Those who, like me, spend time eagerly anticipating new releases from their favorite cartoonists would be gladdened by Josh Bayer’s latest graphic novel, Unended. Released hot on the heels of his 2023 short story collection Abysmilaton, and the 2022 triple-whammy, Tomorrow Forever and its two companion floppys, Mr Incompleto Special Extra Large 64 page Full color Edition and Black Star, Unended continues Bayer’s grand tradition of comix sortabiography, and is a powerful demonstration of Bayer’s seemingly inexhaustible energies. As ever, Bayer’s furious linework and massive figures take center stage, but here the cartoonist has developed an ambitious narrative that flows between several strands, including the story of the protagonist, a stand-in for younger Bayer, the comix he and his brother drew as kids, an unfinished play discovered by his older self, written by his deceased father, and the adaptation of the play itself, as performed on stage. This may sound confusing, but Bayer ably navigates this braided narrative through some subtle manipulations of formal conventions of comix media.

Bayer’s unique brand of sortabiography is fascinating in its ease in describing the inner workings and thoughts of the artistically inclined, and the frustrated creative. There are many contemporary cartoonists who mine their own lives and idiosyncrasies regularly, and entertainingly, for pathos or humor, but few seem as willing as Bayer to embrace the mythologies, narratives, and iconographies of popular culture and influences and fold them into his own storytelling. Unended alone features appearances by Ghost Rider, Lemmy Kilmister, and Bela Lugosi. Handled less sincerely, these could easily be taken for surface-level postmodernism or hip, signaling of cool, but each plays a necessary role within the fabric of the story, not at all extraneous or silly. Sequences of Bayer’s analog watching episodes of Roseanne and Six Feet Under reinforce this sincerity; would any hip up-and-coming cartoonist confess in their own comix to watching Roseanne these days? These are surprisingly intimate glimpses of character and serve to put Ghost Rider and Lugosi, who appear not on film or television, into stark relief. Ghost Rider appears as a cross between a talismanic dream guide and a Jiminy Cricket-like cipher for the human conscience. Lugosi shows up to perform in the staging of Bayer’s father’s (unfinished) play. 

Lemmy’s appearances are somewhat more difficult to quantify, appearing as he does in both an imaginary version of Star Trek, and as another imagined or dreamed avatar, at various times. The combination of Lemmy and Star Trek is upon first consideration bizarre, but in terms of the way Bayer accesses influences it starts to make sense. As in previous comix that made extended investigations into pop culture iconography such as ROM, Wendy O. Williams, and Garfield, Bayer does not treat these in the typical “bootleg” style of comix (for those unfamiliar, this is essentially a homage to a specific character or characters), but rather as free agents within the story, usually occupying a space that sits slightly outside of the narrative, whether as framing device, Greek chorus, or even the narrator themselves.

Particularly entertaining are the asides of (I assume) present-day Bayer and his cartoonist partner, Hyena Hell, who herself appears born of comix rather than the real world. Hell’s perspicacity and sardonic commentary on both Bayer’s work and his insecurities offer a lively and entertaining counterpoint to the darker aspects of the narrative, and she shows up periodically to talk to Bayer’s own avatar (beard almost always rendered as an unruly scribble) through the narrative, almost in real-time. Part of the fun, as is often the case in Bayer’s rapidly expanding body of work, is looking between the various narrative layers and attempting to scry reality from fiction to metafiction, and of course the commentary of all three. These layers can be peeled apart like an onion, but still manage to present as a satisfying and cohesive whole.

Notable in the graphic novel is Bayer’s increasingly sophisticated use of color. In recent work, the cartoonist has moved from watercolor and the highly specific palette available to risograph printing into computer coloring, seemingly antithetical to his frantic, highly tactile drawings which tend to lean into collage and reworking rather than erasure and perfection. Tomorrow Forever, in particular, made use of a high-key color palette that approximated the randomness available to watercolor, without its usual subtleties. The overall effect, while blazing and unique, was of color radiating from the very bottom layer of the printing process, forcing its way through Bayer’s expressive linework by virtue of its intensity alone. The color work of Unended works in a more unified fashion with the drawings, and the hand of the artist is even visible periodically, presumably executed with the brush and dot tools available to even the most basic digital drawing and coloring programs. Dot screens and jagged geometries of color are also added, expanding the language, but not at the expense of the images and text.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the narrative is the ease with which it juggles its entangled narratives while retaining an overall cohesion, leading toward a fitting ending involving Bayer’s analog deciding that his new work won’t have a name, and then six pages of a kind of imaginary parable-cum-pitch for what could well be the coolest, or possibly dumbest, idea for a Josh Bayer comic book ever. Will it be created? Knowing Bayer, it is entirely possible, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s here now, and like so much of the cartoonist’s narratives, it works just as well in miniature form, whether a folded-and-stapled zine format or the full-color epic like Unended and Tomorrow Forever.  For a graphic novel about unfinished narratives, Unended is incredibly satisfying to read, and a masterclass in the potential of comix that sit outside of the expected.