“I ended up kinda loving it!
Penny is a 20-30-something lady who is sort of a scumbag, but in that charming way where she’s not a BAD person, maybe just a little gross here and there and blunt in a way that’s not the nicest. It’s hard to describe because I’m not sure this person actually exists. I think attractive people think they’re this person when they forget to put on deodorant (you’re not, people would probably hit it anyway), and truly vile people probably think they’re this person because they don’t want to admit that having a pile of actual garbage in one’s bedroom is indicative of more than just not being overly concerned with outward appearances. This is how the rat man started on Hoarders, and the rat man on Hoarders was not just a charming rebel pulling a Stevie Nicks and going his own way. He had rats licking his eyeballs for moisture. This is not a matter of different strokes.
Penny is like sort of the bizarro of the manic pixie dreamgirl. Which I guess would be a slothful troll nightmaregirl. Except she’s not a slothful troll.
I’m making Penny sound WAY worse than she is. She’s just normal, but somehow she’s surrounded by go-getters who are real assholes. I think she’s super likable and would be a fun person to be around, mostly, just so long as you didn’t set her up on a date with someone you were friends with because she’d probably make it awkward between you and your friend from there on.
I also really liked that this was a non-romantic book that had a female main character. Stuff happens, but romance isn’t the focus of the book. Like, she didn’t learn a lesson, that real beauty is inside or that she’s good enough or whatever. I think she already knows she’s good enough, she just doesn’t seem to be super inclined, romantically, at this particular point in her life. And that’s cool, I read SO MANY indie comics focused only on love, as well as so many comics not focused on love that try to cram it in. It’s enough to drive a person nuts.
If you’re doing a comic about, I don’t know, an intergalactic space war or whatever, don’t feel like you have to cram in a love story. Because you don’t. If Penny can avoid a love story and Penny doesn’t have any intergalactic anything, you’ll manage. You can write the love part, and let’s just assume it happened after the space war. Does everything have to happen at the same time in a person’s life?
I would recommend this to anyone who is at that awkward stage of life, maybe late 20’s, where your dreams and your reality collide head-on, and you start thinking like, “Fuuuuuuck. I guess I could keep doing this for…35 more years!?” It’s a look at that part of live, but not a depressing look, nor a look meant to motivate you in a cheesy way.
That stage of life where most people think about buying a tiny house off the grid or trying to get rich or learning to build apps or whatever. God do I not miss those days.”