Chapbook odyssey

by JULIET WATERS

If you’ve been to the Musée d’Art Contemporain lately, you’ve probably seen the recently acquired sculpture of an extension cord. Part of the mystery of this piece is figuring out the difference between this extension cord, artfully thrown on the floor of a multi-million dollar building (or so it would seem), and the extension cord you recently tripped over in your kitchen. To figure this out (art spoiler ahead) you have to get down on the floor to see that the extension cord is painstakingly carved out of wood.

There you were, thinking a visit to the museum would be just the thing to nudge you out of mundane reality. And here you are, ass in the air, trying to figure out an extension cord. The real difference? In your kitchen, I’m guessing, strangers aren’t usually mulling around watching you.

The Back of the Line, a chapbook collaboration between writer Jeff Parker and artist William Powhida, is kind of like the extension cord, if it were plugged in. A few weekends ago, at Blue Metropolis, Parker handed me a review copy. Normally, I’d give something like this a look-over before throwing it in the clutter of chapbooks I keep on hand for those rare times I need to extend my reading. But the look-over soon turned into a couple of hours caught up in an insanely dark comi-tragedy, puzzling over the difference between a chapbook, and something closer to fine art masquerading as a chapbook.

A hand-printed chapbook, I might add. Or rather, a published replica of a hand-printed chapbook, with detailed pencil drawings, doodles and coffee stains. If you go to the publisher at www.decodeinc.com, you can buy an original drawing and get a signed “high-octane” edition for $750. Sadly, the portrait of Epi, the sacrificial bird murdered in the first chapter by anti-hero James Wreck, has been sold. Fortunately, as I write this, you can still acquire a lovely illustration of a label from Wreck’s “Straight up Seeing Shit Bourbon Whiskey.”

There’s also a “supercharged edition” that retails for $2,500 and comes with original art that includes a choice of: the death threat stuck to James’s door with a steak knife, a detailed map of James’s Night Out (the night after the one where he seems to have pissed on his ex-girlfriend’s mother’s head while sleepwalking) and a deceptively inspired graphite sketch of a sheet of Downy fabric softener, a memento from a failed bar/Laundromat business. Mere signed or “premium” editions are selling for $125.

Of course, I’m still kicking myself for not getting my review copy signed. Weirdly, however, it turns out I have almost the exact same handwriting as Wreck (as evidenced by the many forms he is forced to fill out, from an application for a girlfriend to an affidavit of responsibility for phone sex fraud). So, I may simply buy up a bunch of ordinary editions at $25 and auction them as forged signature editions. Should I be prosecuted, I will defend this as an act of thematic integrity. I will argue that deep in his graphite-poisoned and illustrated heart, Wreck is something of a modern day pirate. Sure he’s fictional, but I’m certain he’d want me to do this. And it’s certainly what any of the hard-hearted female antagonists that populate this collection would do.

Set in the seedier streets of Woodville, Florida, The Back of the Line tells the story of Wreck and V., sidekick and narrator, as they navigate the dark and stormy dangers of their catastrophically incompetent minds. What floats this story way above the fray of your average slacker odyssey is the high level of craft, not just in the artwork, but in the storytelling as well. Epi, the doomed Cockatiel, will rise and transform herself, phoenix-like, to torment the bird killer, James. Likewise, Parker’s story shifts into surreal scraps of life, intensified by the very real fears of artistic or mental failure. It’s Withnail and I doodled and drafted on an exercise book. Well worth the price, and probably much more.