Space Time Condominium: Season One
Written and Art by Dave Dwonch
Action Lab Comics
Release Date: February, 2012
Cover Price: $14.95

Space Time Condominium starts with the premise of a man living with different versions of himself from across the multiverse and the story spins wildly out of control from there. It’s a webcomic written and illustrated by Dave Dwonch, with a new print version published by Action Age Comics. It is SO GOOD in so many ways, but misses the mark a few times.

So, the story goes like this: A crisis is destroying the multiverse as a scientist named The Gate Keeper flees his timeline, that’s about to be destroyed, with a mysterious plan that involves gathering 5 different versions of a man named Griffen Griffens, builds a condo in a tiny pocket universe unaffected by the crisis, and have them all live together. Whew, what a sentence. Oh, and it’s a comedy!

On one version of Earth, Griffen is a struggling stand up comedian, another a gay aerobics instructor, a computer technician, an alcoholic redneck, and a white guy who acts like a black guy. While they don’t have much else in common they all leap at the opportunity to live rent free. Hilarity ensues.

The book itself, is the first story arc of the web series. It’s worth checking out for the ‘bonus features’ which delve deeper into the most meta aspect of the story; Space Time Condominium is a Canadian cult TV classic from the 80s. It wasn’t, but it plays itself out like it was, implementing the sound effects of a live studio audience into the pages. In the print version Dwonch uses mocked-up old Tiger Beat covers and retrospectives to sell you the premise with a totally straight face. It’s maybe the most inventive device I’ve heard yet to purchase a print version of a webcomic: Buy a print copy and learn more about the TV show it never was!

As for the “first season” of the comic (7 or so pages being an episode) the gang deals with relationship problems, zombie attacks, cows, mental health, etc. It’s all very silly and enjoyable stuff. At its best it can get that great Achewood-esque vibe that comes from a bunch of odd-ball men with time on their hands hanging out. No premise is to obscure, no plot twist to bizarre no sub-genre to stupid to not explore here. Anything goes. Dwonchs‘ art is unapologetically cartoony and his character are not short in personality as drawn.

There are, unfortunately, a number of little off-putting qualities to that added up for me. One episode, with the groan-worthy title “Griffen Gets Raped,” tries to pass off the premise that a character drunkenly hooking up with someone they later regret is funny when it gets labeled as rape. There’s totally an audience out there for that sense of humor, but it’s not for me. Furthermore, after a few episodes the paper thinness of the characters starts to show. The gay aerobics instructor in the flashy pink unitard is pretty much just that. His double entendres kind of work at first because he’s supposed to be in a high-concept 80s sitcom, but eventually that starts to feel kind of like a stand in for giving him any depth.

The larger plot is very interesting and, oddly, reads like a very well done superhero comic, but Dwonch, who seems to like all of these characters, keeps leaning on their one dimensionality for jokes that stopped being funny a few pages back. He seems to be at a similar crossroad other creators as diverse as Dave Sim in Cerebus and Chris Ware in Jimmy Corrigan have been at where they’ve created these really light characters and then decide to put them in large, involving narratives. It’ll be very interesting to see where it goes from here.