The Prodigal Cartoonist Returns

Dylan Meconis, the Portland-based cartoonist behind the killer webcomic Family Man, has been on a creative hiatus since the spring. During her "summer vacation," she apparently did a lot of thinking and plotting for her main gig, and she also had time to work on something new, a little joy of a bonus comic she calls Outfoxed.

The pretty crazy cool thing about Outfoxed is that it's very, very different from Meconis's work on Family Man. She's said, for one, that the art style here comes more naturally than the one she uses in her long form comic, and it shows. This stuff is just looser, a little less serious, a little more consciously cartoony, significantly more fun. Don't get me wrong, I adore the ongoing story of Luther Levy, and I'm glad to see that it survived the hiatus unscathed, but this stuff is wildly slicker and more inventive. If she's being honest about the fact that this is what comes naturally to her (and I have no reason to believe that she's lying) it means that she has to reign herself in when she draws Family Man, that she has to control her wilder designing and cartooning impulses for the sake of telling a more serious story.

If this is the case, Dylan Meconis is, straight up, one of the most talented cartoonists I've ever encountered, and probably also among the smartest. Check this out if only because of the art; from the unhurried lightness of the lines that come together to make the form of the protagonist to the heavy blockiness of the noble hunters, it's a beautiful piece of work, one I hope comes out as a physical minicomic sooner rather than later, if only because I would like to see the beautiful colors in real life. The story isn't perfect (it's relatively clear that the tight storytelling that accompanies the labor that is Family Man is a side effect of Meconis challenging her natural tendencies), but there's really only one place that it presents a serious issue and, anyway, have you seen the damn thing?!