In “Permanent Press,” Luke strays in and out of an artistic funk as his anthropomorphic shadow taunts him while he shrinks into a mouse trying to make some comics. In the book, he manages to make two comics, complete with their own characters, themes, and visual language: “The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Guide” and “The Big and Small.” The ‘Luke’ in the pages of the book is different to Luke Healy, the author of the book, who manages a third comic of self-effacing metatext as unifying material for Luke’s comics.
Cover by Luke HealyWritten & Illustrated by Luke Healy
Luke is depressed, afflicted by a severe case of metaphoritis and deadlines that don’t really exist. Afraid of being forgotten by the comics community and unable to find motivation in anything besides jealousy, he sets out to create an award-winning comic that will remedy all of his problems.
Exploring themes of art and existence through worlds of worlds and numbers, Luke Healy’s new graphic novel includes the Ignatz and Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize nominated story, ‘The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion.’
In the hands of other creators, the self-referential parts of “Permanent Press” could feel masturbatory and indulgent and Healy knows this. Rather than putting the Struggling Artist and His Process on some kind of pedestal, the fictionalised Luke is a parody of the self-important artist. Luke swings between being determined he is a genius, and being determined he is irrelevant. The book’s opening shows Luke in bed looking at a website titled “Best Comics 2017,” with the headline “Not Luke’s comics, lol.” Luke repeatedly uses the phrase, ‘Woe is me,’ he gets lost in a hedge maze with his father, and goes to nature ‘to find himself.’ Healy is knowingly playing with the tropes of the self-revering artist, and poking fun at the pretence of it.
But Healy also seems to revel in things that would often come across as pretentious. In the ‘Luke’ sequences the meta stuff is self-deprecating, self-aware jokes, whereas in “The Unofficial Cuckoo’s Nest Study Companion,” Healy uses metatext and formal experimentation in a more dramatic narrative. I think this still works in “Cuckoo’s Nest.” Things only become pretentious when the experimentation stops serving the story, and here it all feels like it is building towards a larger picture.
I had read “Cuckoo’s Nest” before. Last year, on an unreasonably hot day, while drinking an unreasonably expensive pint of craft beer, I picked up a copy of “Cuckoo’s Nest” as a zine from Healy’s table at ELCAF. Healy told me it was the best thing he’d ever made and when I got round to reading it, I loved it. Reading it again in the context of “Permanent Press” it felt like it had a little less impact; perhaps because I knew what to expect more or perhaps because it is wedged in the middle of a larger book. If it is the former of those two, then you should stop reading, because I’m about to tell you what to expect and that could lessen your experience.
The story of “Cuckoo’s Nest” follows Robin Huang, a theatre director trying to adapt a novel seemingly about nothing, ‘The Cuckoo’s Nest’ into a play as ‘you, in the role of A. Reader, pay your part by turning to the first, and then all subsequent pages, while periodically making thoughtful humming sounds with your mouth.’ Again with this quote, from the bottom of the first page, Healy mocks the use of meta-elements but also uses them. Across the story, connections between characters and settings are slowly teased out, revealing a tapestry of connections and interplaying passions.
Each page of “Cuckoo’s Nest” is split into quarters, with each quarter acting like its own page; split into four panels itself. This unconventional layout choice, along with square speech bubbles, integration of photographs, and occasional slips into prose or script, gives “Cuckoo’s Nest” its own visual language separate from the rest of “Permanent Press.”
The other sections have their own style and grammar too. The Luke sections are simple six panel grids without panel borders. Meanwhile the pages “The Big and Small,” the story of differently sized neighbours Mo and Amir and their contrasting and interlocking lives, always has this wide gutter through the middle of the page. Later in the book, these clear identities allow Healy to slip between Luke’s mousey imposter syndrome and Mo and Amir’s diminutive and immense story. This slippage helps the book to feel like a unified, consistent piece, rather than three parts shoddily sewn together.
Having said that, the intrusion of Luke onto Mo and Amir lessens the impact of “The Big and Small.” Where “Cuckoo’s Nest” can stand uninterrupted, this story isn’t given its own space to run its course. The interruptions are wonderfully funny, but sometimes they feel like they are getting in the way of “The Big and Small” being able to breathe freely. Even the ending is a little cut short. We’re given just enough to get to know Mo and Amir, and just enough of a hint as to where their story goes after its end on the page. And maybe that’s fine, the constrained room means we have to build up these characters through the hints and subtleties Healy gives us. Just enough might be all you need. Across both stories, Healy’s plotting is incredibly tight; he doesn’t put anything on the page that isn’t important. “Cuckoo’s Nest” has a lot more moving parts to keep track of, it needs the space and attention. “The Big and Small” is simple in comparison, it is just these two neighbours and their relationship.
“Permanent Press” is a self-aware and funny take on creation and relationships. As Luke describes his work in a hubristic moment in the book, ‘it examines themes inherent to the medium. It’s personal, it’s funny, it’s formally ambitious. It blurs the lines between comics and prose, which is arbitrary anyway.’ While in the book this is framed as part of an exaggerated swing between the artist feeling he’s a genius and a fraud, it is also true. Healy innovates and pushes the boundaries of comics while mocking those that put too much weight in just deconstruction, and manages to keep the book personal, funny and emotional.
