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Burger Force Vol. 4: Punishment

2021 - Shortlisted

Shortlisted

Burger Force 4 is part of a comic series that celebrates and exposes crimes against pop culture. The series features the Burger Force team and outlier Mercury, who operate as undercover agents from a burger restaurant. Episode 4, ‘Punishment’, focuses on the investigation of Mr Twister, a failed stand-up comedian, who is murdering his hecklers. He is the source of much of the ‘dead funny’ humour, leaving his victims in contorted positions that represent bad puns such as ‘dead on time’ and ‘highly strung’.

Jackie Ryan’s storytelling is sharp and sophisticated, with several perspectives intercut into the main narrative through words and visual panels. The characters are given verisimilitude through their stances, body language and facial expressions. Characters and settings are expertly digitally and manually altered versions of real people and places. The cutting humour and quality of the writing and graphics warrant its inclusion in the shortlist.

About the author

Jackie Ryan

Jackie Ryan

Burger Force is written, directed, designed, photographed, edited, produced, location-scouted, costume-designed, and a bunch of other control-freak stuff by Jackie Ryan. In between obsessing about Burger Force, Jackie produces independent music videos, short films, and projects such as The Fanciful Fiction Auxiliary. She holds a PhD in history and political science from The University of Queensland, where she was an Honorary Research Fellow. Her non fiction book We’ll Show the World: Expo 88 (UQP), won the 2018 Queensland Premier’s Award for a Work of State Significance and the 2018 Queensland Literary Award for a History book. She also won a 2018 Queensland Writers Fellowship.