Three volumes and counting, still no sex swing.
Written by Matt Hawkins
Art by Yishan Li
Lettering by Troy Peteri
Dan and Cathy’s swinging adventures continue in this SUNSTONE spin-off as their relationship becomes strained, perhaps irreparably. Love conquers all in this stylish slice-of-life take on an ethically non-monogamous couple.
When the original graphic novel series “Swing” first began, putting content aside, there was little that differentiated its form from standard collections of single issue comics. Writer Matt Hawkins broke the first book up into chapters that followed a pretty uniform page length, the story was told in a linear fashion that barring one major time skip primarily focused on a long weekend for Cathy and Dan. That orderly structure makes it easy to imagine the series originally serialized as single issues to be collected later on, not too dissimilar to what Boom Studios has done with “Wynd.” Now in its third original graphic novel, Matt Hawkins delivers something that reads like it takes advantage of the OGN format with a more elliptical structure to Cathy and Dan’s continued adventures and negotiations with the Lifestyle. The graphic novel is no longer structured with chapter headers but a repeated splash page emblem that gently transitions the reader to the next episode. Volume three takes place over nearly a year’s worth of time, which offers artist Yishan Li a chance to draw them in a variety of costumes and environments but also creates some potential dramaturgical issues. “Swing” reads is coming into its own with this third volume.
As a reader “Swing” has created surprising intertextual narrative. Hawkins and Li’s comic work is juxtaposed with a mixture of anonymous testimonials as front matter, in the first volume, and the recurring Sex Ed column as back matter. These real-world touches create a sharp contrast with and enhance the drama in the OGN’s core content by highlighting both the precautions and communication necessary to make this arrangement work and how Cathy and Dan lack those fundamentals. Cathy through them into this, both out of a want to explore her own sexuality and as a seeming hail mary to reignite their marriage – which the back-matter highlights as a big reason not to do this. It created a ticking time bomb that finally goes off at the start of the third volume. It’s a moment that had been building since the second book and is dramatically earned, ending on a reversal of a sequence from the first book. There could have been a page break in there to mark the end of this episode, but it forms the first of two mini-episodes within the first chapter of the book. It is that second mini episode, picking up two months of late and missed marriage counseling appointments later that the more episodic flow of the book creates a bit of friction. The tension between the couple is understandable if a bit awkwardly exposited. They have communication issues, so it isn’t too hard to imagine them not really opening up to one another. It’s just that we didn’t see any of this new buildup, just the second explosion. Writing the comic in this way places a heavy emphasis on Cathy and Dan’s internal monologue, which isn’t inherently bad but does create for a few moments where Hawkins writing gets in the way of Li’s art. In particular page 25 and 26 which nicely mirrors Cathy and Dan against one another. Li’s character acting sells me the couple’s mixture of regret and exhaustion in a way Hawkins specific wording does not. This volume has a habit of jumping several months ahead to new settings and scenarios that feels like it undercuts some of the character dram at times.
At the start of the second chapter the narrative has again skipped ahead another few months. Formally it is the kind of skip that only a book can pull off, but it is still jarring to read Cathy’s internal monologue reminiscing about how things have turned around. Much like the two-month gap in the first chapter it strikes me what we aren’t seeing: the work of character development. The reader gets skip to good, sexy, stuff at the end. As the book progresses these sorts of awkward transitions recede.
Continued belowA benefit to this more fluid episodic structure is its ability to highlight smaller character moments that really sell this series and its leads as dimensional and growing individuals. Cathy’s continued exploration of her sexuality, its queerness, and that lack of emphasis on it as a loadstone of her identity has been the arc I look forward to the most. She does not consider herself “fully bisexual” per the second book, however, she is still a woman loving woman who freely begins playing with another woman for the first time in this volume, before the sequence turns into a full swap. Dan’s exploration of his own sexuality takes a bit of a backburner, sadly there is no Linda Sejic Moonstone Gate dreamy backup strip. He is still given several small moments of surprising introspection and care, the highlight being a Sejic-verse crossover with Vlad, Elly, and Ally. “Swing” volume three is at its best when Hawkins and Li get to relax into these small character moments after they and the reader have spent so much page time with Cathy and Dan. The flowing episodic structure can be a bit jarring at times, but as a whole Hawkins uses this structure to show the moments that prove Cathy and Dan are maturing and beginning to figure this whole swinging thing out. As a couple they even explore setting Cathy up as a hot wife in an agreed upon scenario. “Swing” volume three features a wider array of sexual scenarios compared to the first several volumes threesome heavy affairs.
After being somewhat cool to her work in the first volume of “Sugar” and the second volume of “Swing,” Yishan Li delivers fantastic pages in this third outing. Their page design has always been solid but in this volume, it flows wonderfully, like the previously mentioned twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth pages. Recurring stylistic and panel elements are used for emphasis and to mirror previous events that are the sign of a series maturing visual language. What stands out most with their art this volume is Li’s character acting. Something about either their coloring or the basic line work had created what read as a deadeye effect in the art, and here it is largely gone and replaced with plainly good character acting that sells both the moments of introspection and joy. The ability to represent the moment of compersion between Cathy and Dan is what allows this book to work.
“Swing” finds its rhythm in this third volume. I wouldn’t consider it new reader friendly, but you can read the first volume for free, legally, in various Top Cow related places. The price of this book is in line with previous entries and considering the content, both the comic and back matter as well as a look at Stjepan Sejic’s in production erotic fairy tale meets Faust comic “Fine Print” it’s worth reading if you are a fan of the creatives involves or want solid character drama erotica.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – Swing hits its stride in this third volume as Cathy and Dan finally deal with some of the underlying issues in their relationship.
