This week on Friday Recommendation, I have a comic for you that is very new but also very, very good. It’s earning buzz from Robot 6 because of its effortless charm and remarkably well crafted lead character, and it should earn your love too.
It’s Max Overacts from Caanan Grall (Zuda’s Celadore), and it’s pretty much amazing. Find out why after the jump.
Max Overacts follows a young boy named Max (naturally), a kid who fancies himself a thespian and young man of grandiose intentions. Basically, he overacts in every situation (that title really works for it, doesn’t it?).
His adventures are presented in Sunday newspaper style strips that give the comic a real retro look and feel. Everything about the look is really perfectly done – the lettering, the coloring (just superb coloring for a webcomic), the actual draftwork – it’s a remarkably nice comic to look at with a real visual charm to it. The way Grall presents the stories accentuates the tones he’s going for (take a look at this edition, with the last panel adding an odd sadness to the happenings on page).
The easy way out is to use the comparison that Robot 6 does, and that is the Calvin and Hobbes one. However, just because it’s the easy way out doesn’t mean it isn’t the most apt comparison. Not only is there a real sense of fun and imagination like Bill Watterson once conveyed in his strip, there’s a real level of subtext that gives the comic a deeper level than we’ve come to expect from lighthearted works such as this.
Recently I spoke to Grall in an interview and he conveyed potential roadblocks to continuing Max in the future, but here’s hoping he doesn’t have to. This is a damn fine start to a comic, and I don’t want this merry go round to end so soon. At the very least, I implore Grall to end it with an epic death scene Max depicts, as that is really the only way to go out.
Don’t miss this fun, new AND free comic. Creators like Grall deserve your support, and I give this the Multiversity stamp of approval wholeheartedly.
