Same Character, Different Artists, Different Sides

Well, the comics didn't arrive. Thanks loads, UPS and USPS! The post office in town got it yesterday afternoon, but its acceptance is still 'pending'. Assuming they manage to show before Monday, I'll stick with the previously established plan for 2018's Year In Review, and do proper reviews of those issues (or what passes for that here) the week after.

In the meantime, I wanted to try and expand on some of what I was talking about in Monday's post, about the difference in how Nina comes off, depending on whether Max Sarin or John Allison are drawing her.

I grabbed a couple of sequences, one from the Where Women Glow and Men Plunder one-shot (drawn by Allison, seen above), and one from Giant Days #42 (drawn by Sarin, seen below). It's not perfect, since Ed's more the one feeling uncertain about himself in Allison's panels, versus Nina in Sarin's, but I thought they were both decent examples of a variety of emotions across 3 panels.

Allison draws her with a sharper chin, face is a little slimmer, smaller eyes, smaller mouth. There's a lot of hair, but it's under control. It reminds me of a 1940s noir femme fatale. Bit of Lauren Bacall or something. Sarin gives her face a more rounded, softer aspect, and everything is bigger. The eyes, the mouth. The hair is a bit more all over the place, even when she isn't just waking up. The blush isn't in the panels above, but it's there a lot.

Combining the big smile and the blush, Sarin's Nina seems apologetic or embarrassed a lot. Allison's version is more likely to come off as flirty*. Allison draws her touching her tongue to her upper lip a couple of times, a move I think Sarin has reserved for Esther so far. Sarin maintains that bashful look even in the issue that came out after their return from Australia. I mean even before Nina got completely hammered twice and had something to feel awful about. It just seems to be the approach he takes with her.

I think Sarin emphasizes the size disparity between Nina and Ed more. That Nina is an athlete, much more built than Ed, plus just flat-out taller. Not a lot, but I'm more aware of her being bigger than him. You can tell in the Allison panels she's taller, but not necessarily broader in the shoulders. Although Sarin also draws more panels from angles where we and Ed are looking up at Nina. Which is interesting, since the stuff I picked up in film classes makes me think that puts her in a dominant position over Ed, since she's towering above him. The whole "bashful" thing nullifies the effect. Until she's being a cruel drunk, at which point her looking down at Ed and us becomes highly effective. But that's only happened once. So far.

I wonder if Allison based his design for her off the story he was going to draw, or if that was how he always pictured her, and he's adapting what he's doing in the ongoing to how Sarin's depicted her. Sarin's had a few chances to draw Nina while she's being sassy or making smart aleck comments, but mostly she's seemed shy or eager. She made a few cracks during Ed's physical therapy, but she wasn't in those panels. In the one-shot, Nina's flirting with the Creek Boys to get information, or shutting them down with insults. Playfully teasing Ed, or keeping his confidence up. She seems entirely in her element, and the way Allison draws her reflects it.

I'd say it's a reverse of her and Ed when they're in England, but it's hard for me to picture Ed as confident and sassy. He's definitely more relaxed when they're together at the university than when he's trying to measure up in the eyes of Nina's family. But Nina hasn't really interacted with Ed's family at all that I know of, or even his friends prior to last month's issue. Is Ed actually the experienced partner is this relationship? That's a terrifying thought.

* I considered using some panels when she's trying to seduce an extremely jet-lagged Ed, since it would be the two of them in bed. But I thought it would be cheating, since their relationship was further along by that point than in the Sarin panels.