STRANGE DAY
© Alternative Comics/Origin Comics

Mania Grade: A
Issue: 1
Authors: Damon Hurd, Tatianna Gill
Publisher: Alternative Comics/Origin Comics
Price: $3.95

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STRANGE DAYS

STRANGE DAYS is the new one-shot from Damon Hurd and Tatiana Gill. It features Miles sixteen years old and madly in love with The Cure. He decides to skip school the day Wild Mood Swings comes out to buy it as soon as the record store opens. Sarah, his only friend (but not girlfriend) cancels her plans to go with him so she can talk with a boy she's crushing on at lunch. Drama ensues and Miles drives to Media Play by himself, hurt. There he meets Anna the only other person obsessed enough to go wait for a Cure CD at 7:30 in the morning. Once the two find out that the CD won't hit the shelves until noon, they spend the day together and a quaint, touching teenage love story unfolds.

STRANGE DAYS struck a chord with me because it reminded me of myself a little bit when I was about the same age as Miles. At that age, every little event (particularly those involving women) had potential for euphoria or utter devastation. Everything was deadly serious and above all my friends and I were important. It was a time when I saw myself and my needs at the center of the universe. And, like Miles, if things didn't go the way I'd hoped, it felt like everything had fallen apart. Also like him, I was obsessed with The Cure (still am).

Throughout the pages of STRANGE DAYS the lyrics hanging over Miles's head as he listens to The Cure serve to reflect his mood swings ("One Hundred Years" when he's angry at Sarah; "Just Like Heaven" when he's starting to fall for Anna en route to a diner). It's an effective, if overt, way of insinuating the feelings of what would otherwise be a generally blank, rather drab character. Miles spends the entire book just being kind of sad and withdrawn, even when he's beginning to fall for the punky, upbeat Anna. That's not really a complaint, though. I was generally pretty blank at that age, as well.

Tatianna Gill's cartoonish, inky characters work well in STRANGE DAYS. The characters aren't supposed to look realistic, and it would probably not work as well if they did. Sometimes, the backgrounds look a little rushed, but her art contributes to the overall mood of the book nicely and I wouldn't have it any other way.

More than anything, what resonated with me the most was reading about that time when one finally meets a girl. At that time when you're convinced that no one understands you, the elation of being with someone that wants to be that close to you is like nothing else. Miles and Anna spend the day talking and sharing their respective hiding places (for him a swing set, for her a secluded section of the beach) as he slowly emerges from his shell. All the while, his visible lack of confidence is compensated by Anna's bravado. Watching the two interact is quite touching. The only thing that I can really fault the creative team for is that the story ends rather abruptly. I was fairly sure I knew where it was going, but it's a testament to the quality of Hurd's two characters when the reader wants more of them at the end. Pick this one up.

STRANGE DAYS can be ordered through Diamond or you can get a copy at Damon Hurd's web site