The adventures of Cathy and Dan continue, but still no sex swing. What we do have, is a slightly different creative team, and the continued sexy adventures of our protagonists. If doesn’t make it one hundred percent clear , let all of that be your warning that “Swing” is for mature readers.
Written by Matt Hawkins
Art by Yishan Li and Linda Sejic
Lettering by Troy Peteri
Dan and Cathy’s swinging adventures continue in this SUNSTONE spin-off as they explore their love and boundaries—and discover that trust is the key to it all.
“Swing” returns for a second volume that sees Cathy and Dan really get into it this time around. The creative team has seen some minor shifts, Matt Hawkins is no sole credited writer with Yishan Li now on art duties, Linda Sejic provides a backup strip. After a series of successful threesomes, Dan and Cathy think it is time to take the next step and find other couples to play with. This next step opens up the couple to more rewarding sex and points of drama on their journey.
Structurally Matt Hawkins takes a different approach to this second volume of “Swing.” The first graphic novel was a whirlwind couple of weeks. In the second volume the timeline takes place of the span of months with several time skips as Cathy and Dan get into the swing of things and meet several couples. The longer time span and couples help to give this book a more episodic rhythm. As a whole the book is still broken up with quasi-chapter breaks, but these chapters can be further subdivided. The episodic cadence made the book an overall enjoyable and easy read.
This episodic rhythm is a strength and weakness over the course of the story. On the plus side Hawkins and Li show deft hands at creating little montage moments, like their initial search for couples and run into people they deem to be either fakes, flakes or ghosts, or smaller scenes in general. When they do skip ahead several weeks they generally do a good job of creating a sense of the passage of time. When it doesn’t quite work it leads to scenes that read as stilted or rushed to get to the inevitable sexy fun times. These pacing issues are on some level derived from the dialog that reads as hollow or a bit cold in spots. One of the real surprises of the first volume was how warm and naturally the dialogue read, volume two reads as a bit too educational or technical in spots as it leans into terminology. When it isn’t being technical some of the conversations between Cathy and Dan read as a bit repetitive or overly effusive as they talk about how much they love one another; which is the opposite effect you’d want.
These brief moments of friction reveal the main shortcoming of this volume, a lack of paid off character drama. With a third volume announced this taking a more serialized, part one of two, approach makes a fair amount of sense. But “Swing” volume two fails to climax a self-contained drama of its own. This is why some of the conversations between Cathy and Dan read a little off, they’re so pronounced in their tranquility that it feels too good. This volume of “Swing” isn’t a great standalone book, but it’s still a well done comic.
That lack of pay off is exasperated by the book doing an excellent job of setting up potential dramatic conflict for our couple and on individual levels. At the top level “Swing” makes it very explicit, multiple times, that for this kind of relationship to work the need for trust and respecting of boundaries by all partners involved. With Dan and Cathy branching out from threesomes with her friends to other couples and full swaps that potential discord is ever present. Cathy is very happy to explore her sexuality with different male and female partners, considering herself heteroflexible. Dan is more skittish, sacred of his own slowly unrepressed sexual wants and the idea of Cathy being with another man. The opening 8 pages of this book beautifully set this all up, ending with a single page spread of their agreed upon rules for finding and playing with couples. And then not much really comes from it, there is a fight that seemed to setup something more but it is quickly dealt with a skip forward by a couple weeks.
Continued belowOf course rules are meant to be broken and how the false sense of security these rules create is revealed throughout the book is a strength. It is notable how this bleed effects Cathy and Dan differently. For Dan it is a humorous sequence where it literally realized as switching between the chat app and the MMO he plays with other Sejic-verse leads. Cathy’s is a bit more abrupt and less funny. Just not much comes from this bleeding in volume two even as the book dramatically echoes the ending of the first volume.
This dramatic potential isn’t fully realized yet. How Hawkins and Li explore and represent the insecurities and dissonance between Cathy and Dan’s public-private selves, even with each other, is worthwhile and well done. For Hawkins this contrast is developed by the relationship between their external and internal dialogue. Externally Dan puts on a brave, even curious, face at the whole thing as he does enjoy it. Internally he is a bit more of a wreck and slowly getting ideas of things he would want to explore, which is the subject of a dreamy epilogue-backup strip by Linda Sejic. Dan gets to become a more dimensional character this time around with the books shift in focus from primarily Cathy to them as a couple exploring this new aspect of their relationship. Cathy has similar worries but her internal space tends to be more positive while externally her body language can be more negative, interestingly we have yet to see her talk to Dan about how rewarding this whole experience is for her.
While this mode is often used to develop contrast it also is a space of validation for them as a couple. The page where Cathy leads Dan through the masquerade party is wonderful example of this, which helps to highlight some bland or clunky couples dialog later one.
Artist Yishan Li organizes the relationship between Cathy and Dan with a mirrored motif. Throughout if they aren’t in a panel together they will be played off of one another with panels, it creates a sense of unity between the two. When they have their video chat with perspective couple Mary and Clint, the sequence plays the two couples off one another. When the motif isn’t employed it creates a sense of urgency visual drama. It’s the go to visual signifier on how they are doing as a couple, compare the two sequences where things don’t end well for them. As with “Sugar” some of her character acting is a bit stiff or wooden in spots but overall does a good job of selling the connection between Cathy and Dan. She also continues the roses-flower motif from the first volume and adds some effects of her own. Her use of color as this unifying mood setter continues to be one of the real strengths of her art.
“Swing” volume 2 also has some tidbits for readers of the Sejic-verse at large (“Sunstone” and “Blood Stain”) with a proper raid sequence from that MMO they play together. It is interesting to see Yishan Li’s take on character designs from the one off strips the Sejics put out from time to time. There is also that backup strip by Linda Sejic that uses the difference between these two artists styles to good effect.
In terms of back matter Hawkins returns with a Sex-Ed column, primarily talking about his thought process on storytelling choices. There is also a preview for “Sugar” the previous book he did with Yishan Li.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – The second volume of “Swing” isn’t the most dramatically satisfying entry, but it does a good job characterizing the leads as they fully explore this new lifestyle and setup another entry.
