By Luke Healy (Faber)
ISBN: 978-1-91274-008-6 (HB)
In modern times, Stand-up Comedians don’t tell jokes. These days, they are perspicacious social observers, wry cultural commentators and introspective self-examiners, exposing themselves on painfully primal and crushingly candid levels to make points of modern philosophy, or about politics, the world and the human condition. Well, at least the ones I watch do…
As such, their own lives constitute the raw fuel of their craft and product of their efforts. In that respect they mirror that brand of cartoonists such as Jeffrey Brown (Clumsy, Unlikely, Every Girl is the End of the World for Me), Tillie Walden (I Love this Part, Spinning, A City Inside), Leslie Stein (Eye of the Majestic Creature), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis) or Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) and R. Crumb (My Troubles with Women). Here, that level of studied, curated introspection and revelation have resulted in a very modern exploration of ambition and trust…
Luke Healy studied journalism, graduated from Dublin University and earned an MFA in Cartooning from the Center for Cartoon Studies (Vermont, USA). His previous published work – such as Americana, Permanent Press and How to Survive in the North – have been awarded prizes and acclaim, and he’s also done gallery shows. His comics for VICE, The Nib, A24, Medium, Nobrow and Avery Hill are really good and he likes exposing himself to ridicule on stage. He has combined all that trauma, weltschmerz and experience into this tale exploring basic big stuff like life, friends, friends who aren’t honest and how to keep your head above emotional water.
Frank is a Stand-Up guy. He’s ambitious, London-based Irish, gay, formerly Catholic (as much as any of us can ever escape the early programming), clinically anxious and helplessly honest. With best mate Ro, he plans to storm it at the Edinburgh Festival before going on to conquer the world of Comedy. He’s getting treatment for self-diagnosed, presumed personal problems but always building for the big day. Suddenly, everything changes after a childhood mate – his best one – calls in a panic. There’s been an accident…
Giorgio was out and proud back at school in Ireland when Frank was still an anguished ball of denial, dragged down by Catholic guilt and repression. His example gave Frank strength and they’ve been buds ever since – although, it must be said, not particularly close or constant ones, even though they both now live in London…
Now there’s been an event and Giorgio is unable to cope on his own. He needs someone to move in and take care of him. You know; simple stuff like feeding and changing him and keeping him stocked in the booze and cigarettes he’s been forbidden to consume with his medication…
Initially willing, Frank obliges, but as days turn into weeks, he sees his own life stall and his plans evaporate into Giorgio’s subtly unforceful, blandly adamant demands and begins to suspect something really isn’t right. Tension exacerbates his own clinical anxiety issues, but while he seeks help, Giorgio brushes off every overture suggesting a change in his self-destructive course.
It all really goes south after Frank finds out how his old pal is making money these days…
However, as he tries to navigate his car crash relationships, Frank knows he’s been made – on every level – an accomplice in Giorgio’s schemes and must now reassess himself for his own safety and sanity… and realises that a life of dishonesty is contagious…
Frank hints that he too tells us what he wants us to know, even while “sharing†the minutiae of his intimately platonic relationship with childhood amigo Giorgio: reluctantly carrying his “best friend†through a moment of extended crisis, aiding him in what turns out to be shockingly unwelcome acts and coming away feeling he’s just been the charmer’s first and longest-serving victim and patsy..
Throughout, capital “H†Honesty is key here. Who is lying to Frank and crucially, How, Where, When and Why is Frank lying to himself? Is he doing things we know we shouldn’t or is it just his conditioned response to Giorgio? Is Giorgio being cunningly manipulative rather than simply secretive?
Deftly playing with the fourth wall and directly engaging his audience at most inopportune moments, the narrator’s linear scenario is intercut with moments from painful past and present stage performances, whilst direct interventions with the reader as cartoon actor “Frank†serve to examine the chains of childhood friendships and contemporary relationships. The laughs are good but it’s clear how life is lived for cartoon actor Frank, and for people like him Love and Trust don’t always go together…
Enticingly introspective and painfully familiar to anyone who ever had a mate who was more Trouble than Worth, The Con Artists is no joke, but is unmissable reading.
© Luke Healy, 2022. All rights reserved.
The Con Artists will be published on June 2nd  2022 and is available for pre-order now.