Rating: WORTHY!
July Smack-Down Day Four brings us Heart Seed Snow Circuit by independent Lucy Knisley (Nize-lee) going up against DC Comics' Zatanna The Mistress of Magic and I can tell you now that these are both winners, so I think I'll end this smack-down routine on that note and try something different tomorrow.
Heart Seed Snow Circuit is an oddity of a comic, which looks like it was self-produced, but which is nonetheless a good professional effort. It just goes to show that you don’t need Big Publishing&Trade; to get where you want to go. This was done when the author/illustrator was between colleges, and offers a look at a day in the life of a young female protagonist who looks, frankly, a lot like the author, who BTW has several other comics out.
On a trip to the local farmer’s market, she is accosted by an apple who appears to be heavily inspired by the Internet’s annoying orange. After threatening her that it has cyanide in its pips, the apple starts haranguing her about her life, and then demands that she eat it. That bites! Shades of Eve anyone?
As she continues on her way home, she espies a sorry-looking snowman which she decides needs a facial, but as soon as she gives it some eyes, it begins hitting on her in a PG-13, but nonetheless objectifying manner, and starts to follow her home. More than anything it says, she appears more concerned about the location of its carrot nose which, although it’s never illustrated, appears to be way out of place. Fortunately the snowman loses what little integrity it had before she gets to her house. Her weird day isn’t over though.
At home, after a thoroughly non-productive few hours spent trying to get something creative down on paper, her fridge takes up the cudgel, but at least it offers her a pudding, which is all she really wanted anyway. I liked this comic. It was completely off the wall and you have to wonder how a person would even begin to get an idea like this, much less bring it to such a sweet fruition.
I can’t speak to the symbolism here because it’s the author’s, not mine, but it did occur to me that the apple is very symbolic of course, of a mythological fall from grace, even though in the myth, the fruit isn’t actually specified and more likely would have been a fig than an apple anyway. The refrigerator is highly suggestive of the insane pressure put on women to diet, diet, diet, and one more time, diet.
I have no idea what the heck snowman was supposed to represent unless it was the absurd myth that if a woman doesn’t immediately want to jump into bed with any given guy, she’s obviously frigid. Nonetheless, I liked this. It was perky, fun, weird, and short so that none of the weirdness out-stayed its welcome. I recommend this and look forward to reading more by this author/artist.
