Ferrier, Thom – Fear of Failure #1

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Fear of Failure #1

I don’t know what other comics Thom has done, but he displays some serious mastery of the craft here. The action starts with a scene from the end of the book, which has been done before, sure. But the rest of the book reads like a story that you’re fast-forwarding through on your DVD player, with the action becoming larger and more prominent when the reader needs to slow down and everything being depicted through a series of tiny descriptive panels when you’re fine just skipping ahead a bit. It adds up to the impression that you’re being guided through a story by a guy who knows exactly what he wants you to see, and that sort of thing is always a good sign to me. Anyway, this is all about Dr. Lois Pritchard, a psychiatrist (?), and her daily happenings. Things start off with her confronting a mystery person (who is revealed at the end), then we get a detailed description of this section of the town. Next we get to know Dr. Pritchard a bit and the rest of the book is her dealing with her co-workers (one who is trying and failing to get rid of a large cluster of cats that howl outside his window, and the other a religious nutbag), her family, her patients and her own life. Along the way we get these panel clusters that I mentioned before that show bits of her life flashing by until we get to the meatier stuff. As a little bonus we also get a story on the history of fainting in Thom’s family (at least I think it’s autobiographical) and how it has affected him since. I pretty much loved it, and you can read it for free at his website at the moment (along with some of #2) if you’re curious. You should probably buy it if you do love it, as the guy has to make a living and buying books from people is always an excellent motivator for them to keep going. The price is roughly $6, but this is a hefty thing.