In “Bad Gateway,” the friend group of Megg, Mogg and Owl are in freefall. Their psyches are bare, and their friendships are all fracturing.
Written and Illustrated by Simon HanselmannCover by Simon HanselmannOwl is gone, Werewolf Jones has moved in, and everything as Megg and Mogg know it begins to fall apart. Hanselmann’s comic premise of his previous graphic novels ― eternally stoned, slacker roommates ― stretches at the seams as his characters reflect the psychological toll that their years of unsustainable, determined insouciance and self-medication has inflicted.
“Megg, Mogg & Owl” is not a long running comic, which makes it all the more impressive how it fast it has rocketed to the top of everyone’s to-read list. It’s the “Buddy Does Seattle” of the 2010s, capturing the life and despair of a certain set of people. Even if you aren’t living this life, and I hope you aren’t, it’s a story of lost friends who’ve never escaped their original damage.
“Megg, Mogg & Owl” began as a very episodic comic about a 20-something group of friends who were living a life of hazy despair and suburban ennui. It’s the lowest life possible without being homeless or too hungry. Their world is one where they can abuse drugs, food, each other, and themselves, all endlessly and without consequences. They’re a lot like the gang on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. This comic stakes its ground early when the gang pretending to rape Owl, the least-liked member of their group, for his birthday. But all was forgotten, and life moved on.
At least, that’s how it started.
In reality no one recovers from drug abuse and violence and gets up the next morning perfectly reset, like an episode of a TV show. This comic was never episodic, that was only a trick being played on the audience. All the damage Megg, Mogg, and Owl (and Werewolf Jones and Booger) had experienced over the years had been accumulating, and the cracks in their souls were not healing.
Eventually, this gang wasn’t even able paper over their problems. The life of a 20-something drug abuser falls apart in their 30s, and the deep-seated mental health damage they were self-medicating against is exposed.
That’s what this comic is. Simon Hanselmann has broken down his cast of characters and shredded their ego. Owl was their safety net but he left at the end of the last book, “One More Year.” “Bad Gateway” opens with the story, “28 Days Later,” and Hanselmann immediately shows us how far their normally run-down home has sunk. It’s now filled with trash, holes, and Werewolf Jones, who lives a life of debauchery too far for his friends to follow. Their life careens from dreaming of getting free hand jobs by creating a fake arcade cabinet, to snorting spilled Amyl on the pavement in a mall parking lot. Even Booger understands how fragile Megg’s life is is, saying, “like, everyone’s trying to fuck Megg. she’s depressed, she’s vulnerable… I don’t want to feel like some kind of predator.”
Simon Hanselmann posted some photos of his artistic process on Twitter. When drawing the finished page, he draws the panels and dialog balloons first, and then the rest of the art. It smart that he focuses on his own strengths. No one has ever called this comic beautiful, and that’s the correct choice. This story and dialog with Alex Ross art would be a jarring anathema.
Hanselmann has improved his pure drawing skills over the years. Whether on purpose or accidental, the better drawn faces of all the characters make them appear older now. In the original Megahex they were simpler, younger, fresher, and had fewer double chins. Now we can see the shadows of the lines on their faces, and they appear to have grown up.
Hanselmann isn’t a master of a thousand subtle expressions, although he does a great job wringing everything he can out of Mogg’s cat expressions. Most of his drawing goes into variations of a frown, and he uses it well. His true mastery is in the pitch-perfect dialog and panels of excruciating silence.
In the last story of “Bad Gateway,” Megg leaves to see her mother, Amelie, for the first time in years. Hanselmann gives us a 25-page traumatic flashback during her flight. This story locks in the character of Amelie in our eyes, a semi-responsible single mother who treats Megg more as a friend that a daughter. That well-placed flashback means we’re as shocked as Megg is when we finally see Amelie in the present, as a worn out shadow of the woman we had just met. Even scarier, this could be Megg in a couple decades.
Megg’s eyes scream in the horror of the hard confrontations she’s about to be forced into. It’s a perfect cap on this entire graphic novel. Watching a parent losing the will or ability to take of themselves forces a child to take a hard jump in maturity. Megg steps into her mother’s car and sees how far she has fallen. “I’ve given up trying to keep it clean. What’s the point?” Amelie says. Megg is driving with her mother for two and half pages, and is immediately thrust in a world of depression, drug abuse, and suicide ideation.
Even more scary, it’s not a huge step from where the comic started.
