Welcome to Postal Notes, a critical read through of the series “Postal.” This series of columns will be done in a mixture of essays and observations of various lengths. I will be using the seven core trade paperbacks that collect issues #1-25 and the various one shots for a total of 28 issues overall. In this column we’ll be working through the sixth trade, issues #21-24. The first four issues of “Postal” are on Comixology Unlimited.
Possibilities
The sixth volume of “Postal” is effectively the conclusion to the main arc of the series. The seventh volume, collecting issue #25 and a pair of one shots, are functionally epilogues. The series is headed towards an inevitable conclusion, a final showdown with Isaac, and yet the opening issue is so full of possibilities for Mark and Maggie. They took a major step at the conclusion of the previous collection and now many paths lay before them.
They’re still figuring out the contours to what it is they are to one another, but their diner scene is just kind of adorable and fun in a way this comic rarely is. The creative team have Mark make an unintentional joke, as Maggie laments the lack of maneuverability Mark offers to move an give her more space. Goodhart actually compresses the distance between them by switching to an over the shoulder perspective of Maggie, it creates clear fore-mid-back ground, but the perceivable distance between those spaces is compressed and nebulous the opposite of the previous panel.
Mark has a question for Maggie, will she help him steal some of his Mother’s FBI protection gold and leave Eden with him. Goodhart beautifully captures the shock and puzzlement at this request on Maggie’s face. Asking to help screw over the Mayor, rip off the FBI, and break out like some Natural Born Killers, is on a different level from the expected move in question. It’s a little scene, three pages, but is filled with such potential for something different.
Later on in the collection, there is a brief scene where Mark imagines a different life with Maggie through art. It’s beautiful, haunting, page that will be discussed further in the next addition of this feature.
These potentials are contrasted with what Laura is up to in the issue. As we see how she and Schultz became business partners and how that partnership ended. Unbeknownst to Mark and Maggie, these actions help to shut down most of their potential adventures.
The start of “Postal” volume 6 is filled with such possibilities, but it’s all leading to one inevitable showdown. An inevitability that doesn’t change how each time I’ve read that three page scene those roads less taken don’t spur the imagination. Especially with what is currently happening in “Postal: Deliverance.”
The Showdown: Time & Space
On first pass it can feel like something is lacking in the final showdown with Isaac. After 23 issues of maneuvering, 506 pages in total, it is over in just 3 pages. Things do tend to end quickly when guns are involved; this battle was won in three shots – very efficient. Efficient is how I’d describe issues #24 as writer Bryan Hill maximizes the tension against the limited page budget of a standard floppy. “Postal” #24 is an example of using non-linear structure to ratchet up the tension and transform 3 pages to feel like they last the entire issue.
The tension begins Page 1 Panel 1 as Hill begins the issue en media res and readers are greeted with the image of Dallas’ corpse, we never do find out if Mark went back to visit him. Subsequent panels and pages reveal Issac and Laura in a stand off in the middle of Eden, with Mark as a hostage. Things likely could’ve jumped back after that tease, instead the present sequence climaxes with Laura repeatedly shouting “What do you want?” The question everyone has been asking this entire series.
The art team, Issac Goodhart and K. Michael Russell, play an interesting role in this sequence as their art doesn’t try to inflate the tension. There is a bit of mystery early as Goodhart blocks characters out as silhouettes, but that serves the Laura reveal in the following panel. His paneling and use of perspective are fairly tame, as it clearly lays out the environment for the reader. K. Michael Russell’s color palette is soothing, there is a serene quality to how he follows the natural lighting that creates these little highlights on the figures. The palette tells the reader it is a nice spring to summer morning, even if all the guns bring up the opposite feeling.
Continued belowOver the next set of pages we see how they all go to this point, until we begin again. The page were readers catch back up is a bit cumbersome in how it ties back into what we’ve previously seen. We get a basic restating of the opening scene, and than with the final panel Laura is revealed to be speaking at Bremble!?! The page doesn’t cleanly tie back to the start of the issue, with a lack of “what do you want?” It doesn’t que the reader that her performance was more for Bremble than it was Isaac. Which makes the following page, where Bremble takes out Isaac’s other followers, save for Ava feel sudden, jarring, and plainly confusing. Which is perfect for placing readers in the mindset of Isaac as everything comes crashing down and it hurts inside. As a reader and something that is supported by what we’ve previously seen it’s a bit rough. Goodhart does an excellent job of capturing the moment of this face-heel and literal turn, using the muzzle flash to draw the readers eye to the exploding craniums. The center panel is a perfect snapshot of everything in the middle of the moment. Which makes the final panel between Bremble and Eva, guns drawn, land with a hard thud.
The final page of this three page finale is an example of how to make an instant an eternity and show everything happening at the same time. Of course it involves a 9 panel grid, but Goodhart and Hill show the versatility of this well known grid. You can read the page left to right, with each panel showing an actors move in the context of the others. Or, you could read it vertically as three strips. The first strip is Laura’s triumph over Issac. The middle is that stand off between Bremble and Ava, will these wana be star crossed lovers kill each other or not? The right most column is all about capturing Issac’s shocked realization. He didn’t see this or the butt of that shotgun coming.
Isaac’s scheming is undone in quick and brutal fashion. The creative team do a fantastic job of extending that quick brutality and use it to build an issue of tension as everything comes to a head and people finally make decisions. Bremble made his decision, to become someone else. Isaac is brought down because the ex-wife he abused stopped believing in his divinity or devilry and saw him for the embittered, lonely, old man he was. There was a bit of a hiccup in this issue, but structurally it was the right call to tell this story. “Postal” isn’t “Dragon Ball” you can’t have Mark fight Isaac for 30 chapters
Desire
Desire is the key to everything in the world of “Postal.” It’s like knowing someone’s true name. If you know what they want you can control them, by giving it to them or tempting them with it. Eden, WY is held together in some part by the fear of Laura Shiffron, but she also gives the residents what they want: protection from a world they have chosen to leave. So what did the cast of “Postal” want?
Isaac Shiffron: For all his pretensions toward divinity and prophecy once you understand what it is he wants, it shatters the performance. Yes, he likely wouldn’t mind wrecking terrible vengeance upon Eden in general, but that is just the means. His end goal is less grandiose and mustache twirling supervillainy, Isaac Shiffron just wants to spend time with his son! A son he hates, views as a failure, effeminate, and so on, but that loathing is met with an equal amount of twisted love and parental longing. All of his actions are so he can have is walk in the woods with Mark.
Once you see Isaac by what he wants, this would be dragon is transformed into a sad old man in desperate need for familial companionship. Instead of inspiring awe and freight, his devilish mask is shattered. His want is just so human and understandable, it almost makes you feel pity for this terribly mean man. It gives the character a much needed emotional hook and ‘why’ to it all, instead of holding him at arm’s length as a simple villain. His desire is his undoing, it made him too trusting and lacking patience in ways the old Isaac would’ve laughed at. The desire was controlling him not the other way around. His final fate will be discussed in Postal Notes Vol. 7.
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Agent Bremble: The creative team walk a fine line between being clever and too clever for their own good with former FBI Agent Christopher Bremble. As a function in the narrative, Hill did a good job of both drawing parallels between him and Mark and using him as the mechanism to explore the history of Eden. His switching sides is sudden and decisive in a way that can read as out of left field, except, if you were paying attention: Bremble never really said what it was he wanted. Throughout the run he’s been something of a cipher, a character singularly driven to find Eden for nebulous reasons. The use of brief flashbacks to his time in Afghanistan is a smart trick. These sequences are presented and understood by the reader one way, but they mean something different to Bremble a meaning we don’t understand until he’s made his choice. In a series that was defined early on by the use of internal monologue, the treatment of Bremble is a good example of how you can use that interior against the reader. Beyond those flashbacks, most of our understanding of his character is derived from people (like Isaac, Mark, Ava, Schultz) talking about him and defining him. His actions are understood by the antagonistic positioning he operated in. These decisions make it so that the reader thinks they understand him, but as with Mark and Isaac, they’re likely wrong.
For his part the creative team have Bremble be upfront multiple times about how he isn’t a True Believer with Isaac and clearly running his own angle. Which makes his sudden alignment shift no less shocking, but helps to earn the moment when he is finally honest about what he desires: to no longer be Christopher Bremble, he rather be Adam with Eve. Isaac and Mark’s reads of him weren’t even that far off. The world of institutional justice had failed him and it did not respect his ideals. Where Isaac faltered was thinking this failure would radicalize him to his cause. Mark was wrong in thinking there would be no reasoning with him. Bremble was very reasonable, he just wanted he same deal as everyone else. That is a chance to start over and try “on the skin of new lives” as Bryan Hill once described Eden.
Maggie: In the last collection, Mark charged Maggie with not knowing what she really wanted. A similar crisis occurs as she waffles with Mark between leaving Eden with the gold or staying and helping Laura in her final confrontation with Isaac. In the end it is Mark who she cares about, which isn’t to say she is totally subservient to him as we see in #25. The creative team beautifully que this into the reader as Maggie wakes up at the start of the issue wondering what to do, before choosing to get back in bed with Mark. Their support is what makes them work together, and in the end she defaults to ensuring that.
Universal Bleed Vol 2: Swing Edition
I’ve read “Postal” at least 5 times now because of this feature. It was only recently that I noticed this little easter egg as Sheiff Magnum enjoys another new issues of Classy Broads and the bleed from the Sejic-verse into the Edenverse continues. This time Isaac Goodhart pays homage to Linda Sejic’s cover to “Swing” Vol 1. I’m not sure if the cover for volume 1 had been revealed yet, “Postal” #22 came out September 6, 2017 “Swing” on May 30, 2018. I know “Swing” was first announced back at WonderCon in 2016.
Either way “Swing” is co-written by Matt Hawkins and Jenni Cheung with art by Linda Sejic. It follows Cathy and Dan as they try to reignite the physical spark in their relationship after a whirlwind courtship, two kids, and 8 years of marriage. “Swing” takes place in the same fictional universe as “Sunstone” and “Blood Stain,” Dan is one of Vlad and Lisa’s guildmates in not-Guild Wars 2. “Swing” is an overall good read and you should read Multiversity’s review of it HERE. Cathy and Dan’s adventures continue in “Swing” volume 2 due out mid-September 2019.
Continued belowK. Michael Russel Process Videos
K. Michael Russel did a pair of videos for the covers of #24.
“Postal” #24-a Cover
Postal #24 Time Lapse Video
