Giant Days—Allison & Treiman & Cogan

Boom! Studios is one of my favourite comic studios at the moment. I am a new comic collector, and I wanted to start out with comics that I could begin at the beginning. (Unfortunately, this means leaving behind a lot of the much-beloved Marvel universe, because almost nothing they do starts out at the beginning anymore. With a couple of exceptions.)

One of my first and favourite comics was Lumberjanes, which is released by Boom!. (This series not only features almost exclusively female characters, it also explores a lesbian relationship between two campers.) They also produce Hexed, which is another great series that I would categorize as paranormal/supernatural, reminiscent of Buffy, and features a lady protagonist. This is something I really appreciate about the studio in general: they are actively seeking and promoting not only comics featuring women, but also artistically led by women.

Giant Days is about three university students—Susan, Esther, and Daisy—who became fast friends after being assigned as neighbors in their dorm.

It's rare when Goodreads has a consensus on a particular book, but this issue has an average star rating of 4.48 out of 5, so that gives you an idea of how universally this first issue resonated with its readers.

I LOVED this first issue. I fell in love with the characters in the 22 pages we get with them, and that's saying something! They're witty and fun and moody and just real. They remind me a lot of how I was at university. It's funny, because not a whole lot of actual plot development happens in this first issue—although there's a lot of setup for future plot points—but I still can't wait to see where it goes.

Below are two of my favourite panels/pages from this issue: