4 posts tagged “romance”
This is last weeks webcomic column.
This week, dear readers, I plan to discuss three comics that are all tangentially linked together in what I like to consider one giant universe of happiness. The first of these comics is Queen of Wands, which is written and illustrated by a woman who goes by the name Aeire. Loosely based on her life, QoW is about a young woman named Kestrel who lives with her best friends, Felix and Shannon. They are a very odd household, but they seem to go well together. Kestrel is kind and loving toward her friends, wrathful toward her enemies, and a magnet for kids. This is unfortunate, for she does not like children. Kestrel's adventures center around her failed romances, her jobs, and occasional involvement in the shenanigans of Felix and Shannon. Her life is also complicated, often pleasantly, by her friend Angela. QoW ended in early '05, and thus is a completely finished storyline. It is about Kestrel's personal growth, the strangeness of relationships, what it means to accept change, and our fears of the future. It is a touching story filled with humor, lovable characters, and touching moments, all culminating in a wonderful ending that will bring a tear to your eye.
Queen of Wands may end there, but the story does not. Aeire started a new comic with Chris Daily of Striptease called Punch an' Pie. Punch an' Pie takes place a few years after QoW and is about Angela, Kestrel's friend from QoW. Angela is small, feisty, full of life, and has a child like sense of life not unlike Kestrel's. While the main characters of QoW are not in Punch an' Pie, the characters from the old toy store (where Kestrel met Angela) are still around. The story follows Angela and her girlfriend Heather as they deal with their jobs and their life together. Punch an' Pie is only a little over a year old, so there is not too much to catch up with. It takes a different attitude towards life than QoW but is definitely enjoyable. Daily's art is very good and compliments Aeire's writing and characterizations. There is much to look forward to from this comic.
Finally, I shall end on something extremely positive. Early in QoW's storyline, there was a crossover with another webcomic called Something Positive (abbr. as S*P). Somehow, the crossover stuck. The events of the crossover continued to come back in QoW's storyline, and culminated in Aeire giving Kestrel to Randy K. Milholland, author of S*P, as a permanent character after her own comic ended.
This weeks column in my school paper.
Sandra K. Fuhr is my hero. When I first started this column, Matt Lane suggested a rubric with which to judge each comic. I resisted based on the idea that I wanted to talk about each comic, not just grade it. But I lied. In some ways, Friendly Hostility is the standard by which I judge all other comics. It was one of the first comics that I was introduced to. It had only started a few months before and was fresh, sexy, and wonderful. Now, it is still wonderful and it has picked up a few new adjectives to replaces fresh and sexy.
The main characters of Friendly Hostility are Kailen “Fox” Maharassa and Collin Sri'Vastra, two best friends who were side characters in Sandra's previous comic, Boy Meets Boy. By the end of Boy Meets Boy, which you all should go read right now, Collin and Fox had pretty much become the central focus, so Ms. Fuhr started anew. Friendly Hostility opened with a short series called Problematic, working as an introduction to Fox's as of then unseen family. Readers get to meet his mother, Nefertari, and his father, Padma, as well as Ibrafim, usually called Rafi, Padma's best friend who manages to loose Fox's baby older sister to cannibals. Then, after a few months of introduction to the family, the story begins.
Unlike Boy Meets Boy, which was based very much around slapstick humor and jokes about sexuality and identity, Friendly Hostility is based on family and relationships between different people. Fox and Collin struggle with school expenses, Nefertari struggles to keep Padma from “upgrading” the toaster (it usually involves a car battery), and Fox's sister, Fatima, struggles to get Rafi to teach her to cheat at cards. The characters are deep and involved but fun and quirky. Bootsie is Collins slave that he won in a poker game. The Demon is a demon that lived in their fridge and now lives in the boiler room. He is called Demon because his real name causes nose bleeds. He is also a nurse.
I find myself wanting to tell every story in Friendly Hostility. There are truly too many wonderful moments to describe. Like Penny and Aggie, the comic leaves one attached to the characters, treating them as real people in your mind. The story can be outright funny, making you laugh and giggle all at once, and yet sweet and touching at the same time. Sandra describes herself as coming from a large tight knit Mexican family, and in some ways that is what Friendly Hostility is about. In other ways, it is just about madness. Go see it at http://friendlyhostility.com/
My column this week in the Argosy
It should be clear by now that I judge webcomics based on characters, story, and art, in that order. Penny and Aggie has all three of these in abundance all mixed up with high school romance, conflicting personalities, and epic battles of wit and will. The story is powered by the phenomenal writing of T. Campbell and the excellent art is by Point-Verte New Brunswick's own Gisèle Lagacé. Ms. Lagacé's art works in unison with Mr. Campbell's writing to make characters that make one forget that it is just a comic.
Penny and Aggie is hosted by a group that bills itself as collecting comics about teen life. It is true that the characters are in high school but Penny and Aggie is far too sophisticated and complex to be summed up as a teen romance or soap opera. While it is done in a sort of soapdrama format with episodic storylines and a focus on characters over events, it escapes being a “soap comic” by avoiding overly dramatic scenes and by the sheer depth of characterization. The title characters are Penny Levac, a wealthy and fashionable young woman, and Aggie d'Amour, who is an outcast by choice and self styled political activist. The two are sworn enemies as one can only have in high school, each at a loss to understand the others motivations. They each have loyal friends who both back them up and challenge their assumptions, and there are plenty of side characters to follow. Unlike many comics with a large cast, Campbell and Lagacé keep track of their characters and devote time and attention to lovingly crafting each into an individual.
The story follows the girls through their battles and occasional alliances, but it also branches into the lives of their friends and family. Aggie's father is a widower of three years, and has recently met a woman he thinks he wants to start dating. Penny's best friend, Sara, is struggling to keep her identity from being nothing more than the best friend of the popular girl. Within the various storyline are the usual high school politics and competitions.
Penny and Aggie is somewhat reminiscent of Betty and Veronica in art and theme. However, Penny and Aggie is far removed from the fanciful and ultimately Utopian world of Archie Comics. Despite being wealthy and fashionable, Penny is, along with Aggie, one of the high school's top students. Despite her desire for social justice, Aggie is not always the hero, and can be as flawed as the often self centered Penny. Even Rich, Penny's one time love interest, does not stay within the stereotype of the too cool to care bad boy.
I have to recommend Penny and Aggie to everyone. It is everything a good webcomic should be, with regular updates and an excellent story. The included sample is a perfect example of the comic, representing the coming to a culmination of several stories, as well as being an example of the interactions of the characters and the wit of the author. The girl in black is Sara, who has long been convinced that Aggie, with the peace sign on her belt, is in love with Penny, and vice versa. The girl with the multicolored hair is Lisa, weird in her own right. You are missing out if you skip this one, so check it out at www.pennyandaggie.com/
