Blog Archives

Website

Macro Groan #6

Right off the bat, I have to commend Sara on her use of panels. Yeah, that’s not something I usually notice/make note of, but her characters (and words) flit in and out of them so regularly that it’s impossible not to notice. You could say that they’re just the usual rushed strip comics, and the mess with the panels is actually sloppiness, but I don’t think that’s the case. What it actually means I’ll leave to the fine folks at The Comics Journal or some other suitably erudite operation, but I liked the effect that it had on her strips. On the other hand, some of these strips come from sources that don’t come across very well in a comic form (usually lined graph paper or sometimes maybe just bad copies), but that’s an occupational hazard whenever you make mini comics. Enough about the margins, how about the content? These are mostly single page strips about Sara’s life and whatever is going through her head at the time. This book covers the end of her 20’s, to give you some idea of where her head is at, but subjects include how The Simpsons never fails to center her (I can relate there), how Portlandia is barely even satire, shouting “buffet style!” everywhere she goes, enjoying being an adult on Halloween (and not enjoying the day after), the embarrassment of giant yogurt containers, swimming, bonding with her plants, and incest. And that’s just (roughly) the first half of the book! It’s a solid collection of strips, and since this is #6 it’s clearly something that she’s been doing for awhile. My only remotely negative comment would be that a few of the strips get awfully dark (literally, not in terms of subject matter), but it was very few strips and I could still read them all. Overall I’d recommend this highly to whoever still loves mini comics out there. $5