Satire, I’d recently argued, is a slippery slope. Too heavy a hand and you come off as offensively dense. Too soft, however, and no one knows that you’re in on the joke. Luckily, the creative team behind Self Help nailed the balance in their excellent debut issue, crafting a story about a loser replacing his doppleganger (a self-help guru) in order to change his fate.
But as we enter issue #2 of Self Help, the formula has shifted a little, as the sense of satire takes more of a backseat to the book’s other core function: a gritty but stylized SoCal noir thriller. Change, it seems, is a good thing as Self Help responds in a way to make this still-developing story more exciting than a Tony Robbins seminar.
In issue #1 of Self Help, Jerry Hauser, lowly Dryvyr operator, swapped places with Darren Hart, this universe’s premier motivational speaker/writer. (And by swap places, I mean left him in a desert, and I can’t wait till that cow potentially comes home!) This time around, Jerry leaps head first into Darren’s old life — finding himself in direct contact with some nasty dealings alongside the Finnish mafia. There’s also another thread that kicks off in the beginning of the issue, and while I don’t want to spoil it, it’s thematical gold as another layer to this whole doppelgänger motif. That, and it’s really the thing that makes this a properly layered bit of noir that shows the larger plans of the writing team of Owen King and Jesse Kellerman. Because having this big, breathing narrative slowly unfurl gives some depth and longevity to Jerry’s story — it’s abundantly clear that the man is in way over his head and wholly unprepared for the madness to come.
That approach, then, turns a solid gimmick (satire) into a device for telling this super rich story that’s just novel enough to be a proper addition to a slew of like-minded noir stories (especially those emanating from SoCal). The story gets that quirky angle to play off, and yet it never dictates the true scope and weirdness levels that this story is able to facilitate just through worldbuilding and character development. It’s what makes the whole satire thing feel so effective: it’s used with efficiency to empower the story and not just leave it to operate in one kind of circle. This story’s alive now, and it’s wonderfully mutating in some truly wild and compelling ways.
At the same, though, there’s no denying that the element of spoofing self-help gurus is still very much at the core of this book. It’s maybe a little less overt or obvious than with issue #1, but Self Help is still clearly interested in using these ideas to say something of value. Jerry only gets to this place by halfheartedly embracing this culture and its ideas of self-worth, and that alone has to speak volumes about how we’re to regard this “lifestyle.” The aforementioned Finnish mobsters, for instance, are the firmest believer in Jerry/Darren’s whole shtick, and that has got to say something about how we’re to regard people who buy into these ideas about the power of self-actualization or capturing your inner beast or whatever nonsense is being slung like cheap wares.
That subtle but persistent presence is how the story gets to be a really solid thing about people and their interactions and still explore some of the satirical elements without going overboard so early in this story. It’s done in a way that grounds and humanizes these more abstract ideas, giving us real examples of what happens if we live our lives with aggressive selfishness and/or think that there’s a magical solution to our issues and shortcomings. It’s a means to using satire as another tool in this story, and to let us come to certain realizations without bashing us over the head with what the team think we ought to see or accept. In that way, Self Help becomes something so much more than its initial premise.
Main cover by Marianna Ignazzi,. Courtesy of Image Comics.
You could very much make the same argument for the ongoing visual development across Self Help #2. In the debut, the work of the art team (artist Marianna Ignazzi, colorist Fabian Mascolo, and letterer/designer Ian Chalgren) proved to be “both sun-kissed and appropriately dark and grimy,” and a really solid way to facilitate the satirical nature of this story (and how perfect this setting was for that core narrative).
It’s still very much like that, but I think things feel both more tempered and altogether more expressive in that somewhat specific niche. Regarding the more tempered aspects, there’s this sense that, as the storyline has pushed the overt self-help satirizing down just a bit, we get a more grounded and approachable look at the City of Angels. It’s a place where things are just as big, bold, and beautiful as ever but that also there’s more approachability involved. And that lets us walk further into the story, and to see the ugly side of it all in a way that feels less theatrical and more organic. That, then, has the added bonus of actually making some of Self Help‘s satirical nature ring a little more deeply and truly.
I love the way that people are depicted here, with the right kind of pulp-y elegance and yet still very much with this grounded sense of emotionality. Or the way light and shadow seem to operate across this issue — it certainly gets us thinking about those big ideas of morality and who is decent and who has lost the plot in a way that feels really understated and almost playful. We’re very much drilling down deeper and deeper into this world, and it’s become more distinct and clear and even slightly grimmier in front of our very eyes.
There were several times in this issue where I thought about how dirty a scene had left me feeling, and that connected me with these characters who are seeing their ideas and the stories they tell themselves dissolve for the better and worse in several key ways. It’s not necessarily a side of L.A. we haven’t seen before, but it’s this world that’s come into focus that’s very much a fantasy and yet something that reflects our worst qualities. And in that process, Self Help is showing us the real cost of becoming better versions of ourselves and what happens when we think you can squirm your way into some better, easier version of life.
In a lot of ways, Self Help isn’t exactly telling a novel story — plenty of properties have been focused on these tentpoles. But the way the creative team uses its various tools, and offers both unwavering charm and a splash or two of glamour and fantasy, this book feels especially refreshing and poignant in its explorations. It’s showing us things we may have always known were there, but it’s doing so in a way that’s singular in its honesty, integrity, and all around presentation.
No matter how Self Help continues to evolve and refine its approach, I already know it’s the guru of silly-but-dark noir.
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