“Grim and gritty” is a phrase often associated with a mainstream movement that peaked about fifteen years ago and persists to this day, making superhero comic books vastly more ‘realistic’ in tone, if your concept of ‘realistic’ is all about death and grunge and removing niceties to make room for darkness, angst and foreboding.

You know, it all started when fanboys and creative types discovered a really cool character by the name of Wolverine of the Marvel’s Uncanny X-Men comic book, who had no moral compunction against killing… well, in terms of offing an unknown flunky, but it very rarely worked against a real baddy. Wolvie became cool because otherwise, Marvel’s superheroes had become horribly bland and unworthy of much attention, because they all pretty much acted alike.

Well, now those mainstream superheroes all act alike today, so what’s the big deal?

Grim and gritty, in terms of autobiographical or underground or self-published comix, isn’t about portraying death and destruction on a wide scale, nor is it about characters who’d rather kill than talk about it. But it is about creating stories that are either from the creator’s own personal life or, as is true for Losers Weepers, are inspired by it.

Whether it’s a letter or a journal or a piece of scrap paper with words written on it, a journeyman creator of comix can take that shred of a story and blow it up into a full story, with characters and an arc and meaning. And a great one can imbue the tales with perceptions and insight well beyond the original inspiration. That’s what J.T. Yost has done with his anthology of tales.

In Losers Weepers #1,  the book is built around a lost journal, with merely a few pages written in it. The creator took it for his own but found that the words of a complete stranger were of great interest, enough to be presented in comic book form, and likely more than just the photocopies on those particular pages.

What’s more real than realism? How about cubism and those movements from decades long gone? How about those cubists and those artists who collaged and incorporated bits into their artwork, enhancing the meaning while expanding the typical expectations of a genre. Yost does that well.

Relationships are the key for Losers Weepers #1, as one tale provides the really strange open-mike work of a character’s current girlfriend’s ex. This guy gets a sudden impulse and idea and then presents a crazy, sex-driven song on stage, based off the scribbles. One thing you can always anticipate in a written/drawn comic like this is that the worst imaginable situation will be set up and it will end up being worse than imagined. Just a little differently than expected.

There’s also a particularly violent story featuring two drugged-out homeless types, talking about their coke, detailing their lives on the street and getting into the addictions that drive their existence. Yost is more than just adept at extrapolating stories out of kernels of interesting information. This is, after all why, he calls it a tragi-comic.

Losers Weepers #2 is a fascinating story, taking the entire issue, based on several letters and notes found by the creator, and pastiched into a well put together storyline.

The source material was in Spanish, and provides a detailed glimpse of the culture. It follows along with the grim and gritty theme, in terms of a story that isn’t neat and tidy, and a protagonist that spirals out of control, all the while dealing with everyday situations and then again, things that aren’t exactly everyday.

Again, what fascinates me is the ability of J.T. Yost to stitch together some inspiring tidbits into a tragic-comic of epic proportions. I can’t wait to see more and I invite you to check out his work for yourself.