Roger Langridge By Jeet Heer The Comics Journal. #266 (February/March 2005) Pessimism can be surprisingly exhilarating, if executed with enough panache. Fred the Clown, the luckless anti-hero who is put through the wringers in Roger Langridge’s new book, lives in a very dark universe indeed: he smells and is none too bright; his co-workers, including even a dummy used for a ventriloquist act, despise him; he literally has trouble finding work, since buses keep letting him off far away from his gigs; winning a lottery only gets him stranded on a desert island; his attempts at wooing are almost invariably answered with a cold shoulder or a slap, if not a call to the cops; in the episodes where he does have a mate, he’s henpecked or cuckolded; one of his rare moments of sexual bliss involves a pig, of the common barnyard variety Despite the fact that Fred is perpetually cursed, the stories about him are never depressing, thanks to the inventiveness and energy of Langridge’s cartooning. Physically, Fred is a delight to the eyes: his head is shaped like a thumb, with a shrub of hair clustered around the ears. A square tooth juts out of the bottom of his bicycle-tire mouth. Fred never talks, which is no loss since his face is richly expressive. Most often, he wears a grin of idiotic cheerfulness, never figuring out what the world is his enemy. When he’s thinking, his tongue energetically forks towards his nose. A frightened Fred allows us to peer deep into the caverns of his wide-open mouth. His costume has less variety than his face. Usually he’s in strict clown uniform: bowler hat adorned with a flower, polka-dot tie, white gloves (three fingers and thumb), suspenders holding up baggy checkered trousers, black shoes big enough for an elephant to wear with ease. But, as the situation requires, Fred can don other duds: tuxed up like his namesake Fred Astaire, smartly attired as a British soldier, or balancing a Carmen Miranda fruit basket on his head. In some memorable strips, Fred is almost nude, his hemispherical belly dominating the page. Fred is, above all, a performer, a trooper (no matter that his audience is usually miniscule verging on non-existent). Therefore, he’s always ready to put on whatever costume the scene require. Fred therefore really is a clown, by his physical appearance and behaviour designed to evoke laughter. Yet Langridge also avoids the heartlessness of unvarnished slapstick, the cruel humour of watching a stooge suffer for our amusement. Unexpectedly, as we get to know Fred he grows on us, so much so that some of the late stories in the book have a touch of poignancy as Fred almost finds love. At its best, Fred the Clown achieves a delicate balance, allowing us both to sympathize with the hapless hero while laughing at his antic predicaments. There is an odd tension between the bleakness of the subject matter and the high-spirits of the art, giving the stories their particular ambience. Because of his expert juggling of empathy and farce, Fred the Clown is Roger Langridge’s breakthrough work. Langridge has been a solid maker of alternative comics for well over a decade, developing his chops in titles like Art D’Ecco and Zoot! (often in collaboration with his brother Andrew). Distinguished by their off-kilter sensibility, early Langridge strips prefigured the wit of Fred the Clown, but there is a density and intensity in the new work that lifts it above its predecessors. Part of the pleasure of Fred the Clown is seeing a talented cartoonist finding his mature (or immature) style, rather like Dan Clowes in the first issue of Eightball or Dave Cooper in Weasel. In sensibility, Fred the Clown is perhaps most closely akin to Chris Ware’s Quimby the Mouse. Like Ware, Langridge is trying to revive in modern form the combination of repetitive formula and inventive presentation found in the classic comic strips of the early 20th century. As many have noted, part of our amazement in reading Krazy Kat is seeing Herriman ring ever fresh variations on his basic brick throwing plot. Just so, in both Quimby and Fred the same story of heartbreak gets told again and again, yet each individual page is full of novelty. The early 20th century ambience of Quimby also pervades the Fred stories. Among other things, Fred the Clown is an extended ode and homage to the golden age of farce, circa 1900-1930. This was the period when tradition and technology had a fruitful union. The millennium old tradition of the public performance (found in the circus, the public square, the music hall, and vaudeville) fertilized emerging art forms like film and comics. The apotheosis of the mime tradition by Chaplin is the best example of how old and new merged during this era. Like so many other alternative cartoonists, Langbridge is attracted to this period and turns to it as a source of inspiration. The early pages of Fred the Clown are filled with parodies of strips like the Yellow Kid, Little Nemo, and Krazy Kat. These are accompanied by a potted history of comics, with Fred enacting the evolution of the medium. Many old movie comedians show up in the background of Fred, with the cadaverous face of Buster Keaton making an especially memorable cameo. Langridge’s debt to classic farce goes deeper than such nods. Like Keaton or Chaplin, Fred is usually in motion whether fleeing from truncheon-bearing cops, ducking to avoid hurled objects, or simply dancing the shinny. Fred’s constant movement is part of his optimism. He never gives up, no matter how bad things get. Given that the forces of the universe (as arrayed by Langridge) are constantly hostile, Fred’s hopefulness is an idiot’s faith. Yet precisely because he keeps his chin up no matter what, Fred wins us over. Optimism in a hopeless world provides is the paradox that energizes these strips