The Li’l Depressed Boy #4 – Review

By: S. Steven Stuble (writer, colors & letters) & Sina Grace (art)

The Story: Have you ever met a really cool girl who has a really good male friend and felt obligated to be nice to him because you liked the girl?

What’s Good: It’s really impossible to review this comic and say what is good without spoiling the big wrinkle.  So….SPOILER ALERT…..

There, with that out of the way, what makes this comic so good is that it reminds guys of the little things that make awkward teenage romances so unique and special because at that age, guys pretty much suck at anything having to do with girls.  So far in this series, we’ve already covered the phase where Li’l Depressed Boy (LDB) meets this hot, geek-chick who totally doesn’t realize that she is hot and seems to like LDB, we’ve seen them going out on kinda dates, we’ve seen his awkwardness when he forgets her name and is then too afraid to ask her because it’ll be awkward, but mostly we’ve seen LDB just being super nice to the girl (Jas).  And, through it all, we’re pulling for LDB in a big brother sort of way since Jas is totally out of his league.

This issue picks right up with LDB helping Jas to clean up after her party.  What a nice guy huh?  Haven’t all of us guys been there?  Helping the girl we like to clean up messes?  That’s what “nice guys” do!  Then we learn that Jas has a male “roommate”.  No problem, this guy Jet seems like a super nice guy too and LDB goes out of his way to be friendly to Jet.  All along, he’s getting little kisses on the cheek and being told what a “super guy” he is and how his is “so nice”.  Then BOOM, out of left field, Jas reveals that Jet is her BOYFRIEND!

The way that Struble and Grace make this reveal is so spot-on.  Jas doesn’t do it as if she wants to make sure LDB “understands” the situation and doesn’t get his hopes up….she just tosses it out in casual conversation thereby showing that she didn’t even realize that LDB had the hots for her.  How’s that for a sharp stick in the eye?  Maybe there are guys in comicdom who have no experience being “the friend”, but for those of us who went through that horrid experience, this comic will speak to some very emotional experiences from our teenage years.

The Li’l Depressed Boy #3 – Review

By: S. Steven Struble (writer, colors, letters) & Sina Grace (art)

The Story: LDB and his girlfriend (?) Jaz go shopping and plan for a party.

What’s Good: Lil Depressed Boy continues to do a few things really well.  For one thing, it captures those everyday situations that young guys get into when they first meet a cute girl.  The first issue covered the mere fact that the girl liked LDB.  The second had a TON of fun with the fact that LDB couldn’t actually remember her name (it’s Jaz).

This issue gets into some of those other things that happen once you become a couple: She’s going to take you shopping.  Ugh!  She’s going to drag you to parties with her friends who you don’t like nearly as much as you like her.  Ugh!  You’re going to have to give her presents.  Yikes!

Pretty much every guy in the world has been through some iteration of those situations, so there is a lot to connect with.  I also personally, read through this as a middle-aged man thinking, “Wow.  I certainly did that, but boy, was that stupid and I could have handled it better knowing what I know now!”  I’d be curious to know how younger men or women connect with the basic stories in LDB, but I expect that these stories provide a very nice blank slate for any reader to project their own personal experiences.

Lil Depressed Boy #2 – Review

By: S. Steven Struble (writer, colors, letters), Sina Grace (art), Nicholas Brandy (edits) & Zachary Trover (design)

The Story: Have you ever forgotten someone’s name and then gotten past the point where you can politely ask them, “What’s your name?”

What’s Good: What a cute and fun comic!  If you’ve ever looked at a big pile of gritty comics in your “stack” and sighed a little bit because it would be nice to have a fresh and clean comic to chase all that drug addiction, grittiness, violence and vomiting into each other’s mouths (PunisherMax reference)… This is the comic for you.  Lil Depressed Boy (LDB) follows a nameless ~20 something directionless guy.  He’s not a loser or anything so morose. He just doesn’t have a ton to distinguish him from the crowd.  He’s just kinda there.  In the last issue, we saw LDB meet a really cute geek-girl who really took a liking to LDB.

What’s great about LDB is that the creators take a common, every-day circumstance that everyone can identify with like forgetting someone’s name and expressing that circumstance through this LDB character.  As you can tell from the lead in, this issue revolves around the fact that LDB has met this great girl and been on a few kinda-dates, but… He can’t remember what her name is.  He’d ask, but he’s way past the point where he can do so politely because he’d be admitting that he didn’t know her name the whole time.  So, he and his buddy engage in a series of comical attempts to figure out what her name is before LDB gets put on the spot.  Even if it is just a conversation at a cocktail party, hasn’t everyone been in this circumstance where you can’t remember someone’s name?

The Li’l Depressed Boy #1 – Review

By: S. Steven Struble (writer, colors, letters) & Sina Grace (art)

The Story: A depressed teenage boy who can barely get up the energy to play video games any more, starts to get his game back when he meets a strange girl who actually seems to like him.

What’s Good: We need more happy comics.  We have lots of comics that are trying to be epic or gritty, and I really do enjoy those books, but sometimes it’s nice to read something that is just trying to put a smile on your face.

I think I summed up the whole issue in “The Story” above and there really isn’t a lot to add.  I can’t speak for the members of the farer sex, but pretty much all guys have had times in our lives where we’re down in the dumps for whatever reason and just kinda going through the motions with life.  Then, out of the blue, something comes along that puts the zip back in your step and makes you look forward to tomorrow.  That’s kinda the story we get here as we watch the titular Lil Depressed Boy mope around the house until he meets a strange girl who seems to really like him.  Not only that, she’s kinda hot; as in out of his league hot. But she’s such an odd duck that she either doesn’t know that she’s hot or doesn’t care (or both).  I’ll be looking forward to seeing the future issues of this since I missed the web comic that this comic is supposedly based upon (although it might still be out there).

I had only known the name Sina Grace from the credits of The Walking Dead where he serves as the editor, but he does a wonderful job illustrating this comic and capturing the range of emotions that Lil Depressed Boy goes through.  He draws LDB with a kinda burlap bag of a head.  This opens up a lot of possibilities in the emotions that LDB can show, so that’s good.  And Grace ensures that LDB always looks sweet, never like a serial killer with a pillowcase over his head (which is what happens if you don’t nail the burlap head thing).