I was recently introduced to another lovely webcomic, Clown Corps. (That's "corps" pronounced "core" like Marine Corps, not "corpse"; there are surprisingly few clown corpses in the story so far.)
Here's page one. (There are more pages.) The responsible party in this case is one
Joe Chouinard.
First things first. As the name implies, this comic is about clowns. So let's get one thing straight: These are funny clowns. Not scary clowns. There is one (1) scary clown, and he's the main villain of the bulk of the chapters that have been published so far. The rest of the clowns are scary
competent, but they're not horror clowns. (Okay, the evil mime might count as a second scary clown, but that's 90% just "scary competent" again plus being evil.)
Our protagonist is one Mary McBell, a Robin Hood style burglar. She and her crew get caught stealing from a billionaire, not by cops, but by
clowns. (Which is weird, but not for the reason it would be weird in a story not titled Clown Corps; more on that later.) Her crewmates throw her under the bus. With no lawyer, she's sure she's on her way up the river until Mustard, the clown who arrested her, shows up to represent her. Mustard convinces the judge to offer McBell an alternative way out: Clown college.
Okay, worldbuilding time: In this universe, yes, it is in fact very strange for clowns to be making arrests. But everyone keeps forgetting that because in
this city, there is the Clown Corps. Originally a union of rodeo clowns and firefighters, the Clown Corps was meant as a general-purpose first responder group that used the clown theme to avoid terrifying those in need of rescue. As time went on, they became more and more like cops. They're still not supposed to bother with mundane things like burglaries, but lately they've been reduced to helping out the mayor's rich friends, so here we are.
Also this is a superhero comic. Yeah, the clown getups also serve as second identities for most of the clowns,
explicitly for the same reason superheroes keep secret identities. McBell doesn't have a clown name (yet?) and goes by her real name, but most everyone else is known only by their clown persona. There are only a handful we ever see without their makeup. The clowns' routines (their comedy schticks) are pretty blatantly super-powers, even if most of them are powered by high-tech props and just a few by genetic mutations. (It's been remarked on a couple times that magic isn't real; it remains to be seen whether that's just a clarification of the world-building or setup for a reveal.)
I've blathered a lot about the premise, which I happen to think is pretty awesome, but as with most of my favorite comics, the real draw is the characters. The character writing is great. Just about everyone has hidden depths. Characters have to face being wrong about their self-perception and their relationships. They overcome personal biases. They discover themselves. They grow and change and develop and face setbacks. (Even Ragdoll, despite already being perfect.)
- There's Fuschia, McBell's first friend, who is both a fasionista and a tech genius, on top of being a fountain of positivity.
- Or Mustard, who probably learns the most uncomfortable things about herself of anyone so far.
- There's Binky, a hard-boiled veteran clown cop struggling not to snap under the tension between what Clown Corps is supposed to be and what it is.
- There's Livewire, who had to reinvent herself after coming back from the dark side. (Also her routine is "What if cowgirl but also electrician?" and it's great.)
- There's Ragdoll who is perfect.
- And Squeaky, the balloon-themed dean of Clown College, who is also perfect. I might be biased.
- And then there's Bout, McBell's first friend who she admits is a friend, who bears the weight of the expectations that com with being Binky's son.
- Did I mention the evil mime? Because Echo's whole deal is a lot more messed up than you'd think, for spoiler reasons.
- Her boss Ringmaster is that scary clown obsessed with destroying the Clown Corps for very shallow reasons that reveal a lot about him.
But what about the art? I keep hearing about how the art improves over time but, my dudes,
it was already good. The style shifts subtly and it gets more polished, but this is not one of those "wait a couple chapters until the artist gets the hang of it" comics like Castoff.
And now for the content warnings.
First of all, clowns. It goes out of its way not to have horror clowns, except for Ringmaster. But if you have a clown phobia, you
might not enjoy yourself. Proceed with caution.
The violence is mostly slapstick (as you'd expect) but at least one character dies, another is horribly maimed off-panel, and McBell has a run-in with a completely unfunny rocket launcher toward the end of the first chapter that leaves another character with a fairly realistic, but not graphic, injury. There's some blood there, and a little later on when a character suffers abrasions after losing a fight with the evil mime.
No sex unless you count a couple boob jokes involving snowballs and balloons. I guess Mustard's showing some cleavage in the first few chapters?
There are brief but important depictions of mean-girl bullying and verbal/emotional child abuse. There's alcohol use. Cops acting like cops and billionaires acting like billionaires.
Spoiler: Echo's whole deal • show Echo is a mime because she had her mouth sewn shut by ringmaster. Also she spent her childhood throwing herself in the path of the mean-girl bully to take heat off her other victims. Also the bully is Mustard. They're having a big fight right now in the current chapter.
Not really a trigger warning but just something that might be a turnoff: McBell and one other character break the fourth wall with some frequency. It's not normally my cup of tea but I don't find it overbearing, so if it's not yours either, give it a shot anyway.
I binged this comic in two days, both times staying up until 2 AM, and it's easily one of my favorites. I think you'll like it.
And again, just so we're clear, Ragdoll is perfect.
