Stray Toasters #1-4
Published by: Marvel/Epic – 1988
Written and Illustrated by: Bill Sienkiewicz
It is difficult to be critical of Stray Toasters—not for lacking flaws (of which there are many), but, rather, because it was both written and illustrated by the amazing Bill Sienkiewicz—an artist whom, when at the top of his game, can go toe to toe with any other artist working today—whose long and illustrious career should not be besmirched with a lackluster assessment of a work he had sole control over. But, sadly, Stray Toasters is lackluster. However, the faults lie in the writing more than the art, and, since Sienkiewicz is an artist by trade—not a writer—that fact may offer some consolation. There is some clever writing and the plot is not entirely without fascination, but confusion abounds as if it were a type of tone or mood that hangs like a pall over the entire work from the first page but dissipates more and more as one approaches the last.
Upon first reading, it is hard to distinguish that which will later become important from that which is intended to merely entertain. This means that subtly dropped clues and hints and introductions are passed over without notice when they should be made special note of as they will recur and become important later on. Thus, it is advantageous to read the comic a second time—if you have the stomach for it. Initial impressions compelled the assignation of a low quality rating and inspired little desire to revisit the work in any depth greater than appreciating the artwork independently of the narrative and forevermore ignoring the fact that a story is being told. However difficult it may be to persuade oneself to reread Stray Toasters, it will be rewarded. Frankly, even upon further review, the work is not a classic in terms of plot, characterization, theme, or tone, but is still more subtle, deliberate, and intricate than first impressions indicate.
Sadly, even the art in Stray Toasters is not Sienkiewicz’s best. It has its transcendent and incandescent moments, but it too suffers from vagary and confusion. It could be conjectured that when working from someone else’s script one is given a degree of explicit-and-objective instruction and description to interpret and follow, whereas, when working from one’s own ideas, the necessity of fixing the narrative in such discrete and objective units is abandoned for a more ephemeral process of approximation and experimentation. It should be pointed out that Sienkiewicz’s experimentation is what makes his art great—going from pen and ink to paint and airbrush, rendering realistically or in a stylized manner—but, when untethered by the writing, the experimentation lacks the narrative anchors that force upon it a coherence.
The story as far as I can decipher is this: A psychoanalyst whom works with the police is aiding with an investigation into the murder of a woman which may be tied to a string of murders involving young children. On top of that you have the man’s mistress, and his ex—who is a therapist whose motives and techniques are suspect—a lawyer whom patronizes the therapist, a devil or the devil, and a young boy named Todd whom is at the center of everything else despite not really doing much.
Stray Toasters is intended for “mature audiences.” It has the big three: nudity, profanity, and violence; but it also has more subtle types of inappropriate content such as a lawyer paying for therapy that amounts to a combination of bondage, sadomasochism, and humiliation.
Recommendations:
If you like Stray Toasters for its art, definitely check out other work by Sienkiewicz. Elektra: Assassin and Daredevil: Love and War—both written by Frank Miller—are standouts and—though destined to remain unfinished—Big Numbers, written by Alan Moore, is another highlight of his career. Sienkiewicz’s very short adaptation of Moby Dick is also worth a look, as is his beautiful biography of Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child: The Illustrated Legend of Jimi Hendrix. He also worked on numerous issues of New Mutants in the 80s, however, his artwork—aside from the eye-catching covers—was limited to pen and ink and has more in common—stylistically—with Klaus Jansen than with his own painted work.
Other artists that fans of Sienkiewicz might appreciate include Dave McKean, Ashley Wood, and David Mack.
McKean—best known for his mixed-media covers for Neil Gaiman’s Sandman—paints and draws comic interiors in an illustration style which shares many of the best traits of Sienkiewicz. He has also done numerous album covers and a set of beautiful but haunting tarot cards. His standout comics are Cages, Violent Cases, Signal to Noise, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, and Black Orchid.
Wood’s style has varied drastically over the years—from his beginnings on Ghost Rider 2099 which mimicked the then-contemporary style of Jae Lee (think Hellshock, Namor, and Youngblood: Strikeforce), to his work on a pair of Spawn one-shots and subsequent interiors and covers of Hellspawn which are responsible for inventing a style that has served as the template Ben Templesmith has been working in ever since, to then change styles yet again into a looser pen-and-ink drawing style such as that found in Automatic Kafka and Tank Girl which he transcends one more time in favor of increasingly painted works such as Popbot—and, though his art is not particularly superficially similar to Sienkiewicz’s, it shares his intent to innovate and try many different approaches to rendering and storytelling transcending the medium’s usual focus on computer-colored pen and ink realism for instead the breadth of styles and techniques available to a mixed-media artist.
Mack is perhaps one of comics’ greatest innovators. His style changes from page-to-page, or even panel-to-panel, to suit the story and his use of mixed-media collage shares the higher calling of artists like Sienkiewicz and McKean. Any of Mack’s work is likely to please but his high-points include Kabuki: Metamorphosis, Kabuki: The Alchemy, and a several-issue run (issues 51-55) on the Marvel Knights Daredevil series.
It should also be noted that the writing of most works by Mack and McKean are impeccable and if one comes for the art, they will stay for the writing.
If you like the writing of Stray Toasters, I don’t know what to recommend, but the movie Slipstream written, directed by, and starring Sir Anthony Hopkins comes to mind. From what I’ve seen of it, it is—like Stray Toasters—ambitious but muddled and confusing.
Brian Bigelow
May 21, 2017
