You can’t fault MacDoodle St. for its level of insanity. Mark Alan Stamaty’s epic comic strip tells a bizarrely overlapping story of a weak-willed poet in New York thrown into a situation where he must save the world from a dastardly corporate maniac with the help of soothsayers, hippy cafes, and talking baseball cards. Drawn for The Village Voice and published weekly throughout 1978-79, MacDoodle St. is a psychotic beast whose story can’t be condensed into a neat, tidy review.
The story’s early stages centre on Malcolm Frizzle’s writer’s block which is preventing him from delivering his latest poem to Dishwasher Monthly. As the story progresses, the comic takes countless enjoyably ludicrous turns, which sometimes involve MacDoodle St. adopting a very meta form of humour and its characters becoming engrossed in the fact that they’re part of a comic strip.
The scope of Stamaty’s efforts is what makes MacDoodle St. hilariously readable. No political, social or economic stance is safe from Stamaty’s rambling Spike Milligan-esque sense of madcap humour. His art matches the rapid insanity of the story with equal aplomb. Illustrated in black and white, detail is skeletal yet the deadpan manner of its characters is exquisitely brought to life in this minimalistic style. Elsewhere, Stamaty’s depiction of the New York landscape that dominates the story is equally enthralling. MacDoodle St. may be stripped back in detail, but Stamaty is able to cram in a plethora of characters and locales that frivolously traverse the line between parody and homage to New York. It’s a joy to pore over these intricate little scribbles that form part of a wider cohesive tale of adventure, self-discovery and comedy.
The book’s pace is as entertaining as it is flawed. Such is the speed at which the story is told, the humour, and the heart, rarely have a chance to make a substantial impact. The end result is that some of the comic’s deeper ideas feel rather cheap and forced. It’s an intensely breathless read that leaves little time to decipher its overall message. MacDoodle St. doesn’t care for when the dust settles, because it’s continually kicking up that dust.
MacDoodle St. is an utter riot of a read. Its frantic pace makes for heavy going at times, but it remains a wildly entertaining ride. It will leave you breathless with its Marx Brothers/Monty Python/Goon Show-esque humour, delivered at fireball speed that keeps things relentlessly entertaining. Proceed with this one at your own risk, it’s not for the weak-willed.
MACDOODLE ST. / AUTHOR: MARK ALAN STAMATY / PUBLISHER: THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
