Boom! Box continues their trend of animated and energetic miniseries, with “Tyson Hesse’s Diesel.” Though it’s more compact than the typical Boom! Box offering, it still packs plenty of punch and shows how a strong storyteller can make any material feel fresh and exciting.
Written and Illustrated by Tyson Hesse
What’s to Love: We’ve been big fans of Tyson Hesse ever since we first discovered his webcomic Boxer Hockey. After cover stints on Adventure Time and Bravest Warriors, we put him to the test with the tricky mixed-media art style of The Amazing World of Gumball and he just crushed it. Now, we’re excited to be working with him on his first original series, a coming-of-age story with a cool fantasy airship twist that fans of Tank Girl, Rocket Girl, or Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle are sure to enjoy!What It Is: Diandra Diesel isn’t very good at anything. The daughter of the late Tungston Diesel, she has yet to live up to her father’s great reputation. Her childhood rival has inherited control of her family’s airship and left Diandra the only job she’s qualified for: picking up the trash. But all that changes when a mysterious flying engine crashes into Diesel’s life and takes her on a journey through the skies.
On paper, Tyson Hesse’s “Diesel” might seem to derive from a lot of what came before. Even the solicit is none too quick to make comparisons to Tank Girl, Rocket Girl, and the worlds of Hayao Miyazaki. Superficially flipping through it provides plenty of manga-style steampunk images, with lots of gears and smoke and crazy creatures filling out the back of the frame. It’s evident Hesse grew up reading and/or watching a lot of Japanese and American cartoons because the aesthetic of the book favors simpler, easy-to-process designs over intricate work. This works better, I think — and I also think Boom! Studios realizes this, since their company aesthetic seems to favor an animated approach — because the more intricate and complicated stuff would detract from the joy and excitement of this story. Because when you dive in and watch Hesse balance the humor, the wonder, and the excitement of the narrative, it’s easy to be caught up in this book’s unique life.
Dee Diesel is a mechanic on this airship city called Peacetowne. She’s also the heir to the whole thing: long ago, her father conceived and created this magnificent flying metropolis, and it was apparently a progressive and wonderful time for everyone involved. Since then, her dad has died, the majority of her family has gone off on some exodus, and Peacetowne has been entrusted to Captain Wells (whose father also helped develop the machine) until Diesel turns 18 and inherits everything. The only problem is, Diesel’s not particularly good at anything. Pretty much anything she touches has a tendency to explode.
Hesse embraces this science fantasy genre, and remixes these elements to make it his own. “Diesel” is engaging and entertaining, with plenty of fun energy and intrigue running throughout its pages (and that’s even before the mysterious engine falls from the sky, setting the rest of the plot into motion). It’s an all-ages book with an enduring character at its center — curious but incompetent, good-hearted but prone to accidents, funny but also a bit of a brat: overall, someone you’d want to follow along with. He keeps the focus narrowed, introducing a handful of character and giving them enough understandable driving motivations, but I think you can feel they’ll all have a role to play as the story develops further.
Despite the mechanical-whimsy/manga art style, “Diesel” reminds me a lot more of the old school Disney animated movies, where there’s an overarching plot and narrative, but there’s also a push to get as many jokes and gag out of any given situation as possible. Hesse balances between wordplay, punchlines, sight gags, and physical humor, and the tension and release of the jokes reads effortlessly. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise: Hesse cut his teeth on webcomics, more specifically web strips, so there’s also a confidence in his approach to the material. Gone are the questionable and problematic jokes of early “Boxer Hockey” posts, replaced with gags that are relevant to the story action, which makes them all the more hysterical. His work and experience on “Adventure Time” and “Gumball” has only helped make him a more effective storyteller.
Continued belowHe also colors the book, with the assistance of Mariel Cartwright, favoring this atmospheric palette that hints at that manga-steampunk style while not entirely being that manga-steampunk style. This world feels old and used, like things have broken down and been replaced or fixed about a dozen times, and you buy that Peacetowne can exist. And his control of shadows and lighting — subtle and clever — should also be worth noting.
“Diesel” might be the first book on this scale that Tyson Hesse has produced. Yes, he’s been working for ages — there’s his “Boxer Hockey,” along with plenty of licensed work on “Sonic” and Gumball” — but this book, in print, from a rapidly growing publisher, feels like a big deal. Hesse juggles the excitement and experimental flair of someone fresh into comics with the experience and assurance of someone who’s had experience figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and who’s confident in the material. Under the guidance of the increasingly more expert and sharp Shannon Watters, he’s creating something that reads far more assuredly and effectively and feels like it could be huge.
Final Verdict: 8.3 – Tyson Hesse conjures a fantastic world you want to keep returning to.
