Friday, March 20, 2015

Retrospective: Girls With Slingshots

Another comic ends, and I am sad to see it go.  At the same time, it's not one of the stars of my list.

I did and do enjoy Girls With Slingshots, but not to the great extent as I do say, Sluggy Freelance or Schlock Mercenary.  Despite reading the whole thing, and even rereading parts of it for this, I really didn't remember it as well as I did those two.

I think the point is that it wasn't a beloved comic.  Which does NOT mean I didn't like it, I wouldn't still be reading it if I didn't like it.  I like it a lot in fact, but it didn't stick in my mind as well.  I suspect that some of it was that the stories weren't as clear cut and divided as in the more adventure style comics I read.  They flowed together like life in a way.

There's a good term for it, it's a life comic.  It shows people living rather ordinary lives, ghost cats and talking cacti aside.  I suppose that was originally why I compared it to Questionable Content back in my original review, though I don't think QC ever really stuck with the idea, I don't read QC after all.  A better comparison would be Punch 'n Pie, which does pretty much the same thing, showing the various characters interacting and just plain living.

The result is a series of relationships, which is what I remember more than anything else.  They often felt natural without being overbearing, and I suspect Danielle likes happy endings because most of the couples end up being happy.  I like them too, so I really enjoy them as well.

I could go over them all, nearly did, but really it's worth reading the comic to see them all.  The different characters, how they relate to each other, how they get along, is part of the reason the comic works so well.  They don't go on grand adventures through space and time, they go to the bar and have a few drinks.  Then deal with the ghost cat and the talking cactus.

Live, relationships, and a bit of humor added up to a pretty damn good comic that I've been struggling all week to write a damn retrospective of.  Just go read it, especially as it is going into rerun mode, with the early, black and white strips being fully colored to go along with the rest of the comic.  The art of the early strips is oddly detailed and gets less so, but strangely better, as time goes on, but it won't hurt your eyes or anything.

And Danielle has made it clear this isn't over.  Oh, Girls With Slingshots is over, but the story and lives of her characters is going to continue at some point.  I'll be waiting for it.  In the meantime, it will remain on the read list while it goes through it's rerun, I'm curious what commentary she has to say about it.

Next week, um, we'll see.  Until then kiddies.

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