It's been awhile since I last acquainted myself with John Kovalic's assortment of perky goths, gamer nerds and psychotic girlfriends. To my dismay, the love triangle between Matt, his obvious better half Gilly and his demonic current better half Kayleigh, continues unresolved. To my delight, even if I feel the story is a little long in the tooth, I was instantly wrapped back up in it, dying to know how it was all going to end up. Which, of course, was the ideal time for Kovalic to pull another evil cliffhanger. I'll be honest, the soap opera nature of the plot and the less gag and strip oriented storytelling style isn't as effective for me as the early stories in Dork Tower, but damn if Kovalic can't make me care about these characters and what happens to them, and write some funny and true human relationships at the same time.
From the start, I've had a hard time understanding what Matt could possibly see in Kayleigh. She denigrates his friends, his hobbies and his dreams, and they seem to have little to nothing in common. I know that these types of relationships happen in real life, so I can't deny that Kovalic is writing something that feels true, but I keep hoping that at some point we'll see some sort of good side to Kayleigh, some positive benefit she adds to Matt's life, because I can't for the life of me understand his attraction or his depression when they "break up" in issues like this one. Sure, Matt is supposed to be somewhat clueless in this respect, as indicated in these very pages when he tries to explain away the comic to Kayleigh and only makes things worse, but he's coming off as almost masochistic instead.
Fortunately, while I can't entirely buy into this central premise of "who should he choose?" and I keep waiting for him to actually make the right choice, Kovalic has done a pretty good job of maintaining the funny while stretching out the story for dramatic tension. The race for the airport, with Igor in tow, provides any number of great slapstick moments, including Igor's arrest (and impending cavity search, no doubt) by aiport security, and Matt's drunken depression does provide one of the best moments of the issue, the introduction of his new "muse." Kovalic scores points with me by referencing Blue Monday, but even if he hadn't, I still would have gotten a kick out of the foul-mouthed muse Matt gets from drinking Guinness.
While the storytelling style has migrated away from the strip style and into more of a pure comic-book, Kovalic's art style remains very much the kind of thing you see in strips. He is able to convey a lot of exaggerated emotion in single panels, especially with the outraged or shocked explosions from Ken, Kayleigh or Igor in this issue, and he's also quite skilled in conveying slapstick without the benefit of having motion to do so.
While the Dork Tower stories weigh in at an industry standard 22 pages, the large panels do result in the story feeling a little bit thin. However, Kovalic provides plenty of bang for the readers' buck in the form of backup features, in the form of the young gamer feature "Snapdragons," a teaser for his "Dr. Blink, Superhero Shrink" and the hilariously acidic superhero parody "Lethargic Lad" by Greg Hyland. Dork Tower remains a comic that is best for those with at least one foot in the gaming world, but anyone can relate to the relationship story that dominates the book or get plenty out of Kovalic's entertaining sense of humor. 8/10
