Mary Tyler MooreHawk

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher IDW Publishing for gifting me at the holidays with an advanced copy of the most wondrous and mind-blowing graphic novel/prose/experimental prose, even possible future memoir things I have read in quite a long time.

I've been reading comics longer than I have been reading books. I was drawn to the old Sunday Cartoon Pages staring at the art and laughing at what I saw. My grandmother began buying me comics from the newsstand starting with Disney, and Sad Sack with big pictures, moving to superheroes. In my time I have seen comics change from something bought in small stores with many steps leading down, to comic book stores, chains and online. Dark Knights, Ninja Turtles, Radioactive Hamsters, dead heroes, heroes reborn, and dead again. Some of the ones considered classics I think are just ok, some forgotten I mourn like certain relatives. A few have left me with what the heck was that moments. Less have left me with a, I never thought I could read something like this, I am better for it. Mary Tyler Moorehawk is one of those stories. A book that left me going, everything seems so familiar, and yet I have never read a book like this. And I need more. Mary Tyler Moorehawk by writer, artist, designer Dave Baker, is an adventure story, a memoir, an entertainment profile, and futurist view of a world that is grey, where TV is dead, washing machine viewing is in, art is underground, the future is dark, and yet one young woman fights on.

Mary Tyler Moorehawk is a hero with a bodyguard, a cyborg half-brother, a step-mother who is a genius, a love for adventure, a long list of enemies, a wish to find a haunted house to explore, rather than the underground places she usually finds herself. Told in nine panels her adventures pit her against a foe returned from the grave, who died with Moorehawk's mother, with plans to destroy the world, and take Moorehawk has left away. Mary Tyler Moorehawk is also a cult television show, shown in a future that has recycled art, broadcast on the screen for washing machines, before stopping with a last episode unseen. Dave Baker is a young reporter who loved the show as a child, and is doing a profile on the show, hoping to learn more about the making of, the ideas behind, and about its enigmatic creator, also named Dave Baker. Journalist Dave Baker gives a history of a future that could be ours, as he explores a future America tracking clues, and hints and hopefully more about Dave Baker.

This book is basically Philip K. Dick writing a comic book, while writing another book at the same time, while going through both a divorce, his exegesis and his dealer going AWOL. What starts as a fun looking comic book, almost for kids, gos into a prose account about a very sad sounding future full of billionaire ice cream company innovators buying public access television to broadcast shows on washing machines after an entertainment purge. The main character is a writer writing about a show created by a man who has disappeared with the same name as Dave Baker, who also is creating this entire adventure. This could be some sort of Dick novel A Minority Report about Electronic Sheep Darkly. The comic is good, funny, with great characters, lots of names that all should have shows about them. The prose writing is riveting, a Steve Erickson meets Mark Leyner kind of style, about a dark future that rid itself of technology, not for the better but for the dull. Baker is a great stylist. The amount of work this must have taken to create, I can't imagine. The art is fun, middle school adventure book fun. The writing deep, introspective, sad, and yet really really smart. I can't say enough good things about it.

Recommended for all those who always want graphic novel storytelling to finally start striving for those heights that have been promised since the 80's. Oh this book will change things, oh this will change things. I'm still waiting, at least until now. Hopefully this will change some stuff. Fans of comics will like this, fans of Philip K Dick, Steve Erickson, Mark Leyner, Bunny Modern, experimental writing, will love this. Art designers will get a kick out of the photos. Role players will love the idea of the future. I can see this being a hard sell to people. And to read. It is so worth it. Dave Baker is really a talent. I can't wait to read more.