Set sometime after the events of the first mini-series, 2003's Work Sucks finds the Grrls a little too well-known around Freak City, a condition that can be dangerous for drug-dealers. So Gwen decrees the three of them are going legit. Unfortunately, as selling medical cannabis won't be an option for several years yet, that means finding other jobs.
Of the four Grrl Scouts stories, this is the most down-to-earth. No demons, no vast conspiracies, no magic socks or slipping into someone's dreams. There's still violence, there's still absurdity and the girls being irritated by morons, just in everyday settings. The kind of stupidity and aggravation that comes with dealing with people who don't know a damn thing and are determined to make that your problem. The most bizarre thing is Daphne (who ends up working as a bartender) having to keep one-half of the evening's entertainment from being killed the by other half when he accepts their offer of cocaine and doesn't realize it wasn't free.
Mahfood brings each character to something they enjoy the same way (offer from a friend), but not strictly the same path. Rita turns something she was doing in her spare time (tagging), into a regular paying gig working on murals for the city. Daphne doesn't get far looking for work, but demonstrates she knows how things work at the bar and gets offered a job. Gwen's the only one who really goes out hunting for work, and runs into the ever-delightful insistence on "experience". She finds a job working with kids while drowning her sorrows over getting fired.
Mahfood's art is starting to shift a little. He goes to a thinner line almost exclusively, and uses the shadows around the eyes to convey a haunted or irritated look a lot. He's also starting to simplify his expressions and figures. I don't know if that's a time-saving maneuver or just honing his style. His panel layouts are evolving, too. A lot of panels with borders that flow like waves, or that overlap at tense moments or are tipped at an angle. Switches to panels running across two pages and then back to a standard page seemingly whenever he feels like it. He's still a long way from the almost mosaic-like pages in Stone Ghost, but you can see him starting in that direction.
No comments:
Post a Comment