Chad’s luck goes from bad to worse when two underground cartoonists-they’re working on a comic called “The Adventures of Mi$ter Moneybag$”-draw all over his body with his own indelible product after he’s drowned his sorrows in booze. Veitch’s hapless hero, Chad Roe (a name rife with connotations), is an executive at “Eter-No-Mark,” a permanent marker company that goes belly up when a graffiti-stricken New York City retaliates with a lawsuit. The image sequence, a tour de force of graphic storytelling recalling the wordless, socially engaged woodcut novels of Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, presents a dark portrait of man’s fate. Veitch’s latest graphic novel, in fact, is one of his most challenging, because unlike most comics-indeed, contradicting what many hold to be the very essence of comics-the words and the pictures of Can’t Get No have only the most tenuous of relationships. Although that last name may not be as familiar to many readers as some of the previous ones, it signals an accomplished and diverse body of work well worth investigating. Crumb to Chris Ware groundbreaking work has been done overseas by people as disparate as Osama Tezuka and Marjane Satrapi and the mainstream has made a place for mavericks such as Frank Miller and Rick Veitch. And then, god bless ‘em, there are the auteurs who manage to excel at both words and pictures: in the underground a golden road stretches from R. Superstar writers like Neil Gaiman, Harvey Pekar, and Warren Ellis have pushed the boundaries of storytelling, as have artists such as Neal Adams, Frank Quitely, and Alex Ross, to name just a few. The Maximortal ( King Hell Press, $17.95)Īs the medium of comics earns a greater place in the American reading imagination, it’s worth recognizing the plethora of remarkable creators who have shaped its contemporary contours. Can’t Get No ( Vertigo/DC Comics, $19.99)

The Maximortal by Rick Veitch