The Maxx

Directed by: Gregg Vanzo

Written by: Sam Kieth, Bill Messner-Loebs

Produced by: MTV, Rough Draft Studios

Air Date: 1995

Lenght: 13 Episodes, 11-13 minutes each.

Humanity is split in two worlds. The real one, where we are victims of circumstance, and the unconcious, where we live out the fantasy of our ideal selves. Our titular protagonist, The Maxx, travels between both realms unwillingly. In our world, he's a masked and corpulent homeless man that lives in a box and fancies himself a superhero, with only a social worker named Julie Winters giving him any support. And in another, a fantastical jungle named the Outback, he's the powerful protector of the Jungle Queen, that world's equivalent to Julie. Both of their lives are suddenly disrupted by Mr. Gone, an enigmatic serial killer and rapist that hunts down Julie and antagonizes the Maxx, sending small vaguely humanoid creatures called Isz to attack him. Over the course of the story, we learn more about the character's past, building up to a terrible secret that not only links these people, but could also liberate them or destroy their lives forever.

Based on the comic book created by Sam Keith and published by Image, The Maxx animated series adapts the first half of the comic extremely faithfully. Although it was ultimately cancelled, it at least left a pretty conclusive ending. Considering the comic's second half is pretty divisive(I'm not a fan of it myself) perhaps it's for the best that it only covered the series at it's highest point.

The biggest flaw is the animation itself. There are some incredible uses of traditional, hand draw and CG animation. Perfectly capturing Keith's cartoony and ethereal artstyle. But a lot of the time, the show simply takes artwork from the source material and uses motion comic techniques to cut corners. And the result is extremely jarring. I must commend however the voice acting. Everyone feels perfectly casted into their roles, sounding exactly how you expect these characters to sound and behave.

To me personally, this is one of the best, possibly incidental representations of maladaptive daydreaming I've ever seen. If you're familiar with this condition, or simply have a fondness for the overly stylized drawings of the 90's Dark Age of North American comic books, I'd definetly suggest watching this show.