#5: The Art of Monkey Meat
Look at it. LOOK AT IT.
I have this trio of cousins, give-or-take fifteen years my junior, who are exceptional skiers. They grew up on it and, through talent or focus or hours and hours of practice (or hell, all of the above), far outpaced my ability years ago. I get to hit the mountain with them once or twice a year and it’s always a riot. The three of ‘em - launching off jumps at half my body weight and double my speed - have a fuckin’ ball. They’re in their element.
There’s a point here, I promise. The fun they’re having, the joy they take in doing what they’re doing, it’s infectious. Somehow, watching them love what they do - and execute it with evident skill - makes those experiences nothing shy of transcendental for me. That right there, that’s exactly what it was like to read Juni Ba’s Monkey Meat #1.
Let’s start with Ba’s incredibly unique style. A self-professed manga fan and Cartoon Network kid, Ba’s art is unlike almost anything you’ll see on Western comics racks right now. To me, a 90’s kid, the 00’s Cartoon Network influences are at the forefront of Monkey Meat. Like Samurai Jack, Monkey Meat manages to blend highly-dramatic panels, sometimes-unsettling character designs, the occasional cuteness, and slapstick-humor completely seamlessly into his cartooning. It’s high-octane, over-the-top expressive, and embodies in the best possible way whatever it is that directly opposes “realism”. In particular, Ba’s willingness to fully distort anatomy opens incredibly opportunities for creative character expression; opportunities that he does not fail to hit every single time.
The color layered on those pencils is, predictably, also incredible. Monkey Meat’s palette is dominated by very well chosen earth tones; primarily reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. Along with his distinctive pencilling, Ba’s color work solidifies an absolutely singular visual identity for Monkey Meat. That palette, from this western white perspective, pairs incredibly well with another of Ba’s apparent influences; African artistic tradition.
I am not an expert in African art, so for my part I’m going to draw comparisons with in fairly broad strokes. Africa, like any enormous landmass, is made up of scores of distinct cultural traditions.
Right up front, there’s the cover’s title typography and the logo of Monkey Meat International, the fictional corporation around which the story revolves (oh, have I not touched on the plot yet?), which call to mind the intricate patterns sewn into textiles in the Ghanaian (“Kente Cloth”) and Kuba (Congo, 1625–1884) traditions. Cloth of the Kuba Kingdom was generally woven from a particular type of palm tree, possibly inspiring their angular geometric designs. Similar patterns appear all over Monkey Meat #1, most notably in my opinion on the issue’s only spread.
As an aside, I’d buy this first issue just for that spread. It’s an absolute treatise on generous use of ink and features some of the most wonderfully chaotic line work I’ve ever seen.
There’s also the masks worn by many of the (presumably?) monkeys who work on the island, which evoke the many mask-making traditions of traditional African art. (This one, for example, is a dead-ringer).
The issue is also pretty fixated on flora and fauna, themes that run throughout large chunks of pre-Contemporary African arts. Very few pages in Monkey Meat #1 don’t feature some joyful combination of woodland critters or wild trees. Oh, also, characters in Monkey Meat are, by-and-large, anthropomorphic.
The last thing I’ll mention here isn’t a visual device so much as a narrative one, but worth talking about. There’re a few human characters in the issue; all but one of them is black. (Spoiler: God shows up in a panel or two, he’s black too.) Considering the African influences and setting of the series, I can’t really imagine it being otherwise and it’s a great touch. Representation in comics is fuckin’ important.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, Monkey Meat also contains some really funny callbacks to Golden Age advertising elements; full-page ads, mail-order cutouts, and Editors Notes that hide ridiculous legal-ese. These visual tricks play with comics consumerist roots, and are absolutely welcome given the series’ narrative conceit as a rage against Capitalism.
All those influences really add up in Monkey Meat #1. Like watching my cousins ski, you can really tell that Ba is playing in his element with this issue and having a fantastic time doing it. For that, it’s an incredibly enriching reading experience, and I didn’t even touch the book’s plot. Go out and buy Monkey Meat #1, buy Ba’s TKO-published Graphic Novel Djeliya, and subscribe to The Gutter for good measure.