Brown, Robert – Killjoy #3

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Killjoy #3

See, this is why all small press comics (that are part of a continuing series) should have notes on at least one of the inside covers. Right away I learned that these stories were taken from a project called Catch A Fairy, which is all stories from “formative years prior to secondary education.” So before high school? That seems to be the case for all of these stories so far. I also learned that these are stories of Robert as a child, as he called upon the memory of the girl involved in this story to fill in a lot of details. It’s called “Valentine,” so you can probably guess where it’s going, and he includes many delightfully awkward moments that brought up a wave of memories. There’s the valentine snuck into his desk, which he shoved back into said desk in a panic, and which the girl who had a crush on him had to basically drag out into the open. There was Robert’s utter cluelessness about the term “going out,” which I could relate to in far too many details, but he managed to figure it out relatively quickly. From there we see all the gory details of a boy in middle school trying to figure out the rules of dating while also being far more interested in hanging out with his boy friends than he was with anything involved with dating. He was remarkably callous and more than a little cruel to Amanda (although he was nice enough to apologize in the forward), which is exactly what most “relationships” are like at that time of life. It’s another really great issue, and I’d say that three in a row makes a pattern. These books are unlike most other “when I was a kid” stories and you should really check them out. I guess if you were the perfect kid you might not find anything to relate to, but if that’s the case then why are you reading reviews of small press comics? $5