Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within Him

Grover is back with a new webcomic and he graciously gave me advanced access to read the whole thing before it went live. You can tell it’s taken me quite a while to get to this by the fact that the sixth and final chapter has just come out. Still, the review must go on.

Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within Him
By Grover
Songs by Pinguin Mofex, Eric Michael Robertson and Mike Maurer.
Web Development by Andrew Jensen.

If you’ve followed me over from Multiversity, you may remember us reviewing the Eisner nominated “Deeply Dave” and the wild “Hamburglar Goes to Hell” by Grovertoons. I’m on record as being a big fan, particularly of Grover’s multi-media approach, one that really only works on the web. I’ll be curious how it translates to physical format in the case of “Deeply Dave.”

“Jake Spooky” is, by all accounts, a step-back from the ambition of those two projects. That’s not a bad thing, but it is noticeable. It’s a streamlined narrative with rhythmic panels and few extra assets save the simple panel loops and music for chapters two through six. The music remains kicking and there are a wealth of wonderful CGI assets and fantastic gifs - Jake eating himself in particular is a favorite. Did Grover use a sock to make that??

The basic premise is Jake Spooky, a ghost with a baseball cap, keeps barfing up wolves, who are tearing up the house he shares with Brand-o (who has a CRT-TV for a head) and Quincy (a cat.) If you wanted to know what episode 1 was, I actually gave you more information than you need.

In fact, episode 1 is so streamlined, 75% of the panels are identical. I don’t know if this is brilliant or annoying; annoying because I genuinely thought something was wrong with my internet when I kept seeing the same panel over and over and over again; brilliant because it sets the tone of the work right from the get go. No frills. No grand adventure. Just a small story that’s kinda ludicrous, kinda funny, and kinda rough.

It is what I hoped it would be.

The stripped back narrative lets the quirkiness of the characters take center stage and provides a more focused experience. The art is confident, streamlined, with simple backgrounds and a mostly black and white (and pink) palette. Aesthetically fitting for a story that seems to be a gonzo sci-fi tale but reveals itself to be one of early adulthood.

Brand-o and Jake feel they’ve lost something as they’ve aged - in this case, playing tunes. Sure, it’s only been a month but, as we see, Brand-o and Jake are in different places. Brand-o’s procrastination is indicative of a shift in internal priorities, while Jake is in a state of arrested development, in some ways: his hatred of strawberry jam and attempts to ignore his wolf problem are manifestations of this. However, the expected tensions between these outlooks doesn’t come to a head. As the chapters unfold, instead, we see the characters grow alongside each other and, in the end, reconvene. Friendship is a strong glue and suffers no fools.

Lest you think this is a deadly serious work, it’s really not. There’s a whole segment about some couple panic buying all the chili sauce in preparation for the hurricane in chapter 3. The 3D sliminess asset had me busting a gut and the punchline to Brand-o only seeing the weather reports backwards in the mirror is *chef’s kiss.* “Jake Spooky’s” semi-disaffected absurdist tone acts to disarm, so that the more serious moments and themes hit harder, while being the thing that propels the comic forward. It is these moments that stick in the mind.

While not Grover’s strongest work, nor my favorite of the bunch, “Jake Spooky and the Wolves Within” is a great introduction to these characters and well worth a read. If you’ve got an afternoon, get some headphones, get some strawberry jam and check out the six chapters today.

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