Multiplex

I like Gordon McAlpin’s Multiplex. The stories are pretty interesting and a majority of the characters are quite likable. Except, uh… the main character. I don’t know what it is, but main characters seem to be easier to hate than the others. I guess it’s just because we see more of them so it’s easier to get tired of their quirks. That and they tend to be a bit… middle of the road, personality-wise. I think it’s because they’re often meant as a viewpoint character for the audience to identify with, so they’re often not too interesting as a side-effect. The main character isn’t so much like that; he’s basically a self-righteous, opinionated dick. So… yeah. He’s basically me, in comic book form, and I’m starting to realize that I wouldn’t make for a character that would be easy to sympathize with. He’s smug, he’s arrogant, and the other characters are constantly reminding the audience that he’s actually a good guy. While, admittedly, he has a few good points, but they come up so rarely that I’m just constantly wondering why the other characters tolerate this douchebag.

Let’s talk more about the comic, though. The comic starts out pretty well; nothing amazing, but certainly a solid start. The whole thing gets going with a focus on Kurt, who it turns out isn’t really our main character. This is the kind of comic where the term “main character” maybe isn’t entirely appropriate: after all, it’s named after the place of business, not any individual. But the majority of the plot in the rest of the series revolves around Jason, the Dante to Kurt’s Randall. Seriously, if you took the movie discussion sequences from Clerks and stretched them out to fill a whole comic you would almost have Multiplex (not to mention that Jason is inexplicably dating a progressing series of hot women, while others pine for him). They’re both basically jerks, but Kurt is that sort of loveable, “just messing with you” kind of guy, and he even plays along if someone wants to pull a prank on him. He offers criticisms on films, but knows how to relax and just enjoy something. He’s certainly more likeable than Jason (the above-mentioned opinionated dick) but I can understand why he’s not really the focal character. With his mind set, he’s basically not going to get himself into trouble at any point, and without conflict you basically don’t have a story. In general the characters at worst are love-able rascals, making Jason the only one who would, logically, be involved in any sort of conflict fairly regularly aside from the characters that are outright villains.

Anyway, even though the comic tends to focus on Kurt and Jason more often than anyone else, the cast is pretty big and they all get their time to shine, though with the size of the cast you can’t expect them all to be winners. For example, we have Franklin, who’s actually a pretty cool guy. He’s a sort of loveable, “just messing with you” kind of guy, and he even plays along if someone wants to pull a prank on him. He offers criticisms on films, but knows how to relax and just enjoy something… yeah, he’s just a black version of Kurt. Maybe a little more toned down, but honestly, he barely has any distinguishing characteristics of his own (aside from giving McAlpin a chance to make some jokes about race). Most of the women in the comic have the same problem in that, aside from one or two distinguishing features, they’re all pretty interchangeable. For example, glasses girl (can’t remember her name right now, I’ll probably mention it if it comes to me) acts essentially just like Melissa, (whose name I only remember because it shows up on that page I just linked) except that glasses girl is a bit more shy. If you had a conversation between the two of them and flipped the dialogue, I seriously doubt I would notice the difference. Similarly, there’s Devi, who is basically just glasses girl, except less shy. She’s a bit of an odd case because, even though her personality is that generic “nice, cute girl” thing that all of them seem to be, it’s actually her circumstances that make her interesting. She’s a student at college for most of the series, and only works at the Multiplex during the summers, which makes things awkward when she starts dating Jason.

If you’ve been clicking the links, you’ll see that Melissa is also dating Kurt. Yes, pretty much everyone in the series just dates the people they work with. And if it’s not someone they actually work with then it’s someone who works right next door to the Multiplex. I can understand that the focus of the series is on the building itself and the people who work there, but honestly, the only person in the comic who has any evidence of life outside of the theater itself is Devi. On the plus side, Franklin actually manages to get an actual distinguishing feature in this regard in that he dates multiple women, none of whom he works with. Still, there’s no real evidence of it aside from the fact that he’ll be seen sitting with or kissing some girl outside of the primary cast while they all sit together watching movies. The girl is never introduced in any way and is never mentioned again: it’s all just background.

The most interesting characters in my mind are Sunny and Angie. I was surprised by this, because Sunny is the sort of prototypical happy/annoying character that I usually can’t stand. Angie is probably best known in the fan base for being a cute goth, but her personality was that she happened to be unusually shy and soft spoken: so much so that the text in her word balloons is in a smaller font, which I think is a great way of conveying that trait without beating the audience over the head with it. I say was because she opens up and starts dating Jason at one point, which basically relegates her shyness to just the smaller text. Anyway, what actually makes them interesting is that they’re both devout Christians, though on differing levels. Sunny’s that sort of, “God is good, and I’m a good person if I believe in God” sort, and while she’s certainly not a bad person, she just sort of acknowledges Faith without following any of its tenets (the most obvious being when she had premarital sex in a supply closet). Angie, however, believes strongly in the actual rules of Christianity, and has lost boyfriends before because of her refusal to have sex (which, she has to clarify at one point, includes anal, oral, and even handjobs). The interesting part is that the interaction between the two of them improves both characters realistically. Sunny’s, uh… sunny personality doesn’t make Angie stop being goth to become a happy little flower, but she helps her to open up and relax. Meanwhile, Angie’s influence helps Sunny to become a more complex person, even if she’s still kind of annoying and dumb.

I think that might be one of the greatest strengths of the series: having characters grow and evolve over time without them just changing into different people. Of course, that’s what makes it so jarring when a character just… changes. This happens because Sunny is dating the dumb guy, Brian (actually, the same guy she boinked in the supply closet), but he ends up dumping her the moment she decides she doesn’t want to have sex anymore. It turns out he’s been cheating on her this whole time and faking the dumb thing so he can steal from the theater. This renders anything he’s said or done up to that point pretty much completely pointless. As for the girl, that’s Gretchen, and she’s easily the most ridiculous character in this comic. Her whole deal is that she’s a journalism student, and as long as she’s working at the Multiplex she figures she might as well write a company zine. Mostly, though, it’s just a gossip column about what goes on in the love lives of the other characters, and she is obsessed with getting new stories. She even freaks out when she gets told to stop writing about the private lives of her coworkers. The weird part is that, apart from the zine, it’s clear that she’s one of the smartest and most level-headed characters in the comic, which just makes it ridiculous what level she goes through to get stories to write about. Yes, she honestly sleeps with a guy just to get him to corroborate a story she’s heard so she can write about it in her stupid little news post. She even starts blackmailing one of the characters to convince him to rat out his friends’ private lives, which just begs the question: WHY THE FUCK DOES SHE ACTUALLY CARE!? It’s not like this series is an absurdist comedy or anything. In a relatively believable world, the fact that she is just so goddamned obsessed with writing her zine for no real reason is just, frankly, bad writing. It’s clear that she has an abrasive personality and is intended as something of a villain, but is this really the best reason McAlpin could come up with to facilitate conflict between her and the other characters?

Becky! That was the name of Glasses Girl! Glad I remembered that. Right, where was I?

In general the comic has trouble coming up with villains. Brian is just arbitrarily revealed to be evil at one point, and Gretchen is pretty much just a cartoon character. The Multiplex has a bizarre rivalry with the video rental place next door that even the characters themselves find ridiculous. One of the characters gets jealous over the fact that Jason dates a multitude of his coworkers (and in particular Angie) while being an insufferable prick, and this kind of drives him insane. It’s an odd feeling because I think he’s entirely justified in hating Jason, but now the only character who seems to share my opinion is a crazy stalker (either way, it is awfully satisfying seeing that smug fucker get his face smashed into a desk, even if it’s only happening to characterize the creepy dude as the villain). The closest we get to a legitimate villain who isn’t just pants-on-head crazy is the manager of the Multiplex, who embezzles money and gets one of the characters fired for the excuse to dock his final paycheck and pocket it himself. His eventual replacement is treated like a villain too, for having the audacity to force them to actually do their job. Oh no, how horrible.

The biggest part of the story, though, is Jason’s love life. Things start off relatively naturally, with Jason having a crush on Devi, which leads up to a romantic date that ends with the two of them on the roof, kissing under a sky full of fireworks (and yeah, they recognize the cliché, but don’t seem to mind). Things go sour, though, because soon Devi has to leave to go back to college. Well… she kind of leaves. She still shows up pretty regularly in the comic, apparently able to drop whatever she’s doing to come hang out with Jason whenever he needs (such as showing up to de-virginize him in a supply closet). So, from the reader’s perspective, the fact that she’s not working there doesn’t carry much weight. In fact, she seems to spend about as much time at the Multiplex while she’s supposedly “away” at college as Jason does during a brief period where he quits, but still lives in the same town. Oh, the quitting thing? Well, it turns out that, even though Devi has zero apparent negative qualities (seriously, the author couldn’t think of one character flaw to give her) and is more than willing to show up whenever Jason wants despite her busy school schedule, it turns out he’s actually been in love with Becky this whole time! And not to worry, because she’s totally in love with him too, even though she’s dating some other guy. Honestly, that’s not a bad idea for a story, and it’s handled well enough, except that Jason’s just such an irritating person.

He doesn’t really seem to do anything with Devi while they’re dating, besides make out and have sex. Anything else that happens is stuff he also does with everyone else he knows. Of course, the only thing he does is watch movies, or talk about movies. Eventually I guess she realizes that being with him is tantamount to living at her summer job so she dumps his ass. Which makes perfect sense, but then she just starts ranting about how he’s such a great guy and the only reason they can’t be together is that she’s not right for him. It’s like McAlpin knew that there was no good reason for her to even like him in the first place, and is just laying this sappy crap on the reader to remind them that Jason isn’t supposed to be the antagonist in his love life. She even talks with Becky about how great Jason is and how he’s such a great, funny guy and blah-blah-bullshit. But because this isn’t a shitty comic, when he does try to make a move on Becky she totally calls him on his bullshit and decides to get serious about her relationship with her real boyfriend.

After trying to patch things up they both agree to just be friends, and then because he’s a spineless pussy Jason up and quits to avoid the awkwardness. It was a pretty interesting development for a while, actually. The comic isn’t explicitly about Jason: it just has a tendency to focus on him. So removing him from the main cast for a while to focus on everyone else seemed like a refreshing change of pace… except he had a tendency to just show up anyway, so really nothing changed. Actually, one thing did change: Becky now basically only appears in the comic to remind the audience about how uncomfortable Jason is now. It seems that she basically serves no purpose to the narrative other than to be something for Jason to pine for. Eventually he and Becky patch things up because he’s just such a great person, you guys, seriously! (that and Melissa insists on being a massive cunt, forbidding him from spending time with his actual best friend until he agrees to grow up and just talk to Becky) At which point he starts dating goth girl Angie, largely because he thought she looked hot when she was dressed up as GoGo Yubari from Kill Bill for Halloween. Their relationship doesn’t seem to really serve any purpose other than to play off the tension between him and Becky. Their relationship does lead to one of the more interesting story arcs, where Jason (a stereotypical uptight atheist) and Angie (a polite, accommodating Christian) hit a rocky road due to Angie’s faith. You get a lot of pretty interesting discussions about intelligent design or what it means to have faith (liberally peppered with reminders that Jason is just such a great guy just in case his dicketry throughout this whole thing was making him too hard to sympathize with). Either way, they break up because Angie can’t be with someone who doesn’t respect her faith. Jason responds by… respecting her decision, then researching the nature of faith, not to try and get back together, but because he wants to know more about it to improve himself as a person. Huh. Well, like I said, even though I’m complaining, it’s a good comic. He’s not a complete dick 24/7.

With that obviously doomed from the start relationship out of the way, Jason starts dating some bitchy woman, and pretty much only stays with her because they argue about movies and have angry sex. Devi also comes back at this point and immediately starts having sex with Jason as well, since his relationship with bitchy woman isn’t all that serious. I guess women just love men who think they’re better than everyone around them. Really, though, the idea of a character being an annoying person doesn’t bother me: it’s the fact that the author just keeps inserting these pithy little excuses for him at every opportunity. Seriously, they just cannot shut up about how Jason’s really this super sweet guy and he’s totally not a prick if you get to know him. Could you imagine if they did that on House? Just imagine House telling somebody that they’re a moron and to take their pills, but he keeps getting interrupted by Chase reminding the patient (and by extension, the audience) that House is actually a really sweet guy and he only wants what’s best for the patient, as if the writer is afraid that if he’s too unpleasant the audience won’t like him. It gets really fucking tiresome, believe me, and that’s what makes the character so thoroughly detestable. That is BAD WRITING right there, and it really sticks out in this series because, for the most part, the writing is quite good. The story of Jason’s trials of love is actually a thoroughly interesting story, but it’s thrown off by the fact that McAlpin insists on “cleaning up” Jason every couple of strips. Just let him be a dick! If a character is likable, then I’ll like him: don’t try to convince me to like him by having the other characters talk about how much they like him.

I think my annoyance with Jason really started with some earlier story arcs where he has to deal with this guy who wants to see a movie for free because he’s going to do a review for it on his blog. Blogger guy is kind of a dick about it at first, but by his second appearance he’s pretty much just a normal guy (while he does try to swindle his way into getting a child’s ticket instead of full price, he seems pretty polite about the whole thing). But things really take a turn when Blogger guy actually gets permission from the publisher to see the movie for free. I thought at this point that Jason was supposed to be the antagonist in these encounters, but I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s just because I’m also a guy who writes reviews for stuff online, but seriously, Jason’s a toolbox usually, but he takes it all the way when this guy’s around and no one calls him on it. He turns into a tool shed. Maybe even a tool warehouse. Aside from that first appearance where he yells at him, the dude is probably one of the nicest people in the comic. In one of the most contrived plots I’ve ever seen, the Santa that they apparently hired to promote… something or other at their multiplex gets fired, and that somehow leads to them hiring Blog guy to play Santa. Jason talks down to him the whole time, and I guess Blog guy is supposed to be vile and unpleasant, because Jason has to disinfect all his clothes after Blog guy hugs him. Yeah, the blog guy with the immaculately white shirt, clean hair, and carefully shaved beard is supposed to be smelly and unpleasant. You see, because he’s a writer… on the internet. And since that’s apparently the worst thing you can be, he obviously has to be a horrible, unpleasant shell of a man. Haha, oh those internet reviewers; they’re almost as horribly deformed as smug webcomic artists, am I right? Also, Jason is a smug racist.

What, don’t believe me? Well, one of the characters didn’t see why everyone cared so much when Heath Ledger died, and Jason was having none of that! So he totally schooled that punk, by tricking him into thinking Samuel L. Jackson had died too! Oh, and the dude he tricked was black, because obviously if he’s black he’ll care about Samuel L., right? Since all those blacks only care about each other, right? Of course, since he’s supposed to be the “hero” in this sequence he ends up completely vindicated, then hilariously berates the other guy for “getting his douche on” and getting on everyone’s nerves instead of just writing his opinion on the internet or something. Yeah, Jason, you tell him, since you’re an expert on not being a complete ass to everyone around you. Then, in the lamest line ever, the new guy tries to figure out who Jason actually is (since he wasn’t working there at the time) and Jason just says that he’s, “your worst nightmare.” And the crazy part is, the whole thing is treated totally seriously! As if we’re supposed to cheer on Jason for being a racist asshole to this guy. Seriously, McAlpin, don’t try to have Jason play the hero any more. It just makes everyone involved look bad.

The art for the comic is quite solid, but awfully stiff. It’s hard to notice most of the time, since the story’s fairly subdued. It’s not like they’re off fighting ninjas or anything, but when something does come up that warrants action it just looks bizarre. There’s no real sense of movement or action: just characters pasted into stock fight poses. Fortunately, this is the largest action sequence that gets attempted in this style. Sure, there’s other stuff done with some degree of action, but when it comes time to, say, draw a Mario Kart tournament between the Multiplex and the video store, it’s time to whip out the ink and brush. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like that looks WORLDS better than the usual comic. There’s action and depth and clear body language! Oh, man, if only it was in color—OH WAIT! Frankly, doing the videogames hand drawn was probably a bad idea, because it just exaggerates just how stiff and lifeless the regular comic is in comparison. Like, look at that last one I linked, and compare the energy and motion that’s conveyed in the relatively small football panels, then compare it to the last two panels where Sunny is in a cheerleading outfit doing a cheer. She has movement, sure, and it’s not bad, but when you’ve got it right next to that hand-drawn stuff she really just looks like a figure that’s been posed that way, instead of like a figure in motion.

Aside from that, though, there are just some odd decisions on the author’s part art-wise, especially in the older pages. For example, there’s this strip about Idiocracy. Isn’t that funny? Of course it’s not, because you can’t read the actual joke. No, you have to click a link to a closeup of the actual joke. I have no idea why; it’s not like the comic has set dimensions it has to fit into on every page. He could have just as easily made it a two-panel comic and included the actual punchline as the first panel, and the commentary as a second. Or, y’know, did a closer shot so it’s still readable and include it all as a single panel. Friggin’ ANYTHING but putting the only part of the panel that actually matters on a completely different page. Or you’ve got this one, which is about Superman Returns, and to avoid putting in spoilers half the thing is blacked out. Really, it just makes the whole thing awkward, and again, you have to click on a link to actually read the comic. Luckily McAlpin only did either of those things the one time, so it’s not like it’s a big deal, but it’s certainly worth commenting on. I’m just surprised that the censored version of the Superman Returns comic is still up at all—you’d think it would be a non-issue at this point. I don’t blame him too much, though: the link is there to the real comic. The dude is busy putting together books, practicing Flash (which the art from the comic looks great in, FYI), so yeah, not much need to go around reworking the archives for just one comic.

If this review seemed a bit longer than usual I think it’s because I grew to really care about the series. I don’t like Jason, but in a way I don’t think you’re supposed to. He’s a dick, and he’s recognized as a dick by the other characters (aside from the moments where they sing his praises to try and keep the audience sympathizing with him). I want to see what happens to these people, because like them as “people” or not, they’re interesting. Someone doesn’t have to be a good “person” to be a well-written character, and for the most part the protagonists of this series are well written. The antagonists… not so much. Though they do have more personality, it’s just such a stretch of the imagination most of the time to accept that they actually care as much about tormenting these people as they do. In a way it speaks to the strength of the comic that the moments where the quality in the writing does dip it sticks out like a sore thumb. Like I’ve said before, my big test is this: am I still reading it after reviewing it? And the answer is yes, I am still reading multiplex.