If you’ve ever seen South Pacific or been to a Trader Vic’s, Tiki Joe Mysteries might be for you. Mixing Polynesian pop culture and Las Vegas kitsch, this graphic novel is part murder mystery, part hard-boiled thriller strummed on a ukulele. Debuting this month, the black-and-white graphic novel comes from cartoonist Mark Murphy and San Jose-based SLG Publishing.
“Generally speaking, Tiki Joe Mysteries came from my love for American culture of the ’50s and ’60s,” said cartoonist Mark Murphy. “I have always had a great appreciation for the art, music, cinema, architecture, the list goes on, of that era. The seminal event, however, that inspired the creation of Tiki Joe Mysteries was watching the original Oceans 11, with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. I loved the idea of a group of middle-aged WWII veterans getting together and using their military training to take on Vegas. With Tiki Joe Mysteries, I just put a spin on the concept.... Instead of a group of veterans trying to rob Las Vegas, they choose to fight crime.”
Although crime fighting seems a frequent occupation in the medium of comics, the only superteam you’ll see here is the Rat Pack. The book centers around WWII veteran Joe Halliday, now owner and bartender for a Vegas restaurant called Tiki Joe’s. With a house band comprising his wartime buddies and an on-again-off-again relationship with a Las Vegas socialite, Halliday lives the dream life between intrusions by money-hungry mobsters and fast-fingered all-girl motor-bike stunt teams. Hey, it is Vegas after all.
“The kind of trouble that Joe gets into is the kind of trouble that walks into his bar,” said Murphy. “When mobsters decide to hit up Tiki Joe’sfor protection money, Joe is left with a decision to make: either pay up or fight back. Giving in has never been Joe’s style. When the police are unable to help, Joe enlists the aid of his wartime buddies to take on the mob.” Serving as both writer and artist, Murphy employs an art style that is straightforward and heavy on the blacks. The voiceover narration takes stock of the situation with a heavy taste of noir that’s shared by his friends and foes alike.
This penchant for Polynesian Tiki culture is something that’s become part of the lineup for SLG Publishing. Although Tiki Joe Mysteries is its first comic book exploring this niche, the company recently published two Tiki drink recipe-books. “In addition to the books,” said publisher Dan Vado, “I am planning on maybe doing a couple more art books on some sculptors, and then some shirts and print-on-demand prints.” The first print, a zombie poster with a cocktail recipe, was recently released.
The theme of tiki rode into pop culture with the admission of Hawaii as the 50th state in 1959 and the propagation of tiki hut bars and restaurants across the United States in the '50s and '60s. Although the niche faded in later years, it was recently reclaimed in part for its camp and kitsch appeal in these nostalgic times. “My love for Polynesian pop culture developed out of my appreciation for the culture of 1950s,” said Murphy. “I am too young to have experienced that era firsthand, but so many qualities of the 'atomic age' give me a deep sense of nostalgia. The tiki movement in particular, and the primitivism it represented, left its stamp on the 1950s art world. Think of the music of Martin Denny and Lex Baxter or A-Frame, googie architecture.”
As past trends are resurrected for modern appreciation, so are their nooks and crannies. “To my mind, there is a sense of romance, or perhaps innocence, that postwar America was trying to capture when it emulated Polynesian culture,” Murphy said. “Today the movement may be viewed as childish or as kitsch. But I, for one, envy that generation and their illusions. After all, who doesn’t want to kick back with a mai tai cocktail and lose themselves in the hi-fi sounds of primal drums and exotic bird calls?”
