Welcome / to the Webcomics Weekly. / Where words fly / and poetry rhymes / at least it would if I was better. / You see, a review in meter / would certainly be neater / for a webcomic full of poetry. / A comic that fulfilled its mission, / and has a poetic ear and then some / we are ready to serve / all that “Metaphorical HER” / just as this bit wears out its welcome.
Metaphorical HER
Episode 1-42
Updates: Completed
Written by James Maddox & David Stoll
Illustrated by David Stoll
Colored by Ray Nadine & Stelladia
Lettered by Justin Birch
Reviewed by Elias Rosner
I promise Maddox & Stoll’s comic is a lot less forced and painful than my introduction. It’s also way more coherent, even as it delves into one of the trickiest and, often, least coherent word-based art forms out there: poetry. One would think a comic all about poems would be dull or stuffy or difficult to read. Well, you’re in luck folks. Not only is “Metaphorical HER” light on poems you have to meter out yourself, it’s one of the most energetic webcomics I’ve read in a while.
And it’s a reasonable length!
Here’s the pitch for “Metaphorical HER.” Released between 2018-2019, this 42 episode comic tells the story of Laney, a hot-headed, no-nonsense, punk poet who gets blacklisted from the industry because she made a real ass of herself at some pretentious party. Quickly running out of goodwill with friends and family, she finds herself drunkenly stealing the stage before her brother’s band and, as these things go, finds herself a new and unconventional audience.
The art style is reminiscent of “Chew” & “Farmhand” artist Rob Guillory, without his penchant for gross-out gags and copious amounts of goop. The writing is sharp and the plot is a healthy dose of queer romance, redemption story, drama, and giant middle finger to the pretentious bastards of the world while indulging in a little pretension itself. What else is art but the ability to hold multiple thoughts in one place?
So far, so good, yes? But wait. The kicker, the magic of “Metaphorical HER” comes from the comic’s application of its title. That scene I described above, of Laney getting blacklisted, isn’t just dramatized for us to see. It takes the emotions of the moment, the way we would describe it later, and literalizes them for all to see.
Laney doesn’t just tell Asher, the big fuck-bag poetry gatekeeper that his poetry is trash, she pulls out a (metaphorical) pistol and then (metaphorically) shoots herself in the head as she speaks the words that end her career, an array of colors blasting out in a beautiful arc of creative destruction. Everyone stares at her; a giant hole in her head; an eye in his drink; none of it literally there; all of it present in the air.
This opener – followed up by taking Gerry’s heart, which he ripped out of his chest as he confessed his feeling, and tossing it down the stairs, letting it flop and splt and goosh and thunk away from Garry faster than he can chase it – is just a taste of the imaginative representation “Metaphorical HER” has to offer. For those worried about a deeply held distaste for reading poetry, something I share from time to time, good news! There are very few, if any, actual poems in the comic.
I hear that gasp. Yes, the poetry in this comic about poetry is nonexistent, and that’s great. Why? Because the hardest part of portraying an art as rhythmic and sound reliant as live poetry is in conveying its feel. The second hardest is writing something that actually matches the narrative’s goals. It’s the same problem comics have long had with songs.
“Metaphorical HER” solves these problems with art that seethes and rages and twists and bends, colors that melt and shine and wash over you in waves, letters that buckle and break and stab. In this way, the content, the meter, the rhythm, of the words no longer matter. The transposition into comics’ visual language successfully bypasses these difficulties and reinterprets them, presenting us with pure representation.
So. If you’ll indulge me a little at the end. *Ahem* Come with me. And you’ll read. A comic of pure imagination…
