The Disappearance of Charley Butters by Zach Worton

Charley Butters is probably dead. He was a painter in his mid-life during the later 1950s, so by the time of this 2015 graphic novel - set, as far as I can tell, basically contemporaneously - he would have been at least in his eighties. But there are two more books in this series, so I suppose he may show up as a centenarian eventually.

This is not really the story of Charley Butters, though. He's in the title, and his model and mystery is important, yes. But it's the story of Travis, a young man who works in a record store and sings in a black metal band.

Travis and his two bandmates are going off into the woods with filmmaker Stuart, to gesticulate and grimace in extreme makeup - they're making a video. The four guys are bickering, complaining about each other, nagging, picking on each other - they're grumpy and combative, in a bad mood.

That's probably good for death metal, though. You don't want to be too happy when you're invoking the devil.

After a couple of hours of mugging in one clearing, they head over to their next filming location - but stop when they see an old shack. Maybe there's something cool there they can put into the video?

They "break" into the shack - the door was jammed shut but not locked, and the place is decades old, untouched for who knows how long. Inside, they find a lot of notebooks, some old canned goods, and what looks like a couple of dozen versions of the same painting.

This was Charley Butter's cabin: he built it, after running away from the art scene in whatever the local city is. (This is set somewhere in Canada, probably around one of the smaller cities in Ontario - creator Zach Worton is from Mississauga, so that can be Guess #1.) The guys poke through his stuff, realize he was a "schizo," and head off to finish up the video.

But Travis comes back later, to collect all the notebooks, to read Butters' diaries. He's becoming fascinated with what I suppose I should call The Disappearance of Charley Butters.

Travis is unhappy - he started this band on a lark, but it's not his kind of music, and central figure Mike is an alcoholic asshole with very particular, demanding notions of what's appropriate for black metal. So he quits the band, cuts his hair, starts dating a girl named Kat, and spends a lot of time reading the Charley Butters notebooks.

Parallel to Travis's story, we get flashbacks to Butters - he has a successful gallery show, but starts having auditory hallucinations, which leads him out to that wooded cabin. He becomes entirely reclusive, avoiding all people.

Travis is becoming fascinated with Butters' story - and, coincidentally, so is Stuart, the filmmaker who made their video. The two decide to make a documentary about Butters, with Travis as the on-camera interviewer and Stuart directing. Their first interview is with Butter's wife (ex-wife? widow?) Eleanor, which doesn't go well - Travis keeps interrupting her, and asking the wrong questions first - and gets cut off early.

But they still want to make the documentary. That's where this book ends: they know that Butters existed, that he lived in the woods for a while and then wandered off somewhere else, and they intend to keep investigating.

Worton has a fine storytelling eye here; he's mostly working in a four-panel grid, and has a crisp style that's particularly good in silent panels and contemplative moments. The story is obviously not done, but what's here is satisfying enough while clearly being the first part of a longer piece. (Worton did make two more graphic novels to complete the trilogy between 2016 and 2018; I haven't seen them yet.)