As this past January came to a close, the webcomic Axe Cop went pandemic over the internet. Of course a great many viral pandemics are sweeping the internet at any given moment, and under closer scrutiny they by and large develop little past the "How funny! I laugh!" first impressions (yes, I'm looking at you, sneezing panda) — but not Axe Cop. No, indeed my subject for this article, while still incredibly funny, rewards a closer, more critical look.
Axe Cop is drawn by Ethan Nicolle, the 29 year-old creator of Eisner-nominated "Chumble Spuzz," and written by his little brother, Malachai Nicolle who (while five when Axe Cop started) celebrated his sixth birthday a few days ago, and wants to be a wizard soldier when he grows up. Malachai's age is essential to Axe Cop and ties it to a thread that has been winding through the art world for over two centuries (and farther back still, in the wider cultural sphere). From Surrealism to Cubism to Naïve art, one can always find a vein of interest in the creative mind of a child, and meanwhile, "child prodigies" are always in vogue. The insidious and pervasive attitude toward a child artist is steeped in the Romantic assumption that a child is somehow purer in intention, more in touch with some natural truth/the unconscious, and that his or her work is guileless, l'art pour l'art. And when a prodigy is involved, following close behind the last roster of assumptions is often a kind of patronizing wonderment at such precious precociousness — not to belittle the quite considerable skill of some prodigies, but the attention lavished on them can be more reminiscent of a circus ape in a three-piece suit: "it's just like people!"
Axe Cop may make "written by a 5 year-old" a main tag-line, but the comic evades all of those aforementioned child-artist pitfalls, and I suspect even the webcomic's audience successfully circumnavigates Romanticism's rose-coloured theories of childhood.
In format, Axe Cop consists of one-page comic-book-style episodes (one of which has been animated², and there may be more to follow), plus a no less important and hilarious, "Ask Axe Cop" series. The story mostly follows the titular character who, after chancing upon "the perfect fireman's axe," takes up a life of killing bad guys 24/7 (except for the occasional hotel-room vacation with 30 TVs and a diet consisting exclusively of birthday cake). His side-kick is Flute Cop, who turns into Dinosaur Soldier when he gets dinosaur blood on him, who turns into Avocado Soldier after eating an avocado¹, then becomes Uni-Avocado Soldier after taking custody of Uni-Baby's (incidentally, another good guy—er, baby) wish-granting unicorn horn, and finally (thus far) turns back into Dinosaur Soldier. Axe Cop and his sidekick team up with Sockarang (a superhero with prehensile sock-boomerangs for arms), Ralph Wrinkles the dog, and a motley assortment of good guys to battle bad guys (who can always be identified by their front-kick technique) such as Bad Santa, King Evilfatsozon from Evil, Evil, Evil Planet Tinko, a (literal) truck-load of ninjas, and Telescope Gun Cop who (in true comic-book form) turns evil when Axe Cop won't let him onto the team after bad guys interrupt side-kick try-outs. Seriously.
Ask Axe Cop #16 | Courtesy of AxeCop.com
The universe of Axe Cop is gory and bombastic, frenetic and quasi-logically nonsensical — not unlike Lewis Carroll's Alice flights of fancy, but with superheroes, dinosaurs, outer-space, more exploding poison than you can shake a sponge at. In fact, as in most action movies, most everything here explodes, and not just when a bomb is planted inside, or when hit hard enough, for there are also several instances of puncture-induced explosion and a clear distinction between good guys and bad. The whole thing reads a lot like a comic-book version of the playground game, "let's pretend _____!" which should come as no surprise, since that's how Axe Cop started out. During the Christmas holidays, Malachai, running wild with a toy axe, asked Ethan to play Axe Cop with him. He brought out a flute (recorder) to be Ethan's weapon as Flute Cop, and when Ethan said he'd rather be Axe Cop than Flute Cop Malachai switched happily and the game began. Struck by the vivacity of his little brother's imagination, Ethan distilled their game into a one-page comic for the family's amusement. Three further episodes later, he secured Axe Man a home on the internet, and the rest is viral history.
Ethan Nicolle's part in this collaboration cannot be undervalued. The artwork is quite good — granted, it's nothing to write home about if taken solely on its own merits of composition, form, etc., but I would be a poor critic indeed if I were so myopic. After all, what is a comic but the offspring of a co-dependent relationship between Image and Text? And in combination, Malachai's screwball little-kid humour and Ethan's professional, straight-man-esque art makes for some of the best collaborative work I've ever seen.
Ethan's approach to Malachai's invention channels the stone-faced Buster Keaton with a hint of Mel Brooks. Under Ethan's stylus, Axe Cop is the quintessential moustachioed cop with Ray Bans and a chiseled jaw. At night, when he goes out to punch bad guys in their sleep, he wears a cat-suit... complete with ears and tail. It is moments such as these that remind me of being a little kid who was certain that "starving" had something to do with the formation of gastrointestinal galaxies. Though they are also puns, Axe Cop's visual gags would be more accurately categorized as hyper-literal moments; and these carry a very five-year-old sensibility over into the final product with remarkable aplomb. Without any preciousness or patronization, Ethan deadpans a 5-year-old's idea of a world that is half Utopia, and half the real world as seen from thigh-height, where anything with wings is capable of interplanetary flight, you make lots of money working at a fruit stand, and cop training consists of writing your name on the sign-up sheet.
Because Ethan translates Malachai's words with such a high level of graphic professionalism, aspects that would have been cute, or simply humoured if drawn in a chlid-like style (ie. the Moon Warriors' absurdly extended list of moves and powers) are instead elevated clear into the realm of parody and satire. In a sense, Malachai serves as a surreal, cultural fun-house mirror, reflecting common entertainment tropes ad absurdum — and the result is a mode of parody that is at once ironic and utterly, refreshingly earnest.
New episodes are released ever Monday, new "Ask Axe Cop" segments every Wednesday and Friday; however, translate that into 6 year-old time and severe schedule fluctuations are forecast.
You can find everything Axe Cop at www.axecop.com.
Ethan's own website is www.ethannicolle.com.
¹ This throws me way back to this tape recording of stories that I had when I was very little. One of those stories was about a runty little baby who wouldn't eat, until someone thought to feed it avocados, whereupon it thrived and grew into a kind of baby Popeye who went around beating up the neighbourhood bullies. Oh Malachai Nicolle, do you know what I am talking about? Or was it all a dream... Another story was about a mouse who just wanted to play the balalaika, but I digress.
