A24’s Funny Pages takes the Ghost World formula into comics fandom
Because comic books currently inspire many of the most globally popular movies and TV shows, it’s easy to forget that the original medium — individual comics issues, most commonly found in specialty shops — remains a relatively niche interest. That’s especially true for titles outside of the Marvel/DC axis of superheroes, and even more so for cartoonists whose work is more inspired by R. Crumb or Carl Barks than Stan Lee or Jack Kirby.
Owen Kline’s memorable, sometimes hilarious movie Funny Pages understands this to such a degree that it isn’t immediately obvious that the movie is set in the immediate present. Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) is a New Jersey teenager obsessed with becoming a professional comics creator, and the comics shop where he hangs out and works part time isn’t a slick monument to the latest high-end superhero collectibles and attractively bound graphic novels. It’s dingy, packed with haphazardly stored back issues, and populated by assorted (and often malcontented) fans, aspiring artists, and weirdos. (One of them is played by former MTV comedian Andy Milonakis.)
Robert’s high school art teacher and mentor is such an underground-comix aficionado that he looks as if he crawled straight out of a sketchbook and into the flesh. When Robert loses this guiding figure early in the film, he becomes even more disillusioned with his cushy suburban lifestyle and decides to strike out on his own. He leaves home, obtains the best living situation he can afford (sharing an illegal basement apartment with two adult men), and gets a part-time job taking notes for a beleaguered local public defender. That’s how he meets Wallace (Our Flag Means Deathstar Matthew Maher), a seemingly unbalanced crank who has been charged
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