Ferraro, David – Soft Anchor #1

David’s blog (about comics, mostly)

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Soft Anchor #1

You can pretty much always get a thumbs up from me if you start a comic series off with some serious ambitions. You know, something like a projected 50 issue storyline or, in this case, David’s attempt to apparently tell his life story. Why is that considered so ambitious? Well, in the first issue of his series he’s only dealing with being seven years old. Assuming he’s in his 20’s now and given the rate most minis are produced, that’s leaving a lot of story yet to come. It’s already obviously a worthy story, given some time to grow and advance. This is basically a series of events from when he was seven, and it took a dozen pages or so for me to feel comfortable with the pacing, as he essentially hopped from event to event with no warning. Once it clicked with me though, I couldn’t imagine a different way to tell his story. It’s not like the memories of most people from when they were seven are a coherent, linear storyline, so why not just pick up on the memorable bits? In this issue David talks about his abusive (but religious, as that’s always a good excuse to beat your kids) father, playing doctor with a friend, lying about his birthday, wanting to be a ladybug in a play, and spending time with his grandmother. He needs to work on the lettering, as there’s no reason for it to be that sloppy (just erase the pencil outlines completely), and there’s some serious stiffness with the characters and their body language. Still, those are things that are worked out with a little practice, and the core story here is fascinating. $3