Layered Chaos, Haphazard Order, and All Points Between: The Comics of Tom Manning

By Ryan Carey

Originally published in Canon Magazine

Terms like “Lynchian” and “Kirbyesque” are so over-utilized that they probably ought to be banned from the critical lexicon just to force folks like me to think of something new — yet there are times when Tom Manning’s books are both. Likewise, shorthand (polite-speak for “lazy”) tonal indicators such as “surreal” and “creepy” passed their sell-by dates long ago, yet Manning trades in both types of atmospherics with a healthy degree of frequency. 

Why is it, then, that in a world where there well and truly is “nothing new under the sun,” Manning’s dense, often-sprawling works feel like one of the closest things to originality that narratively-driven comics have achieved in some time? 

To date, Manning has written and drawn four full-length (and by “full-length” I mean lengthy) graphic novels : 1999’s RACECAR, 2015’s RUNOFF, 2018’s ERIC, and 2020’s BERING STRAIT — and he’s also self-published the latter two under his Robots And Monkeys Publishing imprint. There’s no doubt, then, about both his commitment to his craft and to the act of refining, evolving, in some cases re-inventing it. After all, he’s been at it consistently (despite what appears to be a lengthy interregnum between RACECAR and RUNOFF, the latter was actually issued in serialized form over the course of many years and only published in an omnibus-style collection after its completion) for over two decades now. Yet despite his work receiving accolades from the likes of Hollywood notables Guillermo Del Toro,  Michael Green, and Elliott Kalan (among others), and despite positive notices from such “Ivory Tower” arbiters of taste as The Harvard Book Review and The LA Review Of Books, Manning remains something of a borderline-unknown figure in the wider comics world — hell, even in the less-wide world of small press and self-published comics. 

Reasons for that are probably plentiful: formally speaking, Manning’s comics are in no way “avant garde” or even particularly experimental; he distributes them through Diamond rather than the “boutique” distros such as Domino, Birdcage Bottom, Silver Sprocket, Spit And A Half, or any of the other outfits those of us who fancy ourselves as being at least nominal “outsiders” tend to frequent; and his work is fairly firmly rooted in at least an approximation of mainstream storytelling sensibilities. These are comics that progress from a starting point to an ending point (even if the lives of the characters “begin” and “end” elsewhere, or not on the page at all) in reasonably traditional fashion, and so one needn’t necessarily approach them pre-armed with a particularly high “comics IQ,” nor steeped with knowledge in the medium’s history, tropes, standards, or contrivances. It’s all — dare I say it — fairly welcoming stuff.

It should be noted, however, that none of this precludes Manning’s comics from being smart, absorbing, crisply-written, and exceptionally-drawn endeavors. Nor does it diminish their status as legitimately “auteur” works . Too often today the comics intelligentsia confuses, conflates, or both the idea of doing something new with its cop-out fellow traveler of doing things in a new way, and the sheer sophistication, confidence, and fluidity of the interplay between word and image in Manning’s books — something he was only coming to preliminary grips with in RACECAR but has firm and full handle on in both ERIC and BERING STRAIT — both utterly and by default explodes the notion that the tried, true, and tested amounts to little more than “old wine in new bottles.” In point of fact, he stands it entirely on its head by serving the equivalent of new metaphorical wine in old equally-metaphorical bottles. He’s unafraid to play with possibilities that a blank page offers — visual orientation at times being a fluid state of affairs requiring readers to flip and turn books around to follow the flow of events — but the essence of what he’s doing remains unshakably recognizable even when he is, quite literally, giving it a 180 degree turn. It’s all in service of creation, of assembly, rather than being one more deconstructive exercise emanating all kinds of some not from any particular fire, but from a burnt cinder of a core.

It’s no stretch to state that relationships inform everything in the Manning oeuvre, and I don’t just mean the formal relationships between, among, and sometimes even around images and words inherent in the comics medium, nor the always-extant relationship between artist and audience — explorations of the connections, convergences, and outright yawning chasms between the self and something or someone (even somewhere) else are woven into the narrative DNA of all these works, most notably with RUNOFF exploring the relationship between the sprawling ensemble cast of the (barely?) fictitious town of Range, Washington with both their environs (it’s an “inland island” surrounded on all sides by rivers) and the “Rural Gothic” strangeness taking place around them, ERIC delving deeply into the relationship between its protagonist’s perception of his own past, present, and consensus reality itself, and BERING STRAIT ambitiously delineating prehistoric man’s relationship with the nature, appearance, and substance of just about everything in an attempt to forge some kind of understanding of what existence is and means. It might be much to state that Manning is laser-focused on any particular subjects, sure,  but a core set of concerns comes to the fore easily enough in even the most cursory reading of his comics — reconciling the conflict between individuality and belonging, making at least tentative peace with the past, moving forward in light of new revelations or developments that can easily tear one’s world asunder, to name just a few. Universal stuff, timeless stuff, subject matter most any of us can relate to and that most all of us have, to one degree or another, ruminated upon. I don’t care who you are, you can relate to Tom Manning’s comics and find something of yourself reflected in many, most, maybe even all of his characters — now matter how far afield their circumstances and situations may be from your own. And that, my friends, is the surest sign there is of a truly gifted storyteller.

Indeed, so accessible is this material that — and I know this next statement is going to initially turn some people off, but bear with me — it’s a bit of a wonder that somebody like a Netflix or an HBO hasn’t come knocking on Manning’s door yet. Obviously, these comics belie a level of depth, complexity, and sheer craftsmanship that are well beyond most of today’s so-called “prestige TV,” but with just a bit of tweaking and tinkering it’s fair to say any of Manning’s three most recent books would be adaptable enough into a “season” of television episodes. It’d end up being dumbed down, of course — that’s what TV execs do — but the essential character of the work itself is strong enough to survive the translation to a new format, and the cartoonist’s own inclusive-but-challenging sensibilities almost invite the attempt. Hell, I’d watch an adaption or RUNOFF, ERIC, or BERING STRAIT in a heartbeat, even if the comics would be better as a matter of course. In the meantime, here’s my two cents on why you should read each of them sooner rather than later:

RUNOFF is, to paraphrase Oliver Stone by way of Joe Pesci, “a mystery wrapped inside a riddle inside of an enigma.” Or, rather, several of each of those things — throw in a large ensemble cast and all the ingredients are there for an absolute mess in even marginally less-skilled hands. The only of Manning’s projects to be serialized prior to collection, the episodic nature of events shows through clear as day, but actually works to the book’s advantage in that certain narrative “beats” and outright shock are best fully absorbed before one dives back in. Admittedly, the “small town with big secrets” tropes of Stephen King and David Lynch (among others) hang over the proceedings, but Manning’s no mere copycat, nor a cheap trader in “American Gothic” for its own sake. Approximately half of the town of Range’s geographical — errr, range — sits on “Res” land, and Manning’s attempts to both pay tribute to Native American culture and to reconcile the past with the present come off as legitimately thought-though and heartfelt, and in no way cloying. Yes, a murder mystery, ancient talismans, government “black ops,” demons, paraphysics, talking animals and magical energy sources are a lot of balls to be juggling in the air at once — and some of them land in more satisfying fashion than others by the time all is said and done — but this is ambitious, involving, and relevant imagining, rife with far-less-than-heavy-handed social commentary and suffused with sense of respect that creator wants to do his creations justice. Oh, and Manning numbers Berkeley Breathed’s BLOOM COUNTY as one of this book’s primary influences — read it, and you’ll see why almost instantly. Cluttered in the best possible way and chaotic without being confusing, this entire project bears all the hallmarks of an intentional tightrope act, a cartoonist challenging themselves to get all ideas related to the work — directly or otherwise — onto the page somehow, and barring a few entirely forgivable stumbles, Manning pulls it off in as close to “without a hitch” fashion as is likely humanly possible.

ERIC is, for my money, Manning’s quantum leap forward, his “statement” and “signature” work in one go, and one of the finest OGNs in recent (perhaps even extended) memory. Utilizing the self-revising and self-mythologizing lens through which the title character — a washed-up holdover from the psychedelic era with the scars (metal, emotional, even physical) to prove that some trips can never be fully returned from — views his own past and the nature and import of his present as a stepping stone for examining the self-revising and self-mythologizing histories of California specifically, American popular and socio-political culture more generally, there are echoes of Fredric Hobbs’ little-seen ROSELAND in here as well as Adrian Lyne’s cult classic JACOB’S LADDER, but the approach Manning takes to this combustible subject matter is unique unto him, and accentuated no end by a more boisterous, “go for the gusto” art style that could easily trample everything under its foot — if that’s what he wanted it to do. Instead, what we have is an incredibly nuanced and multi-faceted look at a mind, a society, a culture in pieces, held inelegantly together by the weight of its own denial and delusion, even as both threaten to bring everything down around them. By turns harrowing, hellish, hedonistic, haphazard, and hilarious, again Manning can’t seem to help but swing for the fences in every direction, but he’s knocking every last pitch out of the park here. Frayed at the seams throughout yet held together by strength of its creators vision and sheer force of artistic will, this is one of those comics that looks more brash at first glance than it actually is, but is solid and unerring enough to back up ten times even its perceived brashness. Clarity of purpose is an undervalued asset in the artist’s de facto arsenal — this book is a clinic on what It can achieve when married with the talent to see it through. Hell, I dare say it’s the kind of thing that makes even the most onerous, insufferable, and long-winded of critics (who, me?) run dry of superlatives, and a strong contender for most undervalued and under-appreciated comic of this still-technically-young century.

BERING STRAIT, Manning’s most recent work, flips the coin and does for exteriority what ERIC did for interiority, focusing as it does on emergent prehistoric worldviews and the beginnings of the divide purely rational and religious/superstitious thought. Focused as it is on the earliest settlers crossing the titular strait between modern-day Russia and Alaska, Manning nevertheless creates space to intersperse his sprawling, rugged, and delightfully uncivilized vistas with a character all their own, and one that remains admirably uncompromised and uncompromising even as sci-fi and, believe it or not, noir elements find their way into the intricately-woven narrative. Probably the best drawn of all these books, with Manning putting on a veritable clinic on the interplay between light, shadow, gray tones, and textures, there is a definite air of anarcho-primitivist sympathy throughout here and a sense of much more being lost than is gained as many of our settlers slowly succumb to the siren call of mysterious, magical “thinking.”  Whether or not they are right to do so is something I’ll let the book reveal to readers itself, but even still, there is plenty here for the John Zerzans and Kirkpatrick Sales of the world to point to in defense of their anti-civilization worldview. Stunning, sprawling landscape artwork adds to the feel of an elegiac post-mortem for wild nature, but at the same time this is also, perhaps counter-intuitvely, a definite edge-of-seat thriller that pack a far greater, more robust, more thorough-going wallop than do 99.9% of genre-based comics.

Lastly, but still worthy of mention at least in passing, is RACECAR, best viewed as an ambitious exercise in on-the-job learning that is nowhere near in the same league as the other books in terms of its art (although it does markedly improve as things progress), but nonetheless sets the tone for pushing the boundaries of formality while still staying within them that is a Manning staple by this point. If you’re interested in formative works done by artists before they’d necessarily worked everything out, this is about as interesting as such things come, but I’d recommend reading it well after everything else, and with its proper context along Manning’s career arc (that is, at the beginning) firmly in mind at all times.

Where Manning goes next remains to be seen, although given the admirable pace at which he produces substantive, long-form works I daresay we probably won’t be waiting to find out for a whole lot longer. I admit to being skeptical about the act immersing myself in a body of work this beholden to genre, and further admit that it was the editor of this magazine himself who first “turned me on” to what Manning was doing, but I’m not only glad I put my pre-conceived notions and aesthetic prejudices aside, I was actually glad for it in the very early going of RUNOFF and my new-found appreciation for what this artist is achieving in his own very specific, entirely self-defined corner of this medium we all love so much only continued to grow with each successive book. If you think this stuff looks too “mainstream” for your tastes, think again: intelligence, heart, and expert craftsmanship are no respecters of arbitrary lines we draw for ourselves (much less those that others attempt to draw for us, ensconced as they so often are in “tastemaker towers” built on sands that shift with current trends and mores) and steps outside the nest are not only good for a person, they’re essential if we wish to lay claim to any sort of expertise on “where comics are now.” Tom Manning proves that where they are is in very good hands indeed, regardless of whether or not the critical “elite” deign to take notice.