Getting It Together #2: Drama That Stabs You

Jenny D. Fine’s cover for Getting It Together #2 places Lauren watching the reader with an expression that wears tiredness and satiety like a weapon, and Sam is overshadowed by it, looking at their pictures together. It screams drama and conflict, but Jack is there just looking at his phone with a cute smile (probably Grindr, makes you think). The intensity of emotion and contrasts is so self-evident, that, in the realm of putting emotions out there, I would say this is one of the best covers I’ve ever seen in a comic. And, it’s not gonna let you down when you open it.

The cover warned you, but you can even jump from reading this. This is definitely one of the most dramatic and emotionally tense comics I’ve ever read. Grace and Spahi are taking the tension, the weight, the cursing, the screaming and the hitting full on where it gets them, and the issue almost doesn’t rest from it. It gets you hooked up, it hurts you, it makes you scream in unfairness. And, in that way, it entertains you like a TV show, and you can’t stop reading. That restlessness is one hell of a double-edged sword, making it the main virtue and flaw of this issue.

With stakes so high and so conflict fused, the pacing and how it works is one of the most important details. And it’s the art and coloring’s attention to detail, signaling of emotion and chose of comedic caricatures what saves the comic from exhaustion. Full body shots, background detail and breathing, rich colors that reflect on the sometimes too hard and sad story they’re telling with grace, it all invites you to the storm. By letting you have the opportunity to process all of  these feelings, like if you put your camera on a fixed plane just for that emotion, if you took a picture, if you paused a moment.

And it’s those pages where the bodies are covering the page, the faces occupy a whole panel, and the story presents itself in an effective way for the drama, where this issue gets its most incredible, most reflecting, and where you stop to realize you’re starting to know these characters deeply. Without even realizing it beforehand.

Oh, and btw, the Jack side-story with art by Erika Schnatz is fun, caricaturized to the extreme and effective like a cherry on top. What an issue!