A look at Lighten Up! by Joe Sumrall

Above: samples from Joe's book.

Although this title is no longer available from Bear & Company, I thought I'd give it a rare review in this blog. Sarah managed to track down a copy of Joe Sumrall's Lighten Up! : a Book of Enlightened Humor (1990) and I just finished giving it a read.

Sumrall has been mentioned earlier in this blog. My fellow local cartoonist was murdered almost two decades ago and this case remains unsolved. He should not be forgotten.

In Lighten Up!, Sumrall employs a fairly traditional cartoon drawing style. He uses lots of shading film and has a careful line style in his chiefly one-panel gags. You don't sense this guy is really cutting loose and getting wacky.

But the subject matter he covers is far from conventional. Joe intended his cartoons to be enjoyed by an audience familiar with some basic New Age premises. In 1990 this group was a much smaller subculture than it is today. It is also not a movement that strikes me as having a great sense of humor, and I can't help but wonder if Sumrall's attempt to bridge cartoon gag comedy with the spiritually esoteric was frowned upon by those who were attempting to institutionalize these philosophies into cults or profitable ventures. Such charlatans don't mind being the object of scorn, but being laughed at is another matter.

The closest work I can compare this to is the film Stuart Saves His Family by Al Franken. By poking fun at a take-themselves-serious subculture from within (in Franken's case, the 12-step movement), an awkward dynamic takes place that requires an acquired taste.

Lighten Up! stands as an oddity in the cartoon world, which makes it all the more interesting to read. But not in funny har-de-har-har way.

State of Beings #13: Idaho

Birthed into existence as an insert with City Limits Gazette # Overwhelming sadness of the monkey trapped in the garage (Sept. 1992).

For some reason I became obsessed with the fact someone ran around big comic book conventions wearing a giant cartoon head in the image of Richie Rich. This was a topic that would occasionally come up in CLG. After awhile I was convinced the person who was parading around in that getup was cartoonist and comix scholar, Bruce Chrislip. That's him in the comic, so it is almost proof this is true.

Bruce himself denied he masqueraded as Richie Rich, so we just have to take what he says at face value. Heh-heh, get it? Face value? Anyway, I did write to Harvey Comics asking about the personnel and specifics of the giant Richie Rich head, but for some reason my query was ignored.