By: Benjamin Marra (writer, artist, letterer….everything)
The Story: The racist major of Los Angeles, some white supremacists and some 70’s funk musicians are out to get the Gangsta Rap Posse in this homage to early-90’s urban fiction.
Five Things:
1). Unafraid to be offensive. The best thing about GRP is how unafriad it is. The creator, Benjamin Marra is a white guy living in Brooklyn. I don’t know the guy, but I’d be highly surprised if Marra has a racist bone in his body, yet it still takes a massive set of balls to produce a work like GRP that features frequent use fo the “N-word”, and plays with stereotypes about white guys being either dorky losers with small penises or mouth-breathing racists in KKK attire or how black guys all smoke weed while visualizing themselves as urban ninjas or how white women all want the loving of a black man. Marra has a story he wants to tell and he’s going to do it. Now, it should be said GRP this isn’t meant to be serious social commentary; you aren’t supposed to walk away from GRP wondering about the plight of the inner city. And it is totally targeted about people who have the ability to laugh at themselves, but I still admire a guy who is willing to create such a work and not worry about the folks who get offended along the way.
2). Wonderful sequential storytelling. Marra has a great eye for how a story should be told. In terms of flat-out ability to draw, he’s probably not the best artist in the world, but because of that, he’s never trying to draw a big flashy page that just looks pretty but doesn’t tell his story. His storytelling is at the Kirby-level in that you can really look at every panel and tell exactly what is going on. If the art isn’t quite conveying the point, he knows exactly what word balloon to add to smooth out the storytelling. It’s all about the storytelling with Marra. My ultimate test of comic art is whether I’d like to own an original and I would LOVE to buy an original page from Marra.
3). Spoof of early 90’s blaxploitation. Do you love blaxploitation as a genre? Are you of an age that late-80’s/early-90’s south central Los Angeles hits a nostalgia button (even if you’re a white guy from the other coast)? Then you’ll love GRP. For one thing, GRP are completely the hip-hop group NWA and if you listened to NWA’s “Straight outta Compton” album, you’ll recognize a lot of things: mostly a militant attitude towards racists, the police and the “establishment”. But, you’ll also recognize themes from other works like the serious film Boyz in the Hood or the blaxploitation spoof I’m Gonna Git you Sucka or the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. If those things are/were up your alley, you’ll love GRP.
4). Funny. And, GRP is funny in ways that is hard to explain. Like, I can’t explain why I was giggling so hard after GRP shot up a death metal concert for KKK members and Neo-Nazis and killed all the men. Then they have a smoke weed and have an orgy with the Nazi/KKK ladies (who survived and willingly have sex with GRP because all white women secretly want black men) only to sell said ladies to a colleague to traffics in women and is going to take the ladies to work in Chechnya as prostitutes. When I type up that scene, it sounds really horrifying…..but unless you completely have a stick up your ass, you’ll laugh pretty hard. I mean…you can see Marra thinking, “What’s the WORST place to be a prostitute? Hmmm….how about Chechnya?” And that’s what’s brilliant about Marra’s work: He knows how to pull this off so that it isn’t horrifying and cringe-worthy. And….they were Klansmen and Nazi’s after all. Anything is fair game with them.
5). This is truly indie comics. Sometimes you’ll hear arguments on message boards about whether comics from Image count as “indie” comics. I’m not disrespecting Image, but anything in the front half of Previews isn’t “indie” even if it is creator-owned. Something like GRP that you can only order from the dude’s website that he puts in the envelope himself and mails to you with his home address as the return address…..that’s indie comics. So, go buy it from the Traditional Comics website and support a guy who has poured his heart and soul into making something that I had more fun reading that almost any mainstream comic in the last year….and while you’re there, buy some of his other stuff too (like the excellent Maureen Dowd comic or Night Business) ….you won’t be disappointed.
Conclusion: A wonderful comic if you have the capacity to laugh at yourself that pokes fun at the early-90’s gangster rap culture. Highly recommended.
Grade: A
– Dean Stell
Grade
Conclusion