Digitally Speaking...#15 "Jake Parker"

The Antler Boy and Other Stories
From 2012.

via mrjakeparker.com

This is a collection of short works from Jake Parker previously published across a wide spectrum of outlets (including Image) from 2004 to 2012.  Parker has worked at Blue Sky Studios (responsible for the likes of the Ice Age flicks) and also illustrated the Michael Chabon book The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man.  If you know him at all, it may be thanks to his Missile Mouse books published through Scholastic (which released the color versions of Jeff Smith's Bone through the same imprint).

Most of the stories feature distinctive lead characters, several of which recur, including the above Hugo Earhart (who rides a flying whale) as well as Missile Mouse (who was immediately the standout, from the classic John Carter/Buck Rogers/Adam Strange/Star-Lord model of a space hero coming to a strange world and rescuing it from destruction, a story that would be hugely ironic on Krypton).

The titular character, just based on the imagery alone, calls to mind Jeff Lemire's Sweet Tooth from DC's Vertigo imprint, but the story is more like a fable than anything, a curse Antler Boy recounts in years later. Like the rest of the material in the collection, it's close to all-ages (although you might use caution for some images of light violence).

It's not surprising that Missile Mouse is Parker's main claim to fame, because that particular entry reads most smoothly.  I'm glad there is more material with the character, because my strongest reaction coming out of the collection is that I wish Parker would stick with one story rather than a bunch of shorts.  But that's the nature of the collection.  As a reader, I can sometimes be impatient with the idea of a short story collection.  If the shorts individually don't impress me, I tend to grow impatient, even if the talent behind them is obvious.  I just want to see what the creator can do with longer material.  It's the same in prose as well as comics.  So it's fortunate that Parker has some stuff that breaks loose from his restraints here, and that there is more material from the strongest character in the bunch.

I get the sense that Parker isn't particularly interested in mainstream comics success, though if he wanted it I think he could have it.