Remember when comics used to be fun? Well, I thought they couldn’t be. I am not a fan of lazy written material like the dad jokes on Archie (sorry, I can’t stand it). I want witticism. I want snark. I want poignant commentary and realistic settings.
Enter Giant Days, now on their 8th number. John Allison sharpened his craft on webcomics such as Bobbins and Scary Go Round. What he gives us now is the universe of the university years at its best and worst. Drama and comedy become almost the same thing as Susan, Esther, and Daisy navigate life at its utmost weirdest. It gets positively crazy and I think I am not describing it well or weird enough to do it justice. It’s not really about parties or hooking up. It’s about surviving your own crazy mind as you’re trying to discover/create yourself.
It’s my guilty pleasure because at any age beyond teenage you’re going to acknowledge growing up is about making a mess and moving on as best you can. If you can laugh about it, you’ll enjoy this one.
Speaking about messes, here’s a fine one. If you’re looking for a starting point for Black Science, there ain’t one. The first issue is as close as you get to starting to get comfortable feeling completely lost, but if you otherwise prefer #17 also does a good job of summing up where Grant is up to.
Right now former member of the League of Anarchistic Scientists Grant McKay is alone, having lost track of his team of Dimensionauts. Kadir is dead. Rebecca has managed to fix the Pillar but she has her own agenda and the team has made one final jump away from their leader. Grant has lost his children, wife and has been betrayed by his former lover. To top it off, something seems to be eating his memories. With only his incessantly questioning mount for company, he’s trying to put the pieces together to go open a gateway and make another jump himself.
As memories of the past seem to come back and haunt him, Grant receives a visit from someone he knows – a family member we’ve never seen before. A good start for a fresh new arc starts here.
Slowly but steadily, the world on Lantern City is getting bigger in issue #7. After Sander befriended Killian and moved into the Grey Towers with Terna and Jom, life has become safer. Or the illusion of safety, in any case. I preferred when Sander still had to keep an identity as a Captain of the Guard.It’s getting some used to seeing him as a personal guard to the emperor.
Killian has found Sander’s real wife. Karla is alive and well, but she’s now a disciple of Pont. Sander all but gives up a little too quick here, but he’s resolved to get his son, Rennie, away from Karla. As things get more complex, Sander learns what Killian keeps in his secret lab… and we hear this crazy story about this entire world called Earth.
I missed the idea of having to dress up in the guard armour to be honest, but the story still has more than enough twists and jumps to keep you engaged. I also hope that the story has Sander, Terna and Jom moving away from Grey Towers to assume a different identity. But then again, the story has been pretty good about giving us the unexpected.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 