This week, WORLD OF HURT celebrated its one year anniversary on the World Wide Web. However, on Thursday, April 8th, Julian Lytle, also celebrated the one year anniversary of his webcomic, Ants, so I thought I’d take the time to spotlight the work of my fellow 2010 Glyph Award nominee.
David Brothers of 4thLetter.net hipped me to Lytle’s work in the interview he conducted with Lytle as part of his Black Future ‘10 series. The titular characters are four human-sized anthropomorphic ants who could easily be buddies from your college days, hanging out, talkin’ smack, and living life in contemporary America. The characters each have their own unique appearances, so the reader can easily tell them apart, but I’m not certain that Lytle ever gives them names. The Ants dress and speak like modern Black youth, but Lytle renders them with antenna and long, gangly tubular bodies in a loose, spontaneous style that recalls Rob Schrab’s Scud, The Disposable Assassin by way of Ashley (Popbot) Wood and Corey (SharkKnife) Lewis.
With one notable exception which I will discuss later, Ants contains mostly one-off humor strips, so it is extremely accessible to new readers. Despite the general lack of lengthy story arcs, Lytle does reward long-time readers with a few recurring gags and callbacks to previous strips, such as one of the character’s attempts to start a new dance craze called “The Crack Back.” Also, it may just mean I’m out of touch with current slang, but Ants is the first place I’ve seen the word “kirkin’” used to refer someone flying into a rage, a la Captain James T. Kirk’s oft-parodied scream of “KHAAAAAANNN!!!” in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.
Inspired by real life events that anticipated a potential Eggo shortage this summer, Ants recently concluded a long-running storyline that placed the characters in a quest to exact vengeance upon Thor, the Norse god of thunder, for his suspected role in disrupting the nation’s supply of it’s favorite frozen waffles. It was a far-ranging tale with gloriously insane moments built on an equally insane premise. However, I would argue that Ants is at its best when it focuses on current events and political commentary, such as when the Ants broke the fourth wall to offer tips to cheating men in the wake of the Tiger Woods scandal. Lytle can effortlessly mix social commentary with liberal doses of contemporary and classic pop culture references.
In those sublime moments, Ants beautifully fills the void that Aaron McGruder left when he stopped producing The Boondocks comic strip for the newspapers so he could chase (and catch) some animation paper. With his unique style and his capacity to launch hilariously biting assaults on politicians or hip-hop’s sacred cows like Lil’ Wayne, Lytle’s work, like Glyph Award winner, Keith Knight (The K Chronicles), pushes editorial cartooning forward to a new look, style and voice that keeps the artform fresh and relevant for modern audiences.
I’ll see you next week with an all-new strip and a return of The Unsung Bad Mother****** Awards!
- JEP
* I know I butchered the title, but I’ll use any excuse to drop a M.O.P. reference.