Alex Robinson’s Tricked (Top Shelf Productions) is kind of like a building. When you walk in, you can’t help but admire the architecture. It’s been designed carefully and with imagination. The proportions are impressive, and the structure hangs together. The interior design doesn’t suit the structure, though. It’s a little chilly and uncomfortable.
Robinson has crafted the graphic novel equivalent of a Robert Altman movie (like Short Cuts or Nashville). Six very different characters move through their individual lives, but their stories bump together with increasing frequency. The intersecting personal arcs move inexorably towards a shared – and traumatic – experience.
It’s an impressive piece of narrative construction. And Robinson doesn’t just rely on proximity, creating thematic undercurrents that link his sextet together. Most of the events are driven at least partly by fandom or hero worship. But how much weight those themes have depends on how invested the reader can become in the characters, particularly the six leads. For me, the results were mixed.
While there isn’t really a lead in the conventional sense of the word, the most pivotal role is held by Ray Beam, rock star in the midst of a creative dry spell. He’s got a ready-for-VH1 biography, personally and professionally, with a turbulent romantic history and a shattered band in his wake. Robinson’s too smart to think there’s much sympathy to be mined from Ray’s life, so he makes Ray somewhat ridiculous. He’s lazy, self-indulgent, and completely out of touch with the way normal people live. He’s also going through a string of attractive young “personal assistants” in search of a muse who can kick-start his recording career.
Steve is a big fan of Ray’s. He writes lengthy missives to Ray, delving into his work and offering unsolicited career advice. He’s also off his meds, and his innate misanthropy and obsession are gaining ground. Nick is a husband and father who’s been reduced to forging sports memorabilia after losing his office job. He’s lying to his family about his activities, and his boss has an unsettling mean streak.
The women protagonists are driven more by relationships. Waitress Caprice is coming off of a bad break-up. She re-enters the dating scene with mixed results, though she does find a promising boyfriend candidate. Unfortunately, her low self-esteem may derail the relationship before it really begins. Teen-ager Phoebe has jumped on a bus from New Mexico to track down the father who abandoned her family when she was an infant. And Lily gets drawn into Ray’s orbit while temping at his management agency. A misunderstanding leads Ray to believe Lily is a fan (she isn’t) and a potential conquest (she declines), but her apparent disinterest only makes him more intrigued. Lily is a practical person, and she’s willing to tolerate Ray’s weirdness to hold onto a lucrative, undemanding job.
Their lives are interesting to varying degrees. Caprice is the most obviously sympathetic, and her romantic woes ring true, even when they bring her into Nick’s unsavory orbit. Phoebe is a nice balance between innocence, anxiety, and anger, and her scenes with her long-lost father are written with subtlety and care. There are hopes on both sides, but Robinson is careful not to lapse into fairy tale. And Lily is a marvelous example of understated character development. She doesn’t really care if Ray’s inspired by her presence, and she isn’t much phased by the hostility of Marybeth, Ray’s real personal assistant (the one who does all the actual work). She seems like an innocent, but she’s really just biding her time.
The men are more problematic. If Robinson doesn’t really ask us to feel for Ray, he can’t quite bring himself to let us laugh at him too much. Ray is a man-child and a jerk, and he needs a team of people to handle his appetites and his ego. But there’s the suggestion that readers wouldn’t be out of line in seeing him as somewhat tragic, and I just can’t. Steve is tragic on paper (in the same way as under-medicated antagonists who show up periodically on Law and Order), but he’s an exhausting nerd. His interests are so narrow and his dedication to them so boundless as to generate resentment. While his deterioration is carefully and cleverly portrayed, he’s really unpleasant company. And Nick verges on walking plot device. His dishonesty has put him in an uncomfortable and dangerous position, but he’s kind of a jerk to begin with.
But even if the character arcs aren’t always affecting, they cohere. Robinson may indulge in some narrative legerdemain to bring his cast together together, but he plays fair for the most part. Nobody is shoved into too unlikely behavior to serve the story or its construction. It’s detailed, mostly restrained work. (I did find Robinson’s decision to have the chapters count down to one a little pretentious. Things tick along nicely without a virtual timer.)
For me, Tricked ended up being less than the sum of its parts. It left me admiring the craft of the work without feeling fully engaged. It’s impressive but not entirely moving.
(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by Top Shelf Productions.)
