wevans's review
3.0
A little while ago Dresden Codak linked to these folks' website, so I spent a little while messing around there, ultimately concluding that I liked their comics a lot but not quite enough to spend actual money on them (Simone and Tom subscribing more to the tried and true capitalist system than to the "give away everything for free and hope people buy tshirts" mode adhered to by most webcomics). Fortunately, the York library didn't mind spending money on "Both" (a collection of "First" and "Second" by the same artists), so I got to read it anyway.
This book is full of tiny castles viewed from a distance, astronauts, and masked wrestlers (on Tom's part) and anthropomorphized food, bunny rabbits, and people with highways on their legs (on the part of Simone). Both of them tend to gravitate towards moments of awkwardness - for Tom that means a lot of open space, a lot of panels in which the characters are alone with their thoughts, the content of which we can only imagine. Simone's awkward moments are more overt, played out through dialogue - the one that jumps to my mind most immediately is "The Bread and Bhagi Show," where it becomes clear over the course of the broadcast that the bread considers its relationship with the bhagi to be much more intimate than the bhagi would prefer. Clearly the stuff of which great literature is made.
This book is full of tiny castles viewed from a distance, astronauts, and masked wrestlers (on Tom's part) and anthropomorphized food, bunny rabbits, and people with highways on their legs (on the part of Simone). Both of them tend to gravitate towards moments of awkwardness - for Tom that means a lot of open space, a lot of panels in which the characters are alone with their thoughts, the content of which we can only imagine. Simone's awkward moments are more overt, played out through dialogue - the one that jumps to my mind most immediately is "The Bread and Bhagi Show," where it becomes clear over the course of the broadcast that the bread considers its relationship with the bhagi to be much more intimate than the bhagi would prefer. Clearly the stuff of which great literature is made.
shim's review
4.0
Liked the structure in this one. Mix of different simple yet heartfelt comics. Some funny bits.
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