On the face of it, Simon Hanselmann’s cult Megg and Mogg series is a stoner comedy that follows a troubled, drug-addicted witch and her needy, slacker cat/boyfriend. ‘I guess you could say it’s a riff on the kids’ books [Meg and Mog], but not really,’ Hanselmann said. ‘My standard elevator pitch is that it’s like The Simpsons in the ’90s but with a lot more drugs and sex and depression.’
No kidding. Some of these messy and caustic escapes could set an edgelord’s teeth on edge. But if you can get past the initial shock of interspecies rim jobs, you’ll see the series is about the strange vacillations, spontaneous compulsions, and mysteries that govern us all.
Despite the stock fantasy/children’s characters who populate the series – from the all-id Werewolf Jones to humanoid owls and a Frank-Zappa-ish wizard called Mike – the cartoonist describes himself as ‘a staunch realist. Hardline.’ He shows us again and again that our most idiosyncratic, inadmissible desires are our most deeply shared. For Megg, Mogg, Owl and the gang, life can be claggy, dark and devastating – as it can be hard for us all, sometimes.
ArrayOn that note, the pandemic has hardly been a walk in the park, has it? (Though, to be fair, it has involved many of them.) Hanselmann, originally from Tasmania, spoke to me from Seattle. ‘We were first for Covid number 1!’ he said. ‘We were very proud to be early adopters of the virus. We are also very proud of our autonomous zones, our exploding homeless population and our massive drugs crisis. Everything’s going great! Everyone’s getting along fine and it never rains!’
The cartoonist greeted (yeeted?) Instagram with a similar string of irreverent exclamation marks on March 13 2020, during the first instalment of Crisis Zone, the latest dispatch from the Megg and Mogg universe:
Megg: Holy hell! Everything’s shutting down! Mogg: What the fuck is happening?! Megg: Oh, God… my Animal Crossing Pre-order!
For months, the comic has been penned (then vivified with watercolour and food colouring) at blistering speed, with up to 10 panels posted per day, free and accessible to all. We looked on as the characters got wrapped up in the news cyclone at the same time as the rest of us.
Array‘Crisis Zone is just its own thing, a separate corner of the Megg and Mogg “Multiverse”,’ Hanselmann said. ‘I really just wanted to dump these complicated characters into the playground of 2020.’ The BLM protests, Tiger King, the release of Animal Crossing and the ongoing pandemic are among its many references.
Crisis Zone has been a source of solace and catharsis for thousands: when Mike the Wizard made a bad-joke about being in hell (the next panel zooming out for a Simpsons-esque couch gag, the deflated fantasy characters huddled together in a grim, grey box of a living room strewn with rubbish and empty beer bottles) one fan wrote in the comments: ‘I’m so thankful that we’re all down here together’.
‘One of my hopes for Crisis Zone was certainly that people would find comfort in the fact that maybe their lockdown wasn’t so bad compared to Owl’s, being locked in with Werewolf Jones,’ Hanselmann said. ‘Can it really be that bad? Look at what Owl is dealing with, count your blessings!’
Array1) At least I don’t have to contend with a volatile werewolf firing up ever more elaborate sex toys when I need to jump on a Zoom meeting.
2) At least I’m not Werewolf Jones, who has been forced into what seems like an extremely exhausting way to make a living.
3) At least everything is not literally on fire.
‘It was definitely enjoyable for me, and gave me something to focus on each day aside from the torrential downpour of horrible news,’ Hanselmann reflects. ‘I took a bunch of rotten lemons and made a shitty, sugary lemonade. I felt like I was doing something positive for the world, providing a few chuckles for people defecating in their depressing lockdown bubbles.’
Still, should we drink it, this shitty lemonade? Is the alchemy of turning horror into humour healthy or outright nihilism? ‘Nothing matters,’ Mogg says in one panel, bathing in a sink full of grey-green water and dirty dishes. ‘Everything is meaningless. Stop trying so hard.’
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‘That’s just the depression talking,’ said Hanselmann. ‘Sometimes things just seem hopeless and we lash out at existence. Personally, I’m quite happy and I love my life, my wife and my pet rabbits (rescues). I cherish every moment of this absurd parade of sensations. But yeah, being alive is difficult, it’s a challenge, you gotta work at it.’
Born in Launceston, Tasmania, the cartoonist is remarkably open about the difficulties he’s faced. ‘I grew up around a lot of bikers and addicts,’ he said. ‘It certainly allowed me to empathise with and understand poverty and addiction more than your average Joe. I saw and experienced some brutal stuff and in a way I’m very grateful for that, I think it makes my work more interesting, a bit less boring. A bit gritty.’
How did he avoid getting sucked into that lifestyle? ‘I think I was saved by Pop Culture,’ he said. ‘Books, fantasy, collecting. I was surrounded by criminality and abuse and bad influences, I just never fell into it fully… I always just wanted to hide away with my comics and my TV, I was voracious, and it kept me “nerdy” and safe, I guess. I had no interest in violence or living in service to extreme addiction, I saw its effects on the people around me and it was horrifying.
‘I just hid away,’ he said. ‘The outside world was trial by combat and slurs and I just avoided it all as much as I could. I was happy being a loner, I focused in on making stuff whether it was comics, camcorder puppet shows or music. I was in therapy from my early teens, I was deemed a “fuck up” and put on government benefits and didn’t have to leave the house, I made it my mission to make what I was doing sustainable, so I would only have to rely on myself.’
In point of fact, Hanselmann has been self-publishing his work since he was eight years old. ‘It’s all I’ve ever aspired to do, just make entertaining work and sell it and survive. It took a while, but I got there. I think that’s the reason for my continuing insane workaholism, just this desire to be free from outside demands.’
Currently, the cartoonist is finishing up Crisis Zone for book publication, ‘drawing 500 additional panels, doing maniacal 14-hour work days,’ he said. ‘I just work all day, from the moment I awake to the moment I collapse from exhaustion. I am a workaholic, there, I said it, I admit it. I have a problem.
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‘I like for my readers to be happy and have a lot of content pouring down the sluice pipe,’ he said. ‘It’s just about making things exist also… I like putting a lot of time into something, making something exist that shouldn’t.’ For sure, that feeling of contraband is part of what makes Megg and Mogg so captivating.
To keep the content pouring, Hanselmann said he draws from his own experience ‘quite a bit.’ He keeps a notebook on him at all times and is always writing things down. ‘I also have a long history of debauchery to draw upon, my well runneth over. Crisis Zone was specifically about the contemporary world and the internet and very much vampirically sucked Twitter dry.’
Exactly. And then the comic spits it out again: ‘It’s like Twitter’s been smeared across every single surface’, Megg says in one of the instalments, stumbling through the chaos of Seattle’s Autonomous Zone.
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In recent years, witches have had a resurgence in popular culture, as a symbol for marginalisation and persecution and the reclamation that many now seek. Might Megg fit into that? ‘That can definitely be applied to my series, the characters are all outsiders in society. I never intended that at the outset but sometimes I pretend I did to sound smart.’
This is not the only facet of the comic that has made it feel timely over the past decade or so, and it’s remarkable, in the age of Adult Swim, that it hasn’t yet had its TV debut ‘I just turned down a big deal again last year,’ Hanselmann said. ‘I’m not sure something as venomous and scummy as Megg and Mogg could work within the Hollywood system. I refuse to compromise.
‘The reason I love comics so much is the complete and utter autonomy you are afforded as an artist. No one can fuck with me.’ While he is always talking to production companies and executives that seek him out, he said he’s in no rush. ‘I refuse to nullify the goodwill I have accrued by pumping out a watered-down, embarrassing TV version of my property. It’s nice not to give a shit about it. I like being independent and having full control over the stories I tell.’
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Regarding his particular brand of storytelling, borrowing from both sitcom and slow-burn serial traditions, Hanselmann said, ‘I guess I have my cake and eat it too. I’m definitely moving things forward and the characters are growing but it’s slow and often out of order, so there often does feel like there’s some stasis and resets at play. The plan as of this point in time is to start heavily pushing things forward, start aging these fuckers up and hitting them with some harsh realities.’
Will he ever be done with Megg and Mogg? ‘To me the characters are alive at this point, they exist within so many people’s minds, they’re REAL. I have no plan to do anything else, I just want these characters to continue doing what they do, growing and learning and creeping towards death, like all of us.
‘I’ve tried doing other things but I just didn’t enjoy it,’ he said. ‘I love the comfort of Megg and Mogg. I know them, they know me. It literally pours out of me at this point, as easy as breathing (maskless breathing).’
I just want these characters to continue doing what they do, growing and learning and creeping towards death, like all of us
Having been quarantined for nine months now, the cartoonist is looking forward to Crisis Zone’s book publication. ‘I don’t give a shit about anything else. My entire life is the manic production of alternative comics and I’m having a fantastic time! I recommend it to anyone having trouble filling their days, it also helps with not eating. Full immersion!’
It sounds almost as engrossing to produce as it is to consume. Crisis Zone is a perverse space of refuge, as escapist and distorted as a funhouse mirror reflecting our own fears back at us. Everyone has their own definition of a ‘crisis’ and their own ways of dealing with one – hopefully they are healthier than some of the methods seen in the comic.
As we all experience quivers of powerlessness in the face of contagion, economic collapse and mass social upheaval, the way we react in all our idiosyncratic weirdness is, paradoxically, the thing that unites us. Thank god we’re all down here together.
Crisis Zone will be published by Fantagraphics on 10 August 2021 and can be pre-ordered here: https://www.fantagraphics.com/products/crisis-zone
