Sean “Ian” Gibson is an ambitious young Belizean artist who flexes his creative muscles in the misunderstood field of cartooning. Factory Books published his first comic book “Major Destruction”, 2001, when he was 16 years and still a student at SJC. Gibson also illustrated Roy Davis’ two anansi books, “All is Mine”, 2002 and “Anansi Party – Belizean Folktales and Poems”, 2004.

  A look at Gibson's new book, "Booby Trap"

Gibson has the spunk of youth about him. He’s the chameleon man- changes style dependent upon content. In each outing his drawings have evolved. Over the six years I’ve been familiar with his work, Gibson’s drawing style has gone through several distinct stages. He’s so chameleon-sque that he goes so far as to re-invent himself under the guise of another name.

Major Destruction’s cartoon style was the visual equivalent to “heavy metal” music. It was Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath or Judas Priest. Headbanger music done in pen and ink. The cartoons were testosterone driven – Nazis on hormones gone wild.

In “All is Mine” Gibson switched technique and apparently fell in love with the airbrush. The cartoon imagery mellowed out and incorporated a more sugar-coated Disney-like rendering method. The Mickey Mouse/ Charles Chavannes cutesy-pie style is an immensely popular way of visualizing figures. The rendering was reminiscent of the 20th century comic strip masters: Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy”, Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” and Walt Kelly’s “Pogo”. To continue the music metaphor, “All” is Perry Como, Bobby Darin and Pat Boone “easy listening, bubblegum” music. That said, the book sold out within a month. Cutesy-pie is endearing to the masses and certainly sells. Artists need those kinds of positive strokes every now and then. 

Two years later in “Anansi Party” Gibson added a bunch of “Major Destruction” cynicism and grungy Baroque imagery giving it a brooding edge. His work showed an academic, classical influence counter pointed by a sinister, highly facile use of cross hatching.  “Guns-n-Roses” on visual steroids.

Then with “Booby Trap” Gibson reverted back to the Disney/Chavannes style of “All is Mine”. Though he has refined the classical- eminently accessible pop style to the nth degree. He has also expanded his drawing repertoire into some highly clever Mannerist point of view, oblique angles. His sense of eccentric composition imbrues “Booby” with a provocative bounce.

  Booby Trap

Gibson’s imagery might have devolved back and forth from the throbbing heavy metal tone of “Destruction” to the refined, somewhat dainty traditionalism of Walt Kelly by way of Chavannes but when push comes to shove, Gibson displays a considerable amount of courage in even working in the cartoon genre. As an artist of talent Gibson like all other cartoonists gets the short end of the stick from other artists. Snobbery in the art world is a reality. Painters and sculptors look down on all the other disciplines. Printmakers, jewelers, draftsmen, ceramists don’t quite cut the aesthetic mustard from a painter’s vantage point. And at the bottom rung is the cartoonist. Anything vaguely funny can’t be serious…. bullshit. So within the art milieu Gibson has to work twice as hard to get respect.

I see Gibson as a flexible artist that is still looking for a signature style. So as a way to possibly opening up some art historical doors for him I am going to cite a few cartoonist-draftsmen giants that he might find of interest.  

Rembrandt- yes the greatest painter that ever lived was also a demon cartoonist. In those all too frequent times between major commissions Rembrandt put bread on the table selling quasi-pornographic etchings for a couple gliders each. One of his more famous  porno pieces is “Monk in a Corn Field”. The priest is getting down-n-dirty with a young maid in the middle of a field- and he ain’t shucking corn either. Or maybe he is. Check out his viseral line and provocative use of shadow. The sacrilegious content was asking for trouble in the 1600s. Surprised he didn’t burn at the stake.

  Rembrandt's “The Monk in the Cornfield,” etching and drypoint, 1646

William Hogarth’s morality tales like the series “The Harlots Progress” dealt with society’s hypocrisy in relation to the world’s oldest profession. Each ‘toon’ is ram-jammed with multiple, interrelated stories. All neatly unified with his obsessive-compulsive cross-hatching. A pervasive sense of corruption looms over the scene. The 18th century caustic equal to Don Imus’ “ho” comment. 

Same can be said about Francisco Goya’s fiery, gut-wrenching opus,  the  “Disasters of War” series of caricatures, 1810 -20. The lines are jittery, the lighting Baroque, the scenes of rape and plunder are vulgarly morbid and the statement is timeless. The antithesis to Disney’s happy-go-lucky worldview.  

Jump cut one hundred and fifty years to the radical late 1960s. The upheavals were not just limited the protesting the Vietnam War, fighting for racial equality, sexual openness and LSD but also redefining society and culture- radicalizing cartooning too. In 1967 in the Haight Asbury section of San Francisco- the Summer of Love-  R. Crumb blew the lid off of comic books, cartoon style and cartoon content. Zap Comix was born. Crumb dropped a tab of the hallucinogen LSD and recreated comics—he tweaked the conventions of Sunday funnies to make radical, subversive social commentary. Perversity and cynicism deconstructed traditional content into something innovative and confrontational. 

One of Crumb’s cartoonist colleagues at Zap was S. Clay Wilson. S. Clay's work has been criticized as grotesque, demented, vile, shameless, twisted, sinful, sadistic, degrading, and apocalyptic. This critic doesn’t disagree with any of those observations but must add that S. Clay is (arguably) the strongest cartoonist working in the last 40 years. His bizarre, over-the-top characters “Captain Pissgums and His Pervert Pirates” and “Ruby the Dyke” still pack a shocking wallop forty years after their debut. Open season on all taboos. A modern day Jonathon Swift. Radical sixties novelists like William S. Burroughs and Terry Southern were inspired by S. Clay’s demonic vision and wrote characters based on his cartoons.

Other cartoon trailblazers from the Hippie era are Gilbert Shelton who published the first issue of “Wonder Wart-Hog” in1968. The “Hog” was a wicked parody of super heroes like Superman and Batman.  Rick Griffin created the hapless anti-hero “Zippy the Pinhead” around the same time and Skip Williamson caricatures deflated in a humorous way some seriously overblown political and social issues.

  Gibson's Booby Trap

Ian Gibson has loads of technical skill and a quirky way with a plotline. And Walt Disney’s saccharine style has made billions over the years. But, but, but Rembrandt, Goya, Crumb and Wilson are worth looking too.