Image Comics brings you a graphic novel about a comic artist’s son who’s been struggling through his life and brings you an unforgettable journey with his father which is Public Domain on its first volume. 
It’s been a while since I reviewed a comedy genre comic other than some sci-fi comic with some of the strangest acronyms, or any other humorous series that I’ve come across. But this one takes into a different level of life where a comic artist’s son is going through a phase, where his father was a popular comic artist. The comic is created by Chip Zdarsky or Steve Murray, he’s a Canadian comic book artist who used to work for the National post for over a decade until 2014, as an illustrator and a humorist, he created a column called “Extremely Bad Advice” which is life advice book or something. Then he uses the pen name Chip Zdarksy to create comics such as Prison Funnies and Monster Cops, and he has collaborated with some other comics including Marvel and DC Comics.
The front cover shows nothing more than a mask being torn apart on the front page. And the rest shows one of the comic panels of the main character getting his shit together. There’s not much to say, except that you’re wondering why some superhero mask is torn apart like paper. The story can be tedious with all the superhero comic ranting and stuff that everyone doesn’t give a crap about, that’s all I can say.
The story starts with the usual subway train where every other poster is all the same just like every MTA subway train, showing some superhero movie. What’s really funny is the second panel when the creator added the “Do not hold the doors” sign with a pose of a man holding the doors while the main character himself is posing like that, and the main character looks like Chip himself alright, except that he’s wearing glasses. However, there’s not much love for the main character because everyone even a drug addict is talking shit about him, the comics that his dad created, and everything. It’s complicated, but I guess that’s how life is, in the world of making comics.
So the plot is like someone is making a movie about a superhero, who originally created a superhero comic book series which is Syd Dallas. He created his comic series, The Domain for decades, and right now he’s an old man. His son works at a National Global newspaper company which is referenced to Chip’s other job at the National Post, everyone rants about his father’s comic overwriting some stupid article about his movie, and days after that, a friend of Syd orders her assistant to find some old scripts at his basement and found one of some old paper works that claim that Syd owns “The Domain” because he’s the creator. But still, I don’t know what the problem is, whether everyone in sight is full of assholes or people picking on his sons over some absurd thing that he’s going through. Even when he discussed the contract, they think that the contract is real, which is more of business talk about owning the comic series, and then he started to open a new studio called Dallas comics with the help of his friends, family, and some of the community, fans who loved The Domain. That truly is an unforgettable journey that any dreamer would go through. In fact, I already am living up to my dream of making comics and reviewing comics at my own personal studio, made with my hard work, blood, and sweat.
The last scene that I saw of the Dallas Comic studios interior, is a somewhat very office, you almost feel like you’re in the office of some branded corporation. But imagine, owning a studio from something like that would be a dream come true for comic artists. However right before that happened, Syd had a basement studio where he can work on his comics, but after all that trouble with the help of his friends, he and his family get a new studio for themselves. I can’t think of any other studio that is more modern. I’ve seen some art studios during the time when my illustrator teacher took everyone, her students to see her friends’ studios where they had rented and shared. At first, when I read this comic, it was very rare that some of the New Yorkers on that comic are still being assholes, but on the next pages when it shows his artist studio, it just blew me away to know that every younger and older comic artist has someplace to start. However no matter what kind of place you’re in to have your workspace, you’ll be comfortable enough to make comics no matter how old you are, and you’ll never lose your artistic spirit.
The story is wonderful the fact that this is even a story, to begin with. Although, I can’t even call this a “humorous” comic because what you’re reading is some sort of a heartfelt story of the person who looked like the creator himself, and helped his father to keep the dream alive. However, making comics can be exciting, but it takes an amount of time to make something like that because most of them are doing those for their dreams, although it’s very drastic to take a lot of time to complete a chapter or issue and to spread the word at the end of the day. Just any other older creators out there doing their best for getting their word out there for their work so far, and how important it is to read their comics. It’s just like this comic here, no matter how well you’re going through the life of making comics, your creative spirit will never die. If you ever want to experience learning something through a book, then this comic is for you.
Newsdesk