This Week’s Updates
Webcomic I Must Share
There are many and what webcomics out there, but every once in awhile there are some undiscovered gems that can only be described as phenomenal.
Lance Ward’s The Tatertotdiaperman Experiment is one of the most richly creative and emotionally engaging absurdist comic serials since Zippy the Pinhead. With characters freely wandering through the shattered remains of a fourth wall, The Tatertotdiaperman Experiment’s narrative road is paved with very intimate autobiographical details, outlandish hallucinatory visions, ridiculous scatological humor, and the craft of a very gifted storyteller with the ability to make his readers care about his life, his imaginary world, and even some characters that shouldn’t be lovable. Ward’s work is a trip on several levels, and that trip is worth taking.
My favorite storylines within The Tatertotdiaperman Experiment are the ones that talk about his life through the prism of mental illness, and “Stovetop“. The latter details the tragic tale of Ern, a working stiff whose entire life is turned upside down after he decides to go home from work early. Already saddled with an unfulfilling office job, Ern witnesses a suicide and suffers from further stress when he comes home to strangers living in his house. I really don’t want to share more of the story beyond that room. It reads like a really good and original Twilight Zone episode in comic form — all it needs is Rod Sterling providing narration.
Lance Ward’s artwork seems to ebb and flow between a looseness reminiscent of Jules Pfeiffer and a meticulously raw style that recalls the 1990s underground comic scene. Regardless of where Ward’s artistic mood takes him, his work is consistently excellent and unmistakably his. I highly recommend my readers check it out.
To see more of Lance Ward’s work visit http://tatertotdiaperman.wordpress.com and check out the monthly archives.