Strange Girl Vol. 2, Heaven Knows I’m Misserable Now
March 29th, 2008 by Martin
I picked up the first strange girl TPB on a whim. I just liked the art, and the premise was interesting: the rapture has come, and a spunky girl tries to find her way to heaven. Oh, and a blue demon sidekick is irreverent and funny.
Basically, in that first trade, I was totally surprised about how much else there was to like about the comic. The story was actually quite tragic, and the art was consistently pretty spectacular. I really dug the dialog, which was funny and at times philosophical, without ever getting preachy, or even seeming to take sides.
This book was more of the same, but somehow slightly less spectacular. I think it was mostly due to the inclusion of the final issue, a stand-alone x-mas/origin story. It was told a little bit quickly, I thought, and while the art was good, it was a bit more cartoon-ish than other issues within this trade (different artists).
This is a pretty secular series, for such a biblical premise. The post-rapture earth is shown to be a very bleak place, and comments like “Lord have mercy…” are followed up with “No, I don’t think he does.” This book featured a two or three page scene where the main character yells at a stained glass window of the virgin mary, asking where she was when a girl was being repeatedly raped. This is in the middle of a whole plot line where a group of human survivors (military types, who basically fought off the demons, and took refuge in a fort of some kind) are super right-wing religious because they think that God is supposed to judge them again in the near future. But seven years pass, and that was when he was supposed to pass some more judgment, so they’re all going a bit stir crazy. Of course, everyone is not as good as they’re supposed to be.
All in all, this is a very worthy read. Of course, read the first one first.
