Strangers in Paradise #13 Review and art commentary
Ryan McGinnis
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Strangers in Paradise
Issue #13 Mini Review & Art commentary
Review contains no spoilers; art commentary does
Ah, issue 13, the beginning of a new story arc; a mini at that.
:) The new issues, all three of them, will follow Katchoo and
Francine throughout a few of their high school experiences; of
course, for most readers, this ought to serve as wonderful
background into the history of Katchoo and Francine.
Issue 13 is an interesting mix. It does a wonderful job of
paralleling the childhood worlds of K & F, is full of good satire,
and manages to keep the characters in character, though slightly
more juvenile. On the other hand, some of the plot elements are a
bit contrived and exaggerated -- while the comic overall suffers
from the uncertainty of whether it wants to be a satire or a drama.
It also manages to convey little new information about
the characters. Perhaps this issue is just the "set up" issue for
the three, but all the same, it's basically just everyone acting
like they always have, in a new setting.
Yet, for all it's confuzzlement, it does have it's own charm --
and is well worth the buy. It's much easier to accept the comic
knowing that it is a sort of experimental fun "romp" between
serious storyarcs. On the other hand, I wonder if the "romp" will
be shattered before the mini is over -- it's possible, but then
again, he's only got three issues to work with.
It's not incredible, but it's quite good.
- --==Spoiler Warning Begin==--
Art commentary (and injokes! :))
The idea here is for you to go grab your issue of SiP, a pack of
smokes, beer, or chips (depending on how big you like your little
sins), sit down, and read along. You don't have to, but if you
don't, reading this section will be mighty boring. :)
The art in this issue was slightly above average. The layout and
creativity were waaay below Terry's usual par, yet the expressive
drawings of characters were for the most part excellent. There
were a few of what I'll nicely refer to as "blatantly unneeded
facial exaggerations", but they were rare and quickly passed
behind. The cover art was.. well.. okay. Not my taste, but
there's nothing really wrong with it.
Page 2 will be considered the first page of actual comic -- that
is, the page in which Katchoo and Fran are waking up.
Page 2: Good symmetrical layout that (unlike in most comics)
actually has a purpose. K & F really couldn't be any more polarly
opposite, could they?
panel 4: Ah, Katchoo's poor alarm..
panels 5 & 7: I don't know why, but these two panels of Francine
_really_ got me laughing. It just seems so.. right. :)
panel 6: So she rips those tags off of the mattresses, to eh?
Page 3: Keep the symmetry. This entire stretch of pages (2-4)
works _very_ well.
panel 8: The dragon stirreth..
Page 5:
panel 4: Ack! Anime eyes! Seems totally out of places if you ask
me, and it totally shatters the mood Terry just spend 4 pages
building up. Fran getting blown over by Katchoo on a bike is
pretty metaphorically obvious, but he didn't need to make Fran look
like she was suddenly transposed into a Japanese manga. :)
Page 6:
panel 2: More anime eyes..
panel 3: Unless that powerplant is on one hell of a hill (that
holds train tracks so slanted that it would derail pretty much
anything), Terry goofed up on this landscape..
Page 7:
panel 1: (Mickey?) Mouse on left corner of the board. Goofy
equation equals.. zip! <g>
panel 3: Burning paper plane, skinhead (complete with Nazi cross)
strangling man at left, man standing on ceiling, bottle of wine in
the air. Kinda surprised there weren't any little "extra" things
thrown in here for fun, with all the chaos.
page 8: I like the pseudo "pan" between the rooms. The layout
is symmetrical and balanced against it's opposing part -- quite
nice.
panel 1: I guess the guy learned about gravity, eh? ;)
panel 3: I don't know why, but I get the feeling that there is a
lot more going on in this panel than meets the eye. Perhaps Terry
is making some subtle reference to his own life, perhaps the "time
travel" comment is in some way relational to the story.. it's just
a hunch. :)
page 9:
#6 small panel: Sienfeld injoke.
Page 10: Maybe school has changed, but I remember being able to
opt out of publicly reading things I wrote in class, if I felt like
it.
Page 11: Does Terry write these? If he does, then he's pretty
good at poetry. The poem is, of course, about her being raped by
her stepfather (probably quite recently, considering the timeframe
of this issue)
I like the layout of this page. You don't see this kind of
attention to detail/intelligence & creativity very often in comics,
at least, not in the comics _I've_ read. I especially like the
bottom "panel" (if you can call it that), in which Katchoo is
pretty much outside of the "comic universe" (surrounded in
darkness), looking in on a bunch of people constrained by their
frame. (Save the teacher, who's head slightly juts out, which,
perhaps has some significance. Or perhaps it just looked good.
:))
Page 12: Aaaaand, all that was gained by page 11 is diffused by a
SiP cliché. Oh well. I see what Terry was going after, but using
Freddie to do it was probably a little bit overboard.
panels 4 & 5, music: I wonder if anyone can Midi-ize this? I find
it interesting that, with the background music played, this zoomin
is extremely touching. It goes very, very well with what is drawn.
I think I will go back to previous SiPs and play along _their_
music while I read. Terry's music is quite deliberate, and I'm
surprised how much it adds to the comic.
Page 13:
panel 1: Fran's a bit thinner, no? There is a Heimlich posted in
back.
panel 4: The musical bar played is.. interesting. It seems to
fit, giving the moment a feeling of "sudden hope". Honest to god -
- - if you don't believe me, play it -- it's true.
Page 14:
panel 2: I read an interview once where Terry expressed that he
felt that most people lacked any real insight into why the world is
so problematic, and how people tick. In some ways I agree, in many
I don't. This feeling seems to be displayed in this panel -- the
man understands what he is saying about as much as a parrot
understands what he is mimicking.
panel 3: Pardon moi, but that director looks 98% like Katchoo. I'm
not sure if it's intentional or not.
Page 15: Lord, what a bitchy director. The point of this panel
it would seem is "Why are people so damned cruel to one another".
It's also ironic, because the director is practicing the exact
antithesis of what the play is all about. It's the key moment in
the play, but _she doesn't get it either_, to her it is just
another play that has to be practiced flawlessly. She's so caught
up in the craft that she forgets what it's about.
panel 1: Look in the upper balcony, and you can see the light from
Katchoo's cigarette.
panel 2: Ditto
panel 5: It's not often that Katchoo cries..
Page 16: Interesting how worlds collide here. You have a guy
who has encased himself in a "tough guy act", and has done his best
not to really think about things. You've a gal, who has also
encased herself in a "tough guy" image, but whom cannot escape her
own sensitive and feeling thoughts.
panel 1: Reminds me of an old "In Living Color" TV spoof where a
bunch of people dressed up as the crew from Star Trek and wandered
the streets of DC saying "We're looking for Ronald Regan. He's a
thespian. Where are the thespians?". They were directed to a
hooker street.
Page 17:
panel 1: Trademark lily on Fran's headboard.
Page 19: I like the layout. The last panel is underneath the
others, an interesting effect as Fran tries to backpedal and not
offend Katchoo..
Page 20:
panel 2: I really, really like this drawing of Katchoo. I can't
explain why. It just seems.. sincere.
panel 6: And, quite often, Terry's humor lands right on the mark.
I loved this. :)
panel 8: And what a lovely ending, at that. :)
- -Ryan McGinnis
ry...@lionking.org
http://www.lionking.org
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--
-Ryan
http://www.lionking.org/~ryan/
"Life,for eternal us,is now;and now is much too busy being
a little more than everything to seem anything,catastrophic
included." -ee cummings