Slice-of-life is a genre that's pretty common in small press comics, but most creators find a way to put their own spin on the genre and make it their own. That's definitely the case with Nothing Better, as Tyler Page (creator of the Stylish Vittles graphic novel series) explores the notion of college in a way that contains all the usual college experience stories and an underlying story about religion, faith and the questioning of it that makes for something quite unique. Page creates a variety of interesting characters, all representing very different points of view, and manages to make them all sympathetic or at least understandable, and the resulting mix will resonate with anyone who remembers their college days, fondly or otherwise.
Probably the biggest selling point of Nothing Better for me is the complexity of the characters. At first glance, Page is creating pretty basic character archetypes, with the shy lead character, the brusque party-hungry roommate, the Jesus freak Gene, the dorky animation fan Darby, but as these characters begin to interact, the reader can see that there's more to them than that, just like there is with real people. I have my favorites and characters I don't like, of course, but I don't feel like any of the characters are one-dimensional. No characters better illustrate this point than the two arguable leads, Katherine and Jane. By the end of the first issue, I had pretty much decided that Jane was our protagonist and Katherine was little more than an obnoxious complication, but after issue two, my opinions had flip-flopped. In truth, while I have points of agreement and disagreement with both characters, and could see where I'd want to strangle either one of them in a real life situation, they're also both interesting, flawed and very realistic characters.
If the characters and the interaction of them is the most successful element of Nothing Better, a close second is the inclusion of religion as a major theme. Page has set his book at a Lutheran college, and populated it with characters on the religious spectrum from atheist to WWJD-wearing fanatic, and plenty in between. Given my own non-religious leanings, I identify most closely with Katt, but I find the intellectual curiosity combined with belief of Jane very interesting as well, and I like that Page doesn't label either the religious or the non-religious as whackos, but instead presents it all as varying degrees of belief. OK, Gene is pretty much the definition of narrow-minded zealot so far, but that's not an entirely impossible version of religion either, and we haven't really seen all that he has to offer as a character yet.
Page's artwork more closely resembles the style I'm used to seeing in comic strips than that in most comics, although he does vary his panels, having them break into one another from time to time. His art style, though, blends a fairly simple but effective sense of expression with pretty detailed backgrounds and rock solid storytelling. His comedic chops and artistic consistency aren't as strong as, say, Terry Moore, but he's in that ballpark and his work here is noticeably stronger than his work on Stylish Vittles. Certainly there's a strong level of detail at work in the pages, and the artwork sells the characters and their personalities as much as Page's writing.
If you were a fan of the late, lamented college series Undeclared, Nothing Better is probably the closest that comics have gotten to that, although Undeclared was notably more quirky and funny in its approach. In comics terms, I'd say that Nothing Better is worth a look if you're a fan of Strangers in Paradise, because while Page's approach is more grounded and realistic than Moore's soap operatic crime and melodrama, there's a similar vibe at work here. Overall, I'd say that readers who think they might be interested in a story of college life will find plenty to like in Nothing Better, which features exceptionally strong character work and an intelligent analysis of religious themes uncommon in comics today.
The first issue of Nothing Better was released this week. Issues two and three are an advanced review.
