Friends #3 by Francois Vigneault

I may resort to gushing in this review, which I apologize for in advance, not because I’m sorry I like the comic so much, I’m just sorry about the gushing; it’s unseemly. This whole issue is dedicated to the story of the Jacks from the previous issue. They deal with crushes, friendship, reality and when exactly it’s time to leave a town. One of the Jack’s is set on leaving, while the other has known for a little while that he doesn’t want to go (mostly because of a crush on a girl) but hasn’t made that information known. Gah, every time I think of a point I want to make I realize that it’s ruining something about the comic, and I enjoyed this so thoroughly that everybody should be able to read it without much of a preconceived notion, or so the logic goes in my brain, anyway. Francois bemoans the fact in the back of this that it took almost a year to get this issue out, but sometimes that’s a good thing. There are layers and layers of meaning here and the art has made another leap forward. There’s also a pretty through synopsis to start things off, so it’s not the end of the world if you missed the last issue. Absolutely, positively essential reading.