Panel Vision - The Humans

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It’d be fair to say 2017 has been a curiously good year for monkeys, by which I, of course, mean all variations of ape and primate because this is a colloquial essay and not an academic one.  But anyway, between Kong: Skull Island and War for the Planet of the Apes monkeys are having a very big year at the box office, if only because TWO ape films at the theater is two more than you’d normally expect.  Obviously, apes have had a long, proud, and storied history in comics going back to the days of DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz’ famous maxim that “Apes on comics sell comics.”  

This definitely won’t be the last time I talk about ape comics this year but it will probably be the only time I really focus in on the actual comics themselves rather than just the covers, mainly because most ape comics are weird old ‘50s stories that the only kind of hold up.  Not so for today’s offering, the supremely bizarre and delightful offbeat indie oddity: The Humans. 

Published in 2015 and written by Keenan Marshall Keller, The Humans is the story of a violent biker gang operating out of Bakersfield in 1970, a violent and psychedelic trip embodying the unrestrained violence of the post-Vietnam era, the increasingly unhinged psychedelia of ‘70s LSD taking over from ‘60s peace and love, and the slow descent of the countercultural movement into porno anarchy on the fringes of American life…also it stars a bunch of chimpanzees.  

That’s the central “joke” of The Humans, the titular Humans are in fact a chimp biker gang but, hold on, there’s actually a lot more to it than that.  The Humans takes place in a bizarre alternate reality where Apes evolved into the dominant, human-like species while humans are the primal savages. 

The Humans is the kind of premise that comics absolutely love, mainly because it doesn’t take a ton of conceptual work to justify itself.  See, despite taking place in a world where gorillas and chimps make up society it’s basically still just a reflection of the real world in the year 1970: America still exists, Vietnam still happened, motorcycle gangs still look exactly how you imagine they would.  

It’s all very much run by magical thinking, “what if apes instead of humans?” is more about imagining that world directly than trying to map out a new history.  It’s the kind of premise that you used to see in a lot of science fiction after The Twilight Zone became the genre’s dominant trendsetter and before Star Wars made things a lot more scrubbed clean and streamlined. 

So even though the comic is set in a world of apes the bigger focus is on the criminal schemes of the titular biker gang rather than how the ape world managed to sign the Magna Carta.  Mostly the ape gimmick is there to facilitate the more extreme action and nudity (there is a lot of nudity so be forewarned on that point) and to set-up, some pretty fun and sporadic gags like a strip club named the Forbidden Zone.  

The main character is Johnny, a Human everyone gave up for dead after he went MIA in Vietnam now returned to lead his gang alongside his brother Bobby.  Though the actual plot is about the gang trying to increase their output by throwing in with a sleazy orangutan named Abe Simian most of that just exists to guide us through the world of The Humans and facilitate mass trip out scenes either from all the drug use or from Johnny’s incredibly intense PTSD flashbacks. 

It’s weird that basically, all the book is selling itself on is the spectacle of extreme ape-on-ape action (in both the violent and sexual sense) but that really is the crux of the comic’s existence and, to be fair, it delivers.  Seriously, The Humans is like a primitive noise rock band- extremely aggressive and in your face but in a way that actually shows off a lot more skill than you’d think.  

The actual care and characterization that goes into creating the book’s pastiche vision of the 1970s shows a great handle on this era’s place in the American historical lexicon and the genres of the era.  It’s a comic dedicated to imagining 1970 as a blend of how we collectively remember the change over from the ‘60s to the ‘70s filtered through the lens of the emerging exploitation and drive-in movie trends of the time. 

A lot of what sells the book as well comes from the combined work of artist Tom Neely and colorist Kristina Collantes.  Neely lays out some incredible splash pages and does a great job giving the various apes a unique look, which is by no means an easy task.  A lot of this comes down to costuming but it’s really good costuming meant to convey a lot about characters at a glance when their faces pretty hard to read.  

For instance, the Human’s rival gang, the Skabbs, are lead by a guy in a Confederate jacket and their main enforcer has an iron cross and swastika on his jacket- this helps to identify the characters but also is an easy way to know they’re worse criminals than our eponymous heroes.   One of the best parts of the comic is when we get a brief glimpse of all the other gangs in the California/South West area each based around a different theme like an ape hippy gang from San Francisco or the Viking monkey bikers Satan’s Minions. 

Really though, it’s Kristina Collantes who steals the entire show in The Humans.  The colors absolutely make every panel of this comic and her command of balance and style is simply incredible.  There’s even a lot of stuff she manages to pull off that I’d normally ding a comic for like using block color backgrounds.  

Here it doesn’t feel lazy but actually enhances the action and the weird grindhouse aesthetic of the entire proceedings.  The colors look washed out but in a way that definitely enhances that same atmosphere.  They also create a more vibrant palette and allow the real-life scenes to slide neatly into the hallucinations and flashbacks a lot more naturally. 

What’s more, when things do slip into a more technicolor palette for the trip out scenes Collantes absolutely nails the balance and making the right focus pop despite some very full action scenes.  There’s a very Mad Max-inspired sequence were The Humans are transporting a truck through the mountains and get jumped by a gang of nomad chimps that’s an absolutely amazing blend of color and visual set-up.  The use of sound effects as panel lines is inspired and the way they actually help the flow of scenes and maintain the angry and intense mood is extremely well done.

I’m not sure the appeal of The Humans translates to non-comic book fans or if you don’t already have a fondness and appreciation for the transitional era it’s riffing on but it’s a hell of a read regardless.  There’s been a second story arc in the works for awhile now called The Jungle but with a lot of indie projects like this there can be long stretches between release dates (just look at Jason Aaron’s Southern Bastards for proof of this,) but I do hope we see ore of the book one day.  It’s a rough, abrasive, almost antagonistic comic backed up by some truly spectacular art and color work that enjoys wallowing in its own crapulence but it’s a fun wallow and one you definitely aren’t going to find anywhere else.

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