Around the middle of this comic you turn the page to be confronted by the author; not an uncommon comics trick: breaching the Third Wall. In 4 panels she explains the title of the book (or the individual titles from whence this was collated) 'A Compendium of thoughts' Comparing it to the old, "board game collections you could get: A Compendium of Games" that boasted six or seven different games, "And the box looks okay, but when you take it apart... ...you realise it's just Tidily Winks & Pick Up Sticks...." This 'Compendium' is obverse; it is more than the sum of its parts.
It is scrappily rendered; that is the first hurdle to negotiate as a reader - it is neither slick nor flash. Lucy would not appear to be a product of extensive artistic training, but comic creation is not just about surface - it's creating a world & communicating. Annie Lawson's stick figures comics may have been crude & scrappy, but they made an impact on the UK cultural zeitgeist more than almost any small press comic. This comic is all the stronger for the 'world' it creates is well realsied: Lucy knows how to communicate well in her 'comics world'. She has an understanding of the subtleties of body language & uses this to good effect in her strips. It lends the pages an intimacy that many comic artists fail to infuse into their work.
Each comic strip is only a few pages long & many of them are about heartache, unrequited love & loneliness. At times it feels like this might be the visual equivalent of the Emo music genre (or whatever the current equivalent may be): heartrending vignettes rendered in a punky fashion - hard & soft combined.
There's an honesty that comes over in the work. It doesn't reference the approaches other artists might use in this subject matter. It seems isolated from any 'comics scene', maybe provincial, but not in a parochial way. There just seems to be a need to communicate & share. Some of the strips approach the subject directly or in reflection, some are intended to be fun & others are oblique - I especially liked the 2 page silent strip with layered panels that just seemed to evoke events in a street; moments of passing lives.
Cynicism may look on this form of introspective comic as 'self help therapy' & it would be hard to deny that in the way that it meditates on moments of longing & loss there could well be a level of catharsis in its creation. This does not mean that the comic is one long irritating whine - far from it, it's a very personable comic. Beneath the pessimistic black on black covers & bleak longings there seems to be an inner warmth & strength - nay, even contentment.
mooncat