What I Bought 4/3/2019 - Part 2

I love these commercials encouraging people to play the lottery by talking up how it funds education. Because that's why people are buying lottery tickets. I know that's what I think about the once or twice a year I shatter internally in the face of crushing despair and bet on ludicrous odds to provide me wealth as a dream escape, the children I'm helping. Hopefully it helps them learn not to do dumb shit like by lotto tickets.

Ahem. How's your Friday going? Here's a comic.

Giant Days #49, by John Allison (writer/penciler), Max Sarin (artist), Whitney Cogar (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer) - When I was looking at that cover online, it took me forever to figure out what Esther had in her right hand. At first I figured it was a hood for the eagle, except that's for falcons, but I wouldn't be surprised she didn't know that. Then I thought it was something else, a mitten maybe, before realizing it was a cup of tea.

Esther has returned home to work on her dissertation. It's going poorly. Not just the writing, but everything. Graudation fast approaches, and she has no idea what comes next. Her parents are concerned in that way that feels very much like judgment. Her friends are all either moving on with their lives, or falling apart and moving back. Things are changing, and she feels entirely adrift. Yeah, I know that feeling. For 8 years after graduation. So hopefully she can do better.

I'm not sure if Esther resolves any of her problems, other than the dissertation. She got that written eventually. But it was never going to be that easy. Things change, friends drift, attempts to reconnect with what felt comfortable in the past fail miserably. I'm not sure if it was a sign of growth or not that Esther stood up the old boyfriend. One the one hand, that seems a lot like ducking the potential problem she'd gotten herself into. On the other hand, charging forward with the ill-advised idea out of some misguided belief it will all magically work out somehow is what she typically does. So the fact she caught herself before really digging a hole is progress, of a sorts.

John Allison did the pencils for some of the pages, although I feel like it isn't the pages the credits says it is. The two pages of Esther and the old boyfriend walking and talking had some faces that did not look at all like Sarin's style. Allison seems to make her jawline rounder, and make her nose stick out more. Maybe that's just his preference for profile shots. It works fine, though. The pages that are credited to Allison seem like ones where Esther's most open about how off-kilter she feels. The other pages, she's either focusing on anger with herself or her parents, or trying to whistle past the graveyard.

But I really enjoy the Max Sarin pages, just because the range of expressions is so wide. The panels below, that frazzled, exasperated look and posture for Esther's mom, and that scowling fury on Esther. It's just consistently enjoyable for me to look at.

There's also a subplot with Esther reluctantly helping Lottie track down a vampire and try to destroy it, most of which happens off-panel. I would pay money to see a one-shot of those two trying to fight evil. Bring Daisy along to point out how unwise this is or try to make friends with supernatural horrors!