First, an apology for the late posting: I'm trying to pull together the first print edition of the HB Comic-Blog along with getting the next bunch of strips written and drawn for the website.
Also, I wish this review wasn't running on Memorial Day. I'm thinking fewer people will see it, what with all the picnicking and nice weather. Why?
Five Bucks to Friday by Jeremiah Conway is worth reading in whole bunches of ways. I might not have given it a fair shot just a year ago, but several threads have come together in my own life that help me accept the strip for what it is, a very honest approach to comics. The art is honest, the dialogue feels honest, even the web-site has an honesty about it, all of which I have only recently come to appreciate.
Last week, I crossed PvP off my nomination list for the Web-Cartoonists Choice Awards and Five Bucks to Friday reminds me why. PvP has no edge to it. There's nothing adventurous or ambitious about it. Before the rabid fans start screaming, I do realize PvP is very good at what it tries to be, but what it tries to be is stale, an outmoded format, one that may never be obsolete, but one that's been done well lots of times. In sharp contrast, Five Bucks to Friday is all sorts of experimentation, some of which ends up working really well.
For example, my instincts tell me to pan the art on Five Bucks to Friday. It avoids line work like the plague, something I'm normally appalled by. There's even some cut and paste going on, perhaps a good deal of it (something I've enjoyed screaming about on PvP). The coloring is jarring. The characters are often awkwardly posed. Neither the panel or page compositions are well-thought-out. The perspective is often way off. But despite this collection of issues, I enjoyed the art. I think I enjoyed it precisely because it says the hell with almost everything I'm interested in artistically. Why? Because, in the end, the strip still manages to do what I think is so important about comics, communicate on some levels that are much more difficult with, say, a blog or a novel. It convincingly describes a world, one with which I'm only partially familiar. I have to add that A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible, a masterful strip in another class that challenges some of the same conventions, prepared me in some ways for the art on Five Bucks to Friday.
This one breaks lots of conventions in the story-telling category too, a couple of them, again, successfully. I have come to expect punch lines in strips. Most of my own strips would shrivel up and die without them. On Five Bucks to Friday they often an afterthought, which is interesting because I think we both write our strips in some similar ways. I almost never start with a punch line or gag in mind. I feels like Jeremiah doesn't either. The difference comes at the end. I spend my panels trying to figure out how to get to one. Jeremiah seems to be more interested in telling pieces of a story, going for the joke only when one's there. I enjoy this about Five Bucks to Friday. In fact, I enjoy almost everything about the story-telling. I'm not sure if any of it is modeled after people in Jeremiah's life, but lots of it sure feels real. They're a group of people I wouldn't mind sharing a couple beers with. If the cast is contrived, I hope plans for the future of the cast are vague. On this strip, it almost makes things more exciting. Will Lisa and Ron get together for example? Largely, though, the stories seem driven by actual, well, life.
The scatter-shot blog below each strip helps to round out the whole package. I haven't read through every entry, but from what I did read I don't think I went out on a limb in today's strip calling it liberal. It's got a New York sensibility that made it an enjoyable read (And if the blog doesn't get you there, the link buttons ought to). It led me to more than a few interesting links.
I really am surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did and I'll be checking in every once in a while. Thanks for submitting this one.
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