades pretty fast as Zabel and two female cohorts, guide Miki and geek Alice, imagine themselves in the pages of a succession of different comic books—pirate comics, jungle comics, funny animal comics—making philosophical observations as they journey through these imaginary worlds in which the cartoonist is God-king (i.e., the creator of the world and its governing force).
Later, Zabel meets a version of Lady Night (one of the characters he writes for). Discussing a comic book artist named Lou Goldman, Lady Night says: “Goldman dreamed of a world where things happened because they should. Where events unfolded with a planned, graceful elegance, in perfect harmony with the plot and its underlying themes. It is the dream of theology and myth. The dream of story. It is the greatest fantasy of all.”
To which Zabel responds: “I thought if I found the Magic Pen, maybe I could make something perfect. Something beautiful and gentle and kind...”
The Night Lady says: “All pens are magic, Sam. Every pencil and brush and finger dipped in paint—all of it is magic.”
Zabel: “But magic isn’t real. Stories aren’t real. Even this isn’t real...”
But there he is. Real or not, he lives, for the nonce, on this page.
In the sway of such introspective philosophizing, we pretty quickly lose track of whether we are in reality or fantasy. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Horrocks is making a statement about his craft and his profession, and he toys with it through the last half of the book, culminating in the exchange with Lady Night. At the end, Zabel seems to have overcome the cartoonists’ block, with which he was afflicted at the beginning.
If you dote on philosophical paradoxes, you’ll enjoy this book. I get lost too fast.
Horrocks’ drawing style is refreshingly simple, leaning slightly more to realism than to cartoony bigfoot. Clean and crisp and easy to follow. Good cartooning.