Nichols, L. – Unrequited Monsters

January 25, 2011

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Unrequited Monsters

It’s tricky enough to review comics that are essentially visual poems, it’s even trickier to try to pick a sample image from the comic. Still, you can get people interested in a certain poem by a line or two, so maybe it works for comics too. This is a series of images of people, couples and not couples, that L. drew at some point and put together to form a story. Well, sort of a story, as it probably depends on your definition. It hits on all the “high” points of relationships and the effort to enter one: fear of rejection and/or solitude, the inevitable distance created, and secrets,  but also the potential of making something better than you could on your own. L.’s choice of images, particularly those of couples who didn’t know that they were being observed (or, if they did, she managed to catch them in some candid moments anyway), really makes this comic, as subtle glances can mean everything. If you stick with comics with a linear story, I suppose you can skip this. If you like a little bit of poetry in your stories, this is right up your alley. If you’re somewhere in between, the visuals in this should bring the fence-sitters in. No idea on the price, but my random guess of the day is $4.