As of the time this column is published (a couple days late because of terrible internet problems and also losing my iPad) it is spring break, baby! I know that doesn’t mean a lot to most people, but to me, someone who is employed by the public school system, that means I have a week to relax, visit friends, and have some extra time to enjoy some books, movies, comics, and so on. (It does not mean a week of debauchery, sadly, because I’m over 24 and that time in my life has passed.) Before getting ready to enjoy a break from my routine in beautiful, sunny Winnipeg, I wanted to quickly wrap up some of my favourite pop culture offerings of the week.
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My Faith in Frankie: Teen Feelings, And Also Demons
One of my worst-kept secrets is that underneath my curmudgeonly exterior and glorious beard, I am a romantic at heart. So this week, when I wanted to read something light and fun and heartwarming that also involved demons coming to earth in search of vengeance, I went to my longboxes to revisit My Faith in Frankie. It’s a four-issue mini-series originally published by Vertigo in 2004, and 11 years on it’s still a treat. Written by Mike Carey, with pencils by Sonny Liew and inks by Mark Hempel, My Faith in Frankie tells the story of Frankie Moxon, a 17-year-old girl who has been blessed from birth. Literally. She has her own personal god, the young god Jeriven, god of the heart’s fires, who has followed and protected Frankie her entire life. Frankie is Jeriven’s entire congregation, and every one of her prayers is answered in spectacular fashion. This has been great for Frankie and her best friend Kay (who has followed along in Frankie’s wake her entire life), at least until Frankie starts showing interest in boys. Jeriven’s a jealous god, you see, and has been derailing Frankie’s burgeoning love life with bunny attacks, golf accidents, bouts of amnesia, and more. Frankie’s understandably sick of it, and all of Jeriven’s tactics are doing nothing but driving Frankie farther and farther away. And then she and Kay run into Dean Baxter, a boy from their childhood who died in a boating accident until Frankie made Jeriven bring Dean back from the dead a day later. Then of course Frankie falls for the handsome, mysterious Dean, and of course there’s more to Dean than meets the eye, because coming back from the dead rarely leaves one untouched by the underworld. (At least, in my experience.)
My Faith in Frankie has religious overtones and demonspawn hell-bent for revenge, which could make for a depressing or creepy story, but Carey, Liew, and Hempel keep the book light and fun. The book lives and dies on Frankie’s appeal, so thankfully she’s a cute firecracker of a girl whom everyone in the book falls in love with, along with the reader. The book often flashes back to times in the characters’ youth, and Liew and Hempel give the six-year-old versions of the characters a comic-strip look without divorcing them entirely from the modern-day versions. I also really liked the look of Godtown, Jeriven’s home, which has architecture and gods from all different societies coexisting in a cartoonish, charming assortment of exaggerated shapes and contours.
It’s easy to read through My Faith in Frankie, but a quick read doesn’t actually do the book justice. The art is deceptively simple, and the longer I spent looking at it the more rewarded I was with little flourishes and silly background jokes. I know I may be in the minority when it comes to a love of quirky fantasy-adventure-romance, but if there’s a reader out there with similar tastes, then My Faith in Frankie is well worth the time.
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Celestial courtship comics are all well and good, of course, but there were a few more things I’d like to talk about before I wrap this up. Here’s what else I thought would be worth a look this week.
Movies: I finally saw Furious 6 this weekend and though it doesn’t quite live up to the highs of Fast Five, it does feature The Rock hiring car thieves Vin Diesel and Paul Walker to take down an international terrorist, a fight scene featuring Gina Carano beating the hell out of Michelle Rodriguez in a subway station, and a finale where the car thieves chase a plane down a seemingly infinite runway. It is impossible and ridiculous, but that’s the point; the series has become an exercise in excess and makes no bones about it. Yes, it’s the sixth movie in a series, but I came in at number five and needed no context to enjoy charismatic, beautiful people do impossible things with cars for a little over two hours. It’s a ton of fun and I feel it should be watched immediately by everyone everywhere.
“Television”: Community is back for a sixth season on Yahoo! and it’s amazing. I am so excited. It’s so good. Just watch it.
Podcasts: I would be a bad promoter if I didn’t announce that I released a new episode of my podcast Scotch & Comics this Wednesday. It’s the “Lost Episode,” also known as “the episode with some technical issues that I sat on for over eight months and then finally released.” The sound gets a little wonky at times but I think it’s still a fun listen, if anyone ever thought that my reviews here are fun but would benefit from a little (or a lot) more whisky.
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That’s about it for me this week, but before I go, I need to say thank-you to a few people. As keen-eyed readers may have noted, this is my 50th article for Comics! The Blog. My first Seven Days column went up on this site on March 7, 2014, and when I started I honestly didn’t know how long I could keep it going. I certainly didn’t think I would be doing a weekly column for over a year, give or take a few breaks for summer and winter vacations. So I want to say thank-you to Brandon and James for giving me the opportunity to carve out a niche in a small corner of this blog and for being so supportive. I also want to say thank you to my friend Catherine, who has copy edited nearly all of these columns and has made them look far more polished than I’m actually able to do on my own. So thanks, friends.
All right, that’s really all for this week. Until next time, why haven’t you stopped reading this and started watching Furious 6 and/or Community already? I’ll see you in seven days.
