Subversion is mentioned in the first scene of Owen Kline’s hilarious and dark comedy, Funny Pages, and it sticks with you. A young cartoonist will stop at nothing to become an authentic artist, but making it on his own terms and his own way will lead to troublesome situations. Funny Pages is a grimy coming-of-age film by way of Robert Crumb.
Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) isn’t interested in the suburban college track that his parents have laid out for him. They want him to finish high school and then go on to college, but Robert wants to attend art school. His mentor, Mr. Katano, tells him to focus on his more adult themed, shockingly funny art even though a proper art education will insist on mastering the form. Robert’s drawings are already at a high level of quality that Katano thinks he can skip formal education all together.
Robert bypasses his parents’ plans altogether and moves to Trenton, New Jersey and finds an apartment that would make even Travis Bickle reconsider the move. He begins a job as an assistant for a public defender, and Robert is thrilled to discover that one of her new clients is an artist who worked as an assistant colorist for a popular comic. While Robert’s underground drawings are not something that Marvel would scoop up any time soon, he will stop at nothing to get a lesson from Wallace, played by Matthew Maher.
What impressed me so much about Kline’s film is how much he allowed Robert to be an unapologetic asshole. His exuberance and passion lack the fundamental tact that make most coming-of-age films soft or twee–this would be a beautiful companion piece to Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 comedy, Ghost World (Zwigoff, ironically, directed Crumb, a critically-acclaimed doc about the artist). I had no idea what any of the characters were going to do, and Kline plunges us into an underbelly of characters as if they, too, are out of an underground story. Zolghadri gives Robert an easy arrogance and ambivalence towards others that is so refreshing.
When you’re a kid, you think you can take over the world or that you know better than the adults around you. Robert isn’t tentative and dives in after what he wants. He is just more comfortable with coloring outside the lines. Shouldn’t we all want that?
Funny Pages is in theaters now.
