Written and drawn by Alex Nall
Book design by Mike Freiheit.
Edited by Jon Mastantuono.
Published by Kilgore Books in July 2018.
. . .
“The whole town is crazy right now. It’s shameful the way people are treating each other. It’s enough to make you stop going outside. Things were different-back when you were here . . . What happened to the people that used to care for one another-the sense of decency and care. I’m beginning to wonder if it was ever here in the first place-or if it’s just something I imagined."
-caption text from Lawns (2018)
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
Lawns is a creator-owned black and white comic book or graphic novel that depicts a contentious small town mayoral contest. If I may resort to a vapid cliche I would sum up Lawns as “deceptively simple.” It’s a little over one hundred pages, and everything you need to comprehend it lies between its two covers. This is not like the endless corporate superhero soap operas of Marvel and DC. The art style is, at first glance, studiously unimpressive in its depiction of dirt poor working class people playing out their existences in a rural Illinois no-place. But if you read it through to the end you may find these lives rich with struggles, delusions, and hopes for the future.
There’s a town of 187 souls in some kind of nowhere-doesn’t even have a name. You have to drive sixteen miles southeast to a town called Sandbag for a grocery store. This is all according to the handy worldbuilding map on the back of the cover. Not a castle or a dragon in sight.
Allegedly, everybody knows everyone . . . but it’s not really like that. Everyone’s in close proximity, sure, but everyone’s also a prisoner of their own perceptions.
There’s a guy named Chuck who has run unopposed and been elected and re-elected mayor over and over again. Chuck owns a tile and lumber store. Chuck’s hair is white, now, but it was still black when he first got sworn in. Aside from that-and a developing heart problem-not much has changed for Chuck. At one point, according to Chuck, the state was going to build a landfill nearby, bring in a bunch of decent paying sanitation jobs. But Chuck claims he argued against it, not wanting his beloved hometown to be defined by trash. This was, seemingly, Chuck’s last notable achievement as mayor, his last great stand, but that was a minute ago. Now, he faces a set of challenges to his long tenure in office.
There’s a rogue canine shitting on people’s lawns. A kid has been bitten by that dog-or maybe it was some other mutt. The weird guy who owns the shithound-Roger-also refuses to properly maintain his yard. Roger’s next door neighbor is Carl, who installs windows for his living. Carl is tired of Roger’s recklessly pooping dog and his overgrown lawn. Carl also thinks Chuck is weak shit as mayor. Carl decides to run for office.
Of course, weird guy Roger has his own perspective on things. He wouldn’t describe himself as weird. He just knows what he wants out of life. Roger likes his dog. Roger likes dogs in general. Roger does not like it when kids torment dogs with bottle rockets. Roger likes his overgrown lawn. Roger isn’t put off by bugs and wild animals. Roger isn’t looking for a fight, but he just does not give a fuck what other people think. We find out about Roger’s past, and why it is he values what he values in life.
The kid who got bit-Joshua-seems to have needlessly provoked the dog into attacking him. Joshua’s injuries cost his father eight hundred dollars at the hospital. Joshua’s father ends up beating him with a belt in frustration. I guess Joshua’s dad is fine paying for the injuries he himself inflicts.
Joshua and Roger have quite a bit in common. Roger grew up with an abusive father and a mother who didn’t have much interest in him. So Roger struck out on his own, developing self-sufficiency at the cost of social graces. Roger lives in his head most of the time aside from the connections he makes with dogs and the natural world. Joshua, too, seems to be on track to become a runaway as the story unfolds.
Mildred, an impoverished elderly woman with back problems, is Roger’s one substantial human connection. Mildred spends her days writing letters to her long dead husband, Walter. Actually, it isn’t entirely clear if Mildred and Walter were ever married, or if Walter even actually existed, but her letters are sincerely written. Mildred’s nostalgic for a kinder, gentler past that she fully acknowledges might be a total fantasy. She has a car. She drives herself and Walter to the grocery store in Sandbag at regular intervals.
Carl runs a mean-spirited campaign against Chuck. At one point he stands by the road holding up a sign that says, “FUCK CHUCK.” One of Carl’s supporters puts up a more politically correct sign that says, “F**K CHUCK.” Chuck’s tough messaging seems to strike a chord with people who are tired of the same old cheese and crackers year after year.
But other people in town appreciate the benign stasis of Chuck’s eternal reign as mayor. Chuck’s super nice, after all, brings people cookies as part of his campaign outreach, doesn’t stoop to Carl’s gutter politics. Still other potential voters simply do not care. I won’t reveal the outcome, but the election ends up having the lowest turnout in the nameless town’s history. Amusingly, it might be the case that we end up seeing all of the participating voters over the course of Lawns’ 101 pages, so the turnout might be in low double or high single digits.
Carl may put some readers in mind of Donald Trump, but remember that Carl actually works for a living. Trump inherited his fortune. Carl installs windows, and he seems to be good at it. Trump, who occupied the White House back in 2018 when Lawns was published as he does in the present year of 2025, has never had a real job, nor has he demonstrated any bankable skills aside from seeking attention from mass media outlets. Carl’s a jerk in how he goes after Chuck, but he can only exert so much influence in an impoverished town of 187 people. When Carl comes back down to earth after the high of his campaign, well, he has to be able to look other people in the eye. These limits are, perhaps, stifling, but they arguably put guard rails around a man tap dancing on the border between being a public servant and mutating into a demagogue.
All of this seems to be taking place in some hazily defined early 1990s. No internet. No (anti)social media to stoke conspiracy theories and online hate mobs. People gossip. People talk shit on the (landline)phone or in person. But they still have to face their neighbors. Even Roger and Mildred-oddballs who live in their heads-have to leave their houses to buy stuff and socialize. Carl’s girlfriend ditches him over his self-absorption and gutter politics. Chuck’s wife questions whether or not being the Forever Mayor is worth the stress. People are accountable to other people in their actual meatspace lives in Lawns, as opposed to an algorithm, a cadre of billionaire Dark Money puppeteers, or a rigid ideology.
Lawns is not romantic in its depiction of its sparsely populated no-place. I think writer/artist Alex Nall is taking the “warts-and-all” approach. But Nall is also reminding us of how things might work in a world where you could not entirely deny the existence of the reality external to your perceptions and prejudices. It’s something worth considering.
