It is a fool who pushes his favourite new mania to the side, only to return and review it six months later! Yes, I did it, and I accept my guilt with a bowed head. Whatever the circumstances of 2020–and aren’t they a thrill?–mine is a sin not to be underestimated. I’ve ignored my sacred duty to spread the word about John Alison’s wonderful Giant Days too long; time to get back to it, and as I don’t have any more Star Wars comics I want to read and review just now, I’m reviving the Sunday Comics* column to talk about a menagerie of other comics. Without further ado: Greeting, reader…
They’re back! Esther, goth-queen of the universe; realist Susan whose feet are so firmly on the ground, Newton wouldn’t have needed to get bonked on his head to figure out gravity was a thing (he’d have gotten it the moment his eyes found her); and Daisy, whose name I shamefully keep forgetting but who reminds me so much of one of my best friends, it’s not even funny anymore. I’ve called her Daffodil, I’ve called her Lilly, even, but Daisy is somehow beyond me!
There’s also McGraw and Ed, our likeable secondary characters. This volume of Giant Days opens up with an Ed-centric story, which is–you guessed it, all about a shit experience in the bedroom with someone Ed quite fancies; that someone then makes fun of him, which…not cool, dudette!
Really, miss University-Paper-Editor? (The girl on the side of the middle panel, tho–art game is as strong as it gets.)
There’s bad form and then there’s this. We don’t shame inexperienced folks, Fish-Dress-Lady. That’s something we just don’t do; if everyone was this much of an asshole to people society would begin to crumbl–oh. Oooh. I think I’m beginning to identify the problem of our time, here.
Jokes aside, if you’ve never had bad sex, you haven’t had enough of sex at all. Bad sex is a great lesson in humility, too! I’ve had it–more than once, too! Keeps me humble.
Then, there’s Esther, whose strength of manic personality is one of the shining beacons that is the inferno of life outside my window.
Am I in love with her? Nope. Am I her, but with dangly bits? You betcha! Esther is in deep trouble–or so she’d have you believe her. Her best friend from high school, Big Lindsay has come to town, and she’s all about that party lifestyle. Esther offers a tragic story of a bad girl corrupting an innocent, and Daisy buys it wholesale:
It’s poppycock, surely. It must be.
Uh.
Uuuuuh. Aaaanyway…
Turns out Lindsay isn’t all bad. She’s the life of the party and she’s got the cutest puppy-dog eyes you’ve ever seen, but there’s more to this punk-y twenty-something year-old.
But you can find out for yourself. She’s a very wholesome character, despite an ultra-extroverted nature that makes me want to scream in a paper bag, then hide behind my pillow fort.
But hey-hey-hey, I hear you ask. What’s Susan up to? She’s strangely absent, isn’t she? Our realist has been working hard on a campaign to make the university a better, more just place. A worthwhile pursuit, Susan! S-Susan?
You don’t look so good, Susie. Maybe…maybe Ester could help.
Then again, maybe not.
This is as excellent a volume as the previous two, with jokes that never fail to deliver. The art continues to not only punctuate the sharp dialogue but breathe stunning life into these characters–as you can see.
It’s some of the finest times you can have with a comic book and I’m eager to talk your ear off about Volume 04, which I read last night–it only gets better!
*formerly Sunday ComiX, due to some exceptionally horrible X-Men puns and jokes I made for several months in…2017? 2016? It’s been a while!
The Grimoire Reliquary 