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Funny Creek, written by Rafael Albuquerque and Rafael Scavone, illustrated by Eduardo Medeiros, colored by Priscilla Tramontano, lettered by Bernardo Brice, and edited by Bis Stringer Horne, presents the reader with a compelling story of a girl running away from her mistakes and paying the psychological price for it.
The Story
The story of Funny Creek begins with Lilly, a young and seemingly distressed girl, quite literally running away from her problems in the rain. Lilly suddenly hits her head on a pole and passes out. When she wakes up, she finds that she has somehow been transported into her favorite TV show: The Funny Creek Show.
Welcome To Funny Creek!
Inside of the show, Lilly then realizes she was placed in the middle of a scuffle between the neighboring town of Merry Creek and the antagonist of the show, Cold Joe’s, goons. Lilly narrowly escapes danger and manages to rescue a woman from being attacked. The two of them steal a horse and travel to Funny Creek in search of the Sheriff.
When they arrive in Funny Creek, specifically at the Sheriff’s office, Lilly is in complete awe that she is standing among not just the deputy, Cody, but also among Clumsy, the clown Sheriff. With introductions aside, Lilly notices that not everything is how it seems on TV when Clumsy takes a more serious tone as they begin discussing the most recent events. Lilly quickly sets her mind on helping Funny Creek fend off against the likes of Cold Joe, and Clumsy offers her a position as Funny Creek’s Deputy.
Saloon Shootout
The story shifts to a flashback, where we see Lilly and her friend Andy looking at a poster for a costume contest that Lilly claims to participate in avidly. She boasts about her placements in these contests, to which Andy suggests that they should participate together as Clumsy and Cody. When they are all dressed up, Lilly points out that the space gun that Andy uses as a substitute for a revolver “won’t do.”
Back in the present, Lilly, Clumsy, and Cody make their way to the nearby Saloon to devise a plan for Cold Joe’s goons when, all of a sudden, two higher-ups from Cold Joe’s crew barge in and start a ruckus looking for Clumsy. Like the coward he is Clumsy hides under the table to avoid being spotted and hurt while Lilly and Cody fend off the goons until Clumsy finally pops up and shoots at the goons. The two goons retreat and all seems well and good, that is, until Clumsy begins to chew out both Cody and Lilly for their reckless actions. Cody doesn’t enjoy Clumsy’s tone and unsolicited anger and begins yelling at him for being a coward in a situation where the people in the Saloon needed him to take action. The two continue arguing, ultimately resulting in the resignation of Cody as Deputy, leaving Lilly and Clumsy alone in cleaning up the town’s problems.
Not According To Plan
Clumsy and Lilly scope out the outskirts of Funny Creek, where Cold Joe and his crew have set up camp, and Clumsy deems the situation “too dangerous” and wants to seek the approval of The Judge and Mr. Mayor to proceed. Again, the story shifts to the past, where Andy returns home to his lovely grandmother for dinner. At the mention of costume contests, Andy’s grandmother perks up and begins regaling Andy with tales of his father participating in those contests back when he was a child. She then escorts Andy to a room filled with his father’s memorabilia, specifically a drawer containing his old costume, Zorro.
In the present, The Judge and Mr. Mayor arrive, particularly agitated that Clumsy interrupted their afternoon drinking, to which Clumsy kindly requests that they speak in private. After doing so, they all make their way to the town square, to which Mr. Mayor announces that Cold Joe would be attempting to attack Funny Creek the following day and that everyone should be prepared to fight. After this announcement, Lilly and Clumsy discuss what will be going down the next day, and Lilly is terrified. That night, Lilly hears noises outside and learns that Clumsy plans to run away from town to avoid conflict. Cody makes an appearance, as well, not finding Clumsy’s behavior surprising.
Cody initially came to help Clumsy and Lilly fights off Cold Joe’s posse, but deep down, he knew that Clumsy would try to bail at the last second. The two begin physically fighting with each other until Cody takes Clumsy’s horse and sets out for Cold Joe’s hideout. Lilly, surprised by everything that she had just witnessed, yells at Clumsy and decides to join Cody on his mission to eliminate the threat before it reaches the town. Clumsy doesn’t try to stop her as she takes a horse and rides toward Cody.
Rumble
While riding, Cody strongly urges Lilly to back out of this mission, knowing full-well that it could be the end for the both of them, but Lilly refuses. Cody reluctantly accepts her help but notes that she needs to follow what he says to a tee. She asks about his gun, but Cody responds by telling her that his gun is fake, which made me think a LOT of Andy in the real world. The story then shifts to a line for the costume contests, where Andy had been waiting for Lilly to arrive for a long time, and she finally arrives with another person. The two of them insult Andy’s makeshift revolver and begin to consider registering without him. Still, Andy comes up with an idea and rushes home as quick as possible, promising to be back, and Lilly loosely returns the sentiment by saying they’ll be waiting for him.
At the canyon, just beyond Funny Creek, Cold Joe’s crew are getting wasted, and Cody strikes from the nearby bushes, targeting the one with a lit cigar. Cody narrowly avoids gunfire as he ignites the boxes of dynamite with the cigar and quickly takes cover with Lilly. Unfortunately, the only one from the crew that managed to survive was Cold Joe himself. In between the pages where Cold Joe is roughing up Cody, Andy is seen running home as fast as he can, searching for something. Lilly eventually gets hold of Cold Joe’s gun and tries to stop Joe, but there was no effect. Both Cody and Lilly try their best to defeat Cold Joe and almost manage to win until Joe and Cody are forced off a cliff, with Cody clinging to dear life on a stray branch and Joe doing the same on Cody’s belt.
Facing Reality
All hope seems lost until Clumsy, out of nowhere, makes an appearance, shooting Cody’s belt off, making Joe plunge to his doom. Lilly is momentarily relieved because of their victory and because she thought Clumsy would help Cody up until Clumsy does the unthinkable and lets Cody fall. Lilly is then taken into custody by Clumsy, where she is left to reflect on her actions in the real world during her trial. In the real world, Andy arrives at home and goes to the room that his grandmother previously revealed to him. He scavenges the room for a particular revolver that had been in the drawer that his father’s Zorro mask resided.
Andy smiles because he is excited to return to Lilly and finally get her approval when, all of a sudden, his grandmother calls for him, startling him and causes him to drop the gun. Upon impact with the ground, the gun fires. Lilly is seen sitting on a bench after the contest finished, waiting for Andy to arrive, but he never did. The story then flashes to the real world present, where we see Lilly and her mother at home, tending to Lilly’s wound from her injury with the pole. As much as her mother says otherwise, Lilly truly believes that the tragic accident of Andy’s was her fault and her fault alone.
Fallout
Lilly and her mother visit the hospital, where they are greeted by Andy’s grandmother. Although Andy is in extremely rough shape, the fact that he is in a coma gives his grandmother hope that he will soon wake up. She then points out the heartbeat monitor next to Andy, noting that Andy is still alive as long as the lines are jagged. On a morning, presumably not too far into the future, Lilly wakes up to her mother offering her breakfast and asks if she wants to watch Funny Creek, to which Lilly refuses, saying that she “doesn’t think it’s cool anymore.” Her mother agrees to turn off the TV, and the final panels show the TV’s shutoff, resembling a heart rate monitor flatlining and eventually shutting off.
The Substance
After reading the entirety of Funny Creek, one of the first things that came to my mind was how well the story in the real world and the story in the TV show connected with one another. Parallels could be drawn between them both, especially when it comes to the characters of Clumsy and Cody. From what I can gather, these two characters represent Lilly and Andy and their conflict in the real world. Weaving the story of betrayal in the real world into the TV world was an amazing choice on the writer’s part, mostly because I, personally, wanted to see Lilly reconcile for the stress she had caused. Seeing the conflict in both worlds made me sympathize so much more for poor, little Andy…
In addition to the complex, dark plot of Funny Creek, I also admired the little sprinkles of minor details and information that helped shape Andy’s character. In the story, through Andy’s grandmother, we got some brief yet interesting backstory of Andy’s father, who also happened to be passionate about the costume contests and later served in the armed forces. Despite how little we got to hear about his father, this was necessary information that eventually led to Andy’s tragic hospitalization caused by an accidental gunshot via his father’s revolver. It is sad, yes, but had we, the readers, not known about Andy’s father or what he did; we would’ve wrongly assumed that the gun was there just for self-defense, rather than it formerly belonging to Andy’s father.
The Minutiae
I must say, I am REALLY digging the art style in Funny Creek. If I were to categorize it, I would say it is a pleasant mixture of rendering and sketch-like techniques. This art style from Eduardo Medeiros, along with the masterful coloring from Priscilla Tramontano, manages to create a great cartoon-like style that complements the world of the Funny Creek Show. Although the style may offset the tone of the overall story, the moody feel comes mostly from the environment and lighting.
The real-world portions were always colored and lit extremely dark throughout the story, utilizing many cool colors to give a sense of eeriness and slight unease. This, contrasted with the mostly brighter and warmer colors in the TV world, ultimately makes readers feel the tension and conflict of the real-world events.
The Verdict
Every minute I read Funny Creek was a strange delight, where the strange part comes from how dark the story truly was. Before reading the comic, I expected something DRASTICALLY different from what I read, but I’m honestly glad it was different. It felt like I was learning a life lesson by witnessing the trials and tribulations of another but in the form of an amazing-looking comic. I urge anyone who looks for realism and/or real-world themes in comics to definitely take a look at this comic series!