Odds Off

by Matt Madden

Another Boxing Day door-crasher that didn't strike me as my usual thing, but was recommended at my comic store, and was definitely worth the $5 price.

Madden has crafted an odd little graphic novel about relationships among some twenty-somethings. Morgan and Shirin have been together for years, but as Shirin tries to get into medical school (against almost impossible odds), she also realizes that Morgan and her don't communicate well. He's more interested in watching a French language instructional TV show, and speaking French to everyone he sees than in meeting her needs. Meanwhile, Lance, a gay writer who shares a mutual friend with Morgan has developed a major crush on him.

That's mostly it with this book, except for the very bizarre subplot involving Lance's having come down with a rare case of pediculus escritus, or 'word lice', a condition that causes his writing to be infected with small bugs, which cause itching when he writes (and burning sensation when he conjugates). I'm not sure what the purpose of this satire was, as it doesn't fit into the more quotidian plot, but it did add a sense of the unexpected to the whole book.

This is a decent read, and worth getting just for the hilarious conversations between Shirin and her fundamentalist Christian co-workers.