Comic Review: ROCK 'N ROLL NINJA by Meyer/Dixon/Bahr
Ya Boi Zack's best work to date!
What if a quartet of Vietnam veterans, disillusioned and low on prospects after the war, got recruited to train a clan of ninjas for a quick payday? And then—plot twist!—it’s a trap? And rather than roll over and take what’s coming to them, they decide to hide in the open as an indie rock band in the 80s?
If that sounds like a crack-addled concept that just might work, then you’re the target audience for ROCK ‘N ROLL NINJA by Richard C. Meyer, Matt Bahr, and Chuck Dixon.
Here’s the catch: you won’t find this in conventional stores. In fact, by the time I was able to sit down and write up this review, Meyer (better known as Ya Boi Zack on YouTube) had already sold out of his extra prints. There will be more in the future, as this is his best-received, best-reviewed book ever (his company has been publishing for six years) and he’s got sequels on deck.
While I haven’t kept up with Meyer’s Jawbreakers series, I remember being stoked when he announced this as a standalone book…in 2021. Yes, the campaign went live 3 years ago, and like a true creative, Meyer has a tendency to overcommit on too many projects and fall behind schedule. He’s refreshingly self-aware on the front, and even took a first-ever hiatus from his long-running YouTube channel this year to catch up on all of his delayed books.
And these aren’t just quirky little throwback books that mimic what comics used to be—he’s got a licensed Expendables comic with Sylvester Stallone’s blessing, with writing from none other than Will Jordan, a.k.a. The Critical Drinker himself.
Meyer may have started his channel in 2017 as a comic critic, but he's the rare critic that gets things done, and RNRN proves that he can go in any direction he likes. His only limitation is that there’s just one of him.
The Story
Images and descriptions are from the now-closed IndieGoGo campaign.*
1973- 4 young MACV-SOG soldiers finish up their Tour Of Duty in Vietnam and fly back to the USA to start their dream of becoming rock musicians.
1975- After having all of their equipment & van stolen after a concert, they accept an offer from a colonel they knew in Vietnam for a 6-week "security consultant" gig in Japan… As they finishing the consulting gig, they find out they won't be going home...ever. The people who they had been training are NINJA!
1981- After years of service to the Ninja Clan, the boys finally escape and head back to NYC. They reform the band, but must turn down all record deals and promotion since they have to lie low, so that the Ninja Clan cannot track them down...
1983- Realizing that their big shot is passing them by, the boys create an elaborate plan to lure their Ninja Clan to New York City and pick them off one-by-one… But they're not the only people with plans for the Ninja Clan. The Colonel wants to bring Ninja into the modern world and FRANCHISE them!
Even after reading the description above and knowing what’s coming, Dixon’s writing gives it teeth in the right places so that when the betrayals arrive, you really feel it. There were several “Ha ha!” and “Whoa!” moments when I read this book, to say nothing of how I kept going over the art several times before turning each page. It’s so crisp and sharp and perfect.
The Characters
The band call themselves “Uzi Duz It,” and they’re a colorful bunch. Bahr draws them in the Army as looking mostly the same, though still distinct enough, as Army dress code might do. As they return to civilian life they have their own grooming and wardrobe that makes it even easier to tell them apart.
Francis is the AV guy, Dennis is an elevator mechanic, Hudson works in the sewers, and Angel is a drag queen.
The single page of the book that reveals their hard adjustment to civvie life is a rough snapshot of what a lot of veterans go through—and it was something new in America after ‘Nam, because of how the war was broadcast to the population.
The World
The story pitches itself as something that could happen in our own, it’s just secret. You can easily imagine it happening in the same world as Die Hard or Highlander. Furthermore, there are little cues sprinkled throughout that hint at a hidden knowledge of New York and its boroughs. I know Meyer lived there for a while, I can’t say as much for Bahr or Dixon, but it doesn’t matter—even if the readers don’t know what’s above what street number, or what’s peculiar about which neighborhood, the characters know, and you can extrapolate from there.
What matters is it’s fleshed-out and detailed, and the characters know how to thrive in their setting.
The Politics
None, and in a sense, this is where the book shows some of its best qualities. The “Uzi Duz It” team is ‘diverse’ in the ways that the superficial cultural crybabies care about (one white guy, one Asian guy, one black guy, one gay guy) but it almost never comes up. Angel is a flamboyant dresser after the war and yet none of his fellow veterans give him any lip about it.
The only one who says anything is the Colonel who picks them up after the war, calling Angel a ‘fairy’ and Dennis a ‘junkie’ in the same breath. These are observations about how the men are going nowhere with their lives, and he instead wants them to live up to their warrior potential. There’s no Current Day screeching at the audience.
It’s almost like there’s a spectrum to this! A story that refuses to depict a heterogenous world is in one area, and a story that can’t stop mentioning is is far in the other direction. Meanwhile, a talented writer like Dixon can add it as any other brick in the wall, and then just keep building the wall.
Content Warning
It definitely gets graphic at times. Frank takes up a relationship with one of the ninjas, and there’s a bedroom scene here and there. The language pops up with the odd F-bomb. And the violence, while mostly action-based, does have the occasional frame where someone gets decapitated.
Click the image to expand, for an example.
Who’s it for?
“1980s throwback in the 2020s” is definitely becoming a genre, because there’s an audience for it. Not just because it’s about veterans doing action stuff in New York, but because those veterans are also ninjas in a rock band. Popular entertainment doesn’t give us these gonzo concepts these days, but the 80’s were full of them, and they’ve had incredibly staying power. Comics is a resilient medium that allows this kind of story to be told with less budgetary risk, and boy does RNRN land gracefully in that spot.
Why read it?
This is a mashup of three underrated talents that produces a truly special and fun book. Bahr’s artwork is sharp and alive and suffers nowhere. Perspective, value, character design, scale, all of it. Dixon shows why he’s the legend that he is, and why so many of the indies (who can) are paying him for his talents. Meyer continues to show why he’s the right man at the right time, a lifelong fan of this medium who understands why it appeals, why the mainstream isn’t working, and what to make instead.
As of this review, you can’t buy this book, because of how Meyer runs his business through crowdfunding. But if you follow his YouTube channel and keep an ear to the ground, you’ll catch the next campaign, or one for another book he’s publishing that’s up your alley. I’m stoked for the next one.