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Monday, October 25, 2004
Demo #11: Midnight to Six
The penultimate issue of Brian Wood's and Becky Cloonan's excellent mini-series is a bit of a departure from the tone of many of the previous issues. For one, it's almost entirely angst-free. Instead, Wood and Cloonan have given us a sly comedy about three slackers locked into a grocery store for the clean-up shift. What is usually a night of goofing off and getting away with the bare minimum amount of work necessary ends with the characters making serious decisions about what they want to do with themselves for the rest of their lives, sending their relationships with one another into crisis mode.
The characters are, perhaps, too recognizable. I know I certainly know people who act just like Jace, Jill and Brad. Heck, I'm reasonably certain that at one time all of these characters have behaved exactly like I used to. It's certainly one of Wood's gifts as a writer, to sketch characters out so deftly that they still are recognizable and relateable. This is also probably the loosest I've ever seen Cloonan's pencils in this series, with the most visibly obvious manga influence. As usual, she manages to capture each character's personality with her deceptively simple and expressive line-work.
Ultimately, I found this one of the most satisfying issues of Demo. It's the one in which I can most identify with the characters, and it's ultimate message, "do what makes you happy," is the most positive and proactive ending we've seen so far.
Demo #11 will be available from all good comic shops on Wednesday.