Anti-Matter
Webseries Review
For
many classic sitcoms, the setting is just as indelible as the comedy.
From TV station WJM in Minneapolis, to the Sunshine Cab Company in New
York, to a little Boston bar named Cheers, these locations not only
supplied the premise for their respective television shows but provided
access to a multitude of supporting characters unique to their environment
while serving as organic cast members in their own right. The same ultimately
holds true for Anti-Matter,
a webseries set in New York City comic book store Jim Hanley’s
Universe that features its own oddball assortment of offbeat characters
just like those found on Taxi and Cheers in years
past.
Comic book
culture has already served as fodder for numerous webseries, including
the Dallas-based The Variants. While that series focused on
the staff of Zeus Comics—some of whom were portrayed by actual
employees of the establishment—and contained threads of an underlying
storyline running through the handful of standalone installments, Anti-Matter
gives equal screen time to its customers and features actors from the
Upright Citizen’s Brigade and New York comedy scene. While the
episodes of both webseries are of the same approximate length, the installments
on Anti-Matter are more like short comedic nuggets much like
those found on Fourplay in LA—a webseries about four
female friends living in Los Angels that offers mere glimpses into the
characters’ lives rather than a more continuous storyline.
The narrative
approach is effective for Fourplay and the same holds true
for Anti-Matter. Almost any work environment provides a bounty
of potential characters—as the sprawling supporting cast of the
NBC sitcom The Office successfully proves—and a comic
book store is no different than a paper company. There’s employee
Mike (Justin Tyler), who realizes the dead-end and mind-numbing nature
of his job but does nothing about it; co-worker Ginger (Julie Katz),
who is easily flustered by the store’s clientele and harbors a
secret crush on Green Lantern; regular customers Jeremy (Davram Stiefler)
and Taylor (Johnathan Fernandez), who apparently hang out at the store
full-time; and senior manager Kaitlin (Kirstan Perry), who is able to
keep the store functioning through a unique form of psychological manipulation.
With so
many characters and an infinite source of acting talent from the Upright
Citizen’s Brigade, it is no wonder that Anti-Matter uses
them sparingly. There may not be an overarching narrative to the episodes
but the webseries paints an accurate picture of comic book culture nonetheless,
replete with the requisite references to the environment as well as
more allusive yet relatable storylines involving every day life. In
the same way that Cheers was a very funny television show that
just happened to take place in a bar, the same could be said of Anti-Matter
in regards to a comic book store.
In the
episode “Kung-Fu,” for instance, customer Jeremy is scared
for his life after smack talking an aspiring MMA fighter on X-Box 360
the night before. African American Dennis (Pedro Lee) tries to teach
him the ways of the street but Jeremy’s attempts at urban speak
only make matters worse to hilarious effect. “First Date,”
meanwhile, features Mackenzie (Christina Calph) and Kayla (Shannon Coffey)
offering advice to Bernie (Walter Vincent) for his date later that evening
on everything from what clothes to wear to what movies to watch, as
well as testing his kissing talents and ability to fondle a woman’s
breast. “I’m pretty surprised,” Mackenzie observes
after scaring Bernie away. “He was pretty good with his hands.”
While such
episodes could easily occur in any environment, other installments of
Anti-Matter are more geared to the comic book store setting.
In “Hierarchy,” Mike instructs co-worker Ginger on the different
levels of geekdom. “It’s the nerd classification system,”
he explains. “It doesn’t really apply to girls. With girls
you’re either cool or you’re not. It’s a guy thing.
It’s nature’s way of saying ‘sorry about giving you
only three different emotions—anger, lust and a more extreme form
of lust.’” And in “Bag and Board,” manager Kaitlin
effectively manipulates Jeremy and Taylor into bagging and boarding
a recently acquired collection of comic books. When Mike insists that
Kaitlin could never use the same technique on him, he is inevitably
coerced into walking ten blocks to buy his boss a burrito for lunch.
“The
basis for the humor in Anti-Matter is that as a comic fan,
you’re hanging out with your buds and probably being an ass at
someone’s place of business,” creator Chris Walker explained
to Wired
in December 2010. “I know because I was that guy. I’d come
by Hanley’s and talk smack on new comics every Wednesday with
everyone in the store right up until closing, at which point they would
kindly ask me to leave.”
Geek culture—of
which comic book enthusiasts are a part—has steadily begun to
seep into mainstream entertainment in recent years. There’s The
Big Bang Theory on CBS, for instance, which features two brilliant
but socially inept scientists who are more comfortable with their comic
book and action figure collections than with what is commonly considered
the “real world,” while one of the most successful webseries
in recent years, The Guild, centers on a group of online gamers.
Anti-Matter adds to the growing movement by not only setting
its episodes in the geek-friendly environment of a comic book store
but by crafting small snippets of a lifestyle than can easily be relatable
to anyone, regardless of their cultural orientation.
Comic books
aren’t just for kids anymore, and webseries like Anti-Matter
aren’t just for geeks—they can easily be enjoyed by anyone
who appreciates quality entertainment.
Anthony
Letizia (January 17, 2011)
MORE
WEBSERIES REVIEWS
FOLLOW
ALTERNA-TV.COM: FACEBOOK
- TWITTER
- RSS
FEED
