Blog Archives

Website

Who is Amy Amoeba?

To anybody out there reading this who would like to make comics but who doesn’t think it’s possible because you can’t draw your way out of the proverbial paper bag, I give you “Who is Amy Amoeba?” This isn’t to say that Jason can’t draw; I checked out his website and plenty of stuff looks pretty as can be.  It’s just that for this story about amoebas (amoebi?), Jason didn’t need to show all that much.  The story begins with Amy Amoeba addressing the audience, telling them that they’re “about to discover the exciting world of unicellular biology” and then, with a mighty f-bomb, splits in two,  ensuring that children will never be able to read this book for educational purposes.  The two amoebas debate which one is the real Amy Amoeba, one of them splits again, things get even more confusing, another one splits, and soon one of them is made fun of until she leaves the group.  Things only get more complicated from there, as there are now two distinct and rapidly expanding groups occupying a small area with a limited amount of food.  This could have stayed at the level of an extended “Who’s on first” joke (kids, ask your great grandparents on that one), but Jason expands it to deal with societal acceptance, a struggle between civilizations, slavery and adherence to silly religions.  It’s a lot to make out of a comic consisting almost entirely of little blobs (not entirely, but I’m not ruining the surprises on that one), but Jason pulls it off admirably.  Again, to anybody out there who thinks they have a story to tell in comics, one look at this will show you that it is possible.  Sure, it helps to know how to accurately depict a crowd scene, a range of facial emotions or just have the ability to draw a human hand, but all of these things can be avoided by simply not drawing humans.  Oh, and this one also has the benefit of being an educational experience, for those of you who like to learn a thing or two in your comics.  $3