Strangers in Paradise...

[fajrdrako]

I read the first volume of Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore.

You'd think I'd have read it long since, but no. Or rather, I'd read occasional issues, never in chronological sequence and never often enough to follow the story. I've admired Terry Moore's art for ages, but it was my love of his currently running comic Echo that game me the impulse to read Strangers in Paradise now. At least while I'm waiting for the next issue of Echo. And some time soon, I must post about my favourite comics at the moment. Echo is one.

Strangers in Paradise is about a romance between two American women, Katchoo and Francine, and their current/past/wannabe boyfriends, acquaintances, and enemies.



It's an interesting comic to be written by a man, partly because - even though there's a thriller plot running through it, with kidnappings and dark secrets - it really is a relationship story, focussed on the love between Francine and Katchoo. Katchoo doesn't much like men, and is rather outspoken about it,. In one sequence, her friend David tells her he loves her, and she slugs him. Three times.

It's one of those rather wonderful stories that illustrates the fluidity of sexuality.

Katchoo and Francine reminded me of Maggie and Hopey in Love and Rockets. Similarities in art and narrative style, and both stories highly focussed on characters and relationships. Both are comics written by men, with female protagonists. Both are stories about romantic and sexual feelings between two women, but in both cases the men in their lives are a large part of the story. Both stories give one of the women a creative career (Katchoo is an artist, Hopey is in a rock band) and both stories explore issues of fear, anger, overeating, betrayal, difficult relatives, problems with men, and poverty.

Good reading. I had a few quibbles - scenes that seemed a little too over the top - but enjoyed it thorougly.