LARRY JOHNSON'S THE MAN IN THE JAR

I thought Larry Johnson's Bart Rover was far-out (and it is!), but the writer/illustrator's graphic novel, The Man In the Jar, aka The Unincorporated Man, is on a whole other unconventional level. 

For this 58-page, full-color graphic novel (culled from Johnson's anthology series, Tales of Fantasy), we're introduced to French Revolution-era protagonist Andre Villon, who (in Kafka mode) turns into a gelatinous mass after tinkering with substances he's purloined from the mystic, Madame Boogala, one of Johnson's most noted characters. As a result of his discombobulated condition, Villon is relegated to a wash basin (in a manner akin to Basket Case's Belial) and tended to by his supportive family and villagers who see fit to accept him for who and what he is. 

The details of such are, in fact, relayed to readers by another popular, Johnson character, Doctor Charles Young, who explains how he discovered Villon in a hospital (in re-assembled form), where the poor man relayed his extraordinary circumstance. 

Villon's exploit unfolds with feverish dreams that entail psychedelic, cave drawings, an exotic deer man and the crafty magician Morpho, who comes to store Villon in a large, glass jar (similar to the peculiar "entity" in Ray Bradbury's famous fable, "The Jar"). This act isn't out of convenience or care, but rather that Morpho knows Villon's gooey constitution contains gold particles for an elixir he wishes to complete, which was appropriated by his protege, Boogala. 

In addition, Villon joins a quirky, traveling troupe and engages in creepy, transformational passages that invoke The Invisible Man, 4D Man and The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, plus an amorous interlude that can't help but turn bad. 

Johnson's artwork is bright and mind-bending, with the unincorporated Villon referencing the bizarre beings that once adorned science-fiction posters of decades past. In this respect, the story's visual content is guaranteed to please all those nostalgic Monster Kids. 

Indeed, Johnson has created a most unusual escapade, but one that always keeps its heart and soul upfront. Despite Villon's outrageous "physicality," he could be you or me, and because of that, The Man In the Jar works as an identifiable kind of weirdness, where the titular monster emerges more human than the humans he surrounds. 

One can buy Larry Johnson's The Man In the Jar at

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYR3J1BR?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title