Giant Days #30

Reviewing a good, consistently enjoyable continuing series is hard. There aren’t any creative changes to rave or rant about and no big events in which to hide word count as plot description. Nevertheless, Giant Days remains an immensely readable, goofily funny soap opera about three British college students and their struggles with everyday life. Some of the events are crazy, but under it all, as written by John Allison and illustrated by Max Sarin and Liz Fleming, there’s a good heart.

Esther, Susan, and Daisy aren’t made fun of, which makes for humor it’s easier to enjoy. They care for each other and so we care for them, although they can be rather extreme in their gothness, radical practicality, or naivete, respectively. No matter the situation, though, there’s always something I can relate to or sympathize with.

In Giant Days #30, Daisy is still blissfully in the throes of her first relationship, although her girlfriend Ingrid is horrible in many ways. Daisy’s roommates are finding the interloper increasingly frustrating for small but annoying traits, as can be seen in these preview pages, but they still want to support her in the newness of her identity.

Look how impressive that treatment of smoke is, carrying us from page 3 to 4! I also admire Sarin’s ability to create expressions that are exaggerated, clearly conveying the characters’ feelings, but still plausible in the context of the story.

As the issue moves on, we see that everyone’s got secrets, friends that, for whatever reason, their other friends can’t know about. But no matter how hard you try, there’s going to be a reveal, whether it’s an accidental encounter or someone finally reaching their breaking point and spilling their emotions all over the place. Unfortunately, not all friendships survive.

I wish the trio well, and I’m eager to see how they cope with these latest challenges. The next issue, the one that shows us what happens, is out at the beginning of October.