Okay. So anyone who's talked to me this year knows how completely and utterly I've given myself over to Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise.This is Katchoo.
As a piece of fiction I've been thoroughly enjoying for the better part of a year, Strangers in Paradise has me on the edge of my seat. What fun! As a piece of visual storytelling it seems to be reaching a sort of perfection. It's breathtaking. And funny. I was of course smitten from the start. But this last issue was a real zowie. Four solid black pages spoke profoundly without saying a word, not the tiniest scratch was implied on the perfect pages - just blackness. Like aweful deep space, terrifying in its possibilities.
And the wink. This wink nearly shred me to bits. I would show you the two frames before and after this one but it might spoil it for Those Who Do Not Know Yet.
So I wrote to Terry Moore today and this is what I said about #86: I've always held a deep appreciation for a well placed pause in poetry, in art... SIP has had this in hand on so many occasions... The possibility in those black pages holds infinite breath and life. That said, it was the wink that did me in. What an awesome acknowledgment of a beautiful, complex and mutual friendship. There's so much love in a wink like that. It's easier to bear the parting with such astounding love.
Since it's my personal goal to get you all addicted to Strangers in Paradise I cannot explain some of the details. But what inspired me to say all this, right now, is what I said, taken out of context.
(I've also been reading Margaret Atwood's Writing with Intent.)
Occasionally I write something that goes out into the world very near to the way I actually mean it to. It makes me feel happy.
