Drawing Blood vol. 1: Spilled Ink
I don’t think anyone would doubt that Kevin Eastman has had an interesting life. Co-creator of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” he and co-creator Peter Laird took a fringe black-and-white comic based on the hot trends of the time into the comics mainstream. Then with the animated series and live action movies from the late 80’s and early 90’s conquered the mainstream itself, becoming the biggest thing in the world at the time. That didn’t last forever and now Eastman is doing a series, with co-plotter, and scripter David Avallone, and Ben Bishop providing most of the art, about what happens on the way down from there.
Eastman himself isn’t in this comic, however, outside of a too-cute cameo. Standing in for the man himself is Shane “Books” Bookman, who co-created the Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls with his brother Paul. They have since sold their interest in the property to Kiddiescope who have continued to develop it in other media with a big Hollywood reboot currently in production.
As Shane tells us, he got more money than he could spend on women and drugs in the deal and set about pursuing other interests. Such as creating his own comics company, Siberia Arts, and having it run by his idol, creator Frank Forrest. There’s also the musical he’s producing, an adaptation of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” Oh, and he also bought the original Batmobile at one point.
Of these things, the Batmobile appears to have been his most solid investment. Siberia Arts’ financials are a huge mess, and Frank has just killed himself in a bloody, self-fulfilling way. “Metropolis” has also been beset by production woes that would make what happened to “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” seem like a day at summer camp. Oh, and he’s now being followed by Lithuanian mobsters who are looking to collect on some outstanding debts owed to them.
That this is all advertised as being based on Eastman’s real life is what drew me to this series in the first place. All of the names have been changed to protect the guilty, the slightly less guilty, and the couple of innocents and the timeframe of the events – at least, the ones that were familiar to me – has been incredibly condensed. This first volume is essentially all of the creator’s biggest personal and career crises hitting all at once, with the intent being to show how he comes back from them in subsequent volumes.
At least, I hope that’s the intent as vol. 1 is really intent on showing Shane’s life as a shambles right now. We’re told about all of the bad personal and professional decisions he’s made that have brought him to this point, even though we’re not actually shown any of them. I get the feeling that’s to keep our protagonist from coming off as too unsympathetic in light of all this stuff that he’s done to himself.
That’s to say I’m not sure how interesting this will be to someone reading “Drawing Blood” without any knowledge of the man whose life this is based on. What makes this interesting to me is trying to connect the dots on how the events of the volume line up with what I’m familiar with of Eastman’s real life. Things like Frank Forrest being a stand-in for Jack Kirby. How Siberia Arts was actually Tundra Publishing in real life – but just as ill-fated. How he was once married to B-movie vixen Julie Strain. The volume is also helpful in doing this at a couple points, like letting us know that Nigel “Beastly” Boswell is actually artist Simon Bisley in real-life.
The problem with this first volume is that it feels like it’s mostly about seeing Shane stumble from one crisis to the next as the man wholeheartedly accepts that he deserves these things, but displays little in the way of figuring out how to deal with them. The moments that he does wind up being the best parts of the story. Such as in the fourth issue when he’s called in to do damage control on the Ragdolls movie when its producer, Not Michael Bay, says that they’re going to be aliens instead of mutants. Even if it’s not exactly how it happened in real life, it’s still a clever take on spin control which shows us that Shane may not be as much of a screw-up as we’ve been led to believe.
If “Drawing Blood” wants to have legs beyond being a version of Eastman’s life in comics form, it’s going to need more instances like that going forward. Stories that not only feel like they’ve come from his life, but make for interesting anecdotes when recounted in this form. My concern is that this is going to be the exception rather than the rule as most of vol. 1 is concerned with the ongoing fallout from the worst parts of his life condensed together.
Ben Bishop, best known for his work on “The Last Ronin” illustrates most of this volume while providing the layouts for everything in the first four issues. It’s very solid work as he’s called on to deliver a grounded look at the falling-apart life of an adult man with the occasional colorful surrealist flourish or oddball interaction with fandom. Eastman handles the flashback sequences himself and the results feel appropriate with the man’s art at this point having its own retro appeal.
Troy Little illustrates the sequences in the main story where Shane interacts with the Ragdolls himself along with the entirety of their origin issue collected here. Artistically the results feel appropriately cartoonish in the main story. That being said, the issue of “Ragdolls” in this volume sure feels like the kind of title that was trying to cash in on the appeal of the “Turtles” back in the day.
Overall, this first volume of “Drawing Blood” feels more interesting than genuinely exciting. While the knowledge that this is all based on Eastman’s life lends it a certain kind of appeal, it never quite comes together as an engaging comics biography. Whether that’s due to the decision to smoosh all of the professional failures of the man into one specific era, or something deeper remains to be seen. I’m curious enough to see whether or not that will lead somewhere interesting, but that’s just me.