Image Description: book-cover of Giant Days – Volume 6 by John Allison. The background is peach-orange with teal-blue text. The top half of the cover is taken up with Title text and credential text. The bottom half the cover is an image of Daisy, blowing a whistle and making a time-out gesture with her hands, there’s a set of headphones with a mic around her neck. Daisy is wearing a green coat, an orange t-shirt, a teal-skirt, orange leg-warmers, and black boots.
Title: Giant Days, Volume 6
Creator: John Allison (author), Max Sarin (illustrations), Whitney Cogar (colourist), Liz Fleming (inker)
Social Media: Goodreads
Publisher: BOOM! Box
Format and Price: Paperback from my local library
Stars: 5 stars out of 5
About The Creators:
John Allison: John Allison is the author and artist of the British web comics Scary Go Round and Bad Machinery.
Max Sarin: Freelance illustrator and comic artist goofing around and enjoying life.
Whitney Cogar: Whitney Cogar is a freelance illustrator based in Savannah, Georgia. She specializes in sequential art, such as comics and storyboards. She is a colourist for the 2017 Steven Universe comic series and has also done storyboards and art assets for the film “The Conspirator” as well as art assets for the film “X-Men: First Class”.
Liz Fleming: Liz Fleming is an award-winning travel writer who writes a weekly and a monthly travel column for The Toronto Star, regular features for Cruise and Travel Lifestyles Magazine and a travel column for TripAtlas.com.
About The Book:
Esther, Susan, and Daisy have moved into their beautiful new house off campus, but the new living situation creates new challenges for the girls.
Second year begins and Daisy, Susan, and Esther have taken their friendship commitment to the next level by moving into their “beautiful home” off-campus. But the keys didn’t come without new responsibilities. Unwanted suitor visits, a robbery, and Susan living only a few blocks apart from her ex-boyfriend, McGraw, has made the dorms feel like a haven. The girls are in for a dose of reality when they learn that there’s more to being an adult than paying your own rent.
Eisner Award nominee John Allison (Bad Machinery, Scary Go Round) and illustrators Max Sarin and Liz Fleming welcome you back to Sophomore year in Giant Days Volume 6, collecting issues #21-24 of the critically acclaimed series.
General Observations:
~Character Backstory – Daisy: In this issue the reader finds out why Daisy lives with her grandmother. When Daisy was a baby, Daisy’s parents went missing (they’re presumed dead), they disappeared in a plane accident while crossing the Bermuda triangle. Daisy only has a few items that belong to them such as some jewellery.
So, when someone breaks into their house and steals Daisy’s precious jewellery, it’s not just upsetting that someone has broken into their house and rifled through their personal possessions. Daisy has also had one of her few possessions from her parents (parents she has never known) stolen from her. Naturally, Esther and Susan are motivated to get Daisy’s jewellery back, however, it doesn’t go as smoothly as Susan and Esther planned.
The police do eventually find their stolen items and return them. This incident does highlight the problem Susan is currently struggling with. Susan has taken the position of refusing to ask McGraw for help. Esther calls her out on it, and Susan does eventually relent and allows McGraw to help, however, I suspect this pattern will continue. I’d prefer it if didn’t and hopefully, this will be resolved.
~Character Backstory – Susan: Susan becomes rather ill, which results in her father coming to stay with them, this becomes an important issue in this volume and the next volume. In this volume, the reader finds out more about Susan, and her family background. Apparently, her father is Greek, and she has six older sisters. It turns out there’s another reason Susan’s father has been staying with them.
Susan’s parents have been having some problems and he’s been using Susan’s illness to avoid dealing with the situation. Growing up, Susan’s father wasn’t able to spend a lot of time at home, due to work, so it was good to see some enjoyable father-daughter bonding. Eventually Susan convinces him to go home, however, this problem will continue into the next volume.
~Character Development – Daisy: In this volume, Daisy begins a relationship with a German exchange student Ingrid, and I think this a good step for Daisy’s character development. Ingrid is very different from Daisy, in fact, she’s the exact opposite of Daisy. It’s hilarious watching Esther play Team Mum when Ingrid drops by as well. It’s early days on the relationship just yet but it is highly entertaining. I hope it works out.
All in all, it’s an engaging volume that has the beginnings of great character development, I just hope the McGraw/Susan problem is resolved soon.
Available for Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Kobo Books
Ambiguous Pieces 