Giant Days: Where Women Glow and Men Plunder -John Allison (writer and artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Ed, damn it, you're supposed to ride inside the pouch! That's what it's there for!Ed travels to Australia to spend time with Nina and her family. Ed struggles to cope with the fact he is not a big, manly sports person like the men in her family, just as the Creek Boys try to ruin the big regatta Nina's father is putting on. The plan to steal the giant sausage that was the centerpiece of the food falls apart when they accidentally kidnap Nina's grandmother instead. Ed does. . . not exactly manage to save Nana Joan, but he does manage to keep from being killed by an emu! That counts for something.
I really need to get that collection of the early, online Giant Days strips Allison drew (which I will buy before too long), just to see if Susan always has sharp pointy teeth. I could see that happening. Suits her naturally brutal personality. Allison's style is more simplified than Sarin's, but he gets a lot out of it. The sound effects help. "ESCAPE!" for the jar of pickles when it slips from Ed's grasp. So do the clothes the Creek Boys are sporting. So many tank tops and ill-considered hair styles.
It's a solid one-off. Nina and Ed wouldn't be my first two choices for one of those, but it's endearing to see Ed trying to make a good impression on Nina's family. His manners impressed Nana Joan, which is probably the most important thing. Nina's commentary about the history of the area and the Creek Boys had some good one-liners in there.
Giant Days #45, by John Allison (writer), Max Sarin (artist), Jeremy Lawson (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - Bartender, what's this depressed nerd doing in my drink? Contemplating the futility of hoping for a happy existence, sir. What? Like the man says, dying is easy, comedy is hard.Back in England, Ed encourages Nina to resume hanging out with her rowing friends, confident she can control her drinking. This is misplaced confidence, as Nina then breaks into Ed's home to visit him in the middle of the night. Ed promises to go with her to the next one, but by the time she arrives, she's alraedy shitfaced, and as it turns out, she can be a bit cruel when she's drunk. Ed prepares to break things off, but is talked out of it by Esther.
Which is nice of her, but Nina's tendency to show no self-control when alcohol is involved is not a small problem. Sure, assuming she doesn't kill herself somehow, she may grow out of it by the time she hits 30. That's how it went with my friend. When it was just us hanging out, he was fine. But it was a long decade plus of me having not much fun as the person trying to keep him out of trouble because he couldn't moderate when he was around literally any of his other friends.
In other plot developments, Daisy is getting interested in driving. Or perhaps just having a vehicle she could accessorize. Susan, late in the issue, realizes that she is living a life of blissful domesticity, and is duly horrified. Her course correction in response should be impressive. Hopefully McGraw has flameproof clothes. What am I saying, of course McGraw has fire proof clothes.
Nina has this almost constant, it looks like a blush, but I'm not sure that's what it's supposed to be that runs across her nose from one cheek to the next. Makes her look perpetually nervous or embarrassed. It's absent in the other comic, and Nina comes off more certain of herself there. Maybe because she's on her home turf, she knows how things work. Here, she's spending time either with Ed's friends, or making bad decisions with her rowing buddies.
The wobbly drunk hearts floating around her during her attempted booty call on Ed are cute. The way that, when Susan has her moment of clarity, her two pupils are different colors, and it sticks for the next two panels (which are the last two of the issue.) Sarin always has interesting little bits or flourishes in every issue, along with the excellent work on expressions and body language.
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