Mills, Scott – Big Clay Pot

Website

Big Clay Pot

Is “this went by way too fast” a valid criticism for a comic? Didn’t think so. If it is, I’m angry at this comic because it only took me about 10 minutes to read it. Still, it’s a great story and there are a lot of things that stick with you when you’re done. It’s the story of a young orphaned girl and an old man who has recently lost his wife in a storm. A coming of age story, if you will. It’s been done before and it’ll be done again, but rarely as well as this. The overwhelming clumsiness of the girl combined with the loneliness of the old man (not that he wants to admit it) make for a poignant duo. Look, I think I’ve made it pretty clear how biased I am towards Scott Mills. I’ve yet to see something from him that I haven’t liked (with the possible exception of Pet Shop Noise, but that was obviously a labor of love and hasn’t been kept in print) and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t a major voice in comics in a few years. That being said, I think he’s improved by leaps and bounds with this one. It a much larger story than I’ve seen from him before, even though it’s broken up (kind of) into little ones. It flows from beginning to end and you empathize with the old man when he has nightmares about losing his wife. Seeing as how we never actually meet her in the comic, that’s a big accomplishment. I could gush about this for hours, so I’ll cut it (relatively) short. Yes, it’s $13 and yes, you can read it in 10 to 15 minutes. But don’t worry, you’ll read it a whole bunch of times and will probably want to loan it out to friends too. It’ll be well loved by all who like comics, I can tell you that much.