What I enjoy most about indie creators is their accessibility. I had the opportunity to engage the creative minds behind 4th Wall Publishing in an enlightening conversation about the moral ambiguity of vigilantes.  What obligation do they have to play by the rules and follow the law? What came out of that conversation comes to mind as I read Morgan Iverson’s Lumberjax 1 and 2.

He got jokes

In Lumberjax our hero Jax is faced with several modern day issues such as police brutality, violent youth on social media, etc.  And much like your average “Batman-esque” vigilante he responds to such issues by punching them in the face.  And on some occasions he chops it off!

That’s right.  Lumberjax is literally a Black man running around with an enchanted ax fighting crime.   With the moral compass of Conan the Barbarian.

So much for moral ambiguity.

In essence, Iverson responds to the absurdity of vigilantes with even more absurdity.  The wit and humor found in Lumberjax is akin to what you’d find in Black Dynamite or Deadpool.  

You see this comedic quality at full tilt when we are introduced to the bug-eyed Pastor Crawford aka “the Preacher” in issue 2.

Balloon Mind State

On the down side, all of that good stuff is buried under mountains of dialogue at times.  Word balloons on top of word balloons on top of word balloons.  

This isn’t poor execution of the letterer (shout out to Danny Quick) but instead poor direction from the script.

For instance, comedy as I’ve said is one of the strong suites of this series.  However, comedy is very hard to pull off in comics.  The comedic banter you may be familiar with in film and television needs sufficient room in comics in order for the punchlines to land.

A lot of the banter in Lumberjax builds so much chatter on the page some of the brightest moments are pushed to small panels.  

This is easy enough to fix by shortening the dialogue in the script; it gives the penciler, Giacomo Guida, more room to design open concepts and lets those comedic moments shine.

As a reference point, a lot of writers go to Bendis on how to effectively write banter in comics.  I prefer Christopher Priest’s approach.  He’s funnier and his page direction is top notch.

All in all, Lumberjax has really good bones: solid character designs, a great concept and it’s funny to boot. Oh, and the artwork by Guida – chef’s kiss!  All the ingredients for a cult classic in the making.  I expect this series will only get better as Morgan Iverson becomes more adept at the comic book medium. 

Check out their Kickstarter for issue 3 going on NOW!