Mark Allen reviews Giant Days #16…
Daisy has to draw on new reserves of inner strength after she loses control of a party of prospective students on an open day, while the ‘lonely, unlovable spinster’ Susan tries dating again with disastrous results.
Giant Days is a rare treat these days: a low-stakes teen comic about three female friends that features zero violence or spandex. (Well, almost no violence.) That it’s consistently charming and delightful is just the cherry on a very welcome cake.
Issue #16 sees two of the leads, Susan and Daisy, thrusting themselves into new, unknown situations. Daisy volunteers to give a group of prospective students the tour of the university but gets more than she bargained for with one of her young followers; Susan goes on three Tinder dates in the same day in the hopes of getting over her ex, McGraw. And Esther? Well, she’s, uh…looking for a job. It’s better than kicking her heels, right?
One downside to a book with three lead characters is that occasionally one or two are not going to fit with a certain issue’s story and end up as something of a loose end. Esther’s C-plot this issue feels as much like filler as Giant Days is going to get, but since the comic’s modus operandi tends toward character comedy just seeing two of them walking in and out of Greggs-alikes and comic shop interviews is still chucklesome enough.
Max Sarin’s art is simultaneously down-to-earth and hilariously expressive, drawing characters with angular features and razor-sharp teeth or giving them watery, chibi-like eyes to denote their emotional states before setting their faces back to normal in the next panel. “Normal,” in this case, means “goofy”, as each character is made silly and OTT in their own unique way. Complementing the visual wit is writer-creator John Allison’s screwball dialogue, rarely steering clear of silly wordplay or a histrionic expression of self-pity.
Best of all, Giant Days is the perfect gift to hook your non-comics-reading friends as each issue is more or less standalone and – as mentioned previously – there’s nary a cape nor cowl to be seen. And the more fans of sweet, daft comics there are the better, really.
Rating: 8/10
Mark Allen
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Originally published July 8, 2016. Updated April 14, 2018.
