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COURTNEY CRUMRIN & THE NIGHT THINGS #2
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Oni Press
Writer/Artist: Ted Naifeh
Editor: Jamie S. Rich
Price: $2.95 US |
I enjoyed the first issue of Courtney Crumrin, but I wasn't sure if Naifeh would be able to keep the series fresh, or if we'd be subjected to a similar series of stories about Courtney using various monsters to get revenge. Happily, the second issue is, if anything, better than the first one, with an interesting take on the notion of popularity and some more information about Courtney's mysterious uncle. With it's young protagonist, mystical overtones and art style, this is an ideal choice not only for fans of "goth" comics like Gloom Cookie and Little Gloomy, but fans of books like Akiko and Leave it to Chance as well.
Naifeh's artwork is a lot of
what I like about the book. I love that he uses a different style of eyes for
Courtney, setting her aside from the rest of the kids her age. She looks strange
and alien, but the personality she is given brings her right back down to earth.
Basically, he reinforces her outsider status with a unique look, but he doesn't
make her so much an outsider that the reader can't relate to her. And the
settings, from a mundane school to the "haunted" woods and mansion that she
lives in, really help to put the reader into the right frame of mind.
The story this issue is a
take on that familiar saw, "be careful what you wish for." Courtney's desire for
popularity becomes a bit nightmarish as she learns that solitude isn't always
such a bad thing, especially if you don't really like a lot of people anyway.
What I found most intriguing about the story, however, wasn't how Courtney
interacted with her peers, but how she interacted with her uncle. The
idiosyncratic old man with a taste for magic and creatures is clearly a lot
closer to Courtney than her own parents, and I look forward to seeing that
relationship develop further.
Of course, the humor of the
issue comes from the comical overreaction to Courtney's "super popularity."
Naifeh takes a similar visual sequence and repeats it three times: once on the
first page, once on the last, and once on the second, varying it depending on
the state of the spells Courtney has cast. It's a great example of visual
storytelling and comic timing. And Courtney's "too cool for school" reaction to
everything makes her seem smart and likable, especially when it's balanced by a
very normal and girlish uncertainty about how to deal with the cute boy in
school.
This isn't the type of book I would have expected from Oni, even though they do have a fairly diverse array of offerings. However, Courtney Crumrin fits into the usual Oni standards of quality, even if it doesn't fit into the genres I expect. In addition, though I have enjoyed Naifeh's work in the past, it is Courtney Crumrin that stands head and shoulders above
his past work in my mind.
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