True Stories #1
March 2003 £1
28 pages A5 B&W
A tale of girls who like boys who like ewoks. Alex drags his wookie-obsessed friend Ralf out on a night of looking for love in all the wrong places.
Read the entire story online at ComicSpace.
25 pages detailing the adventures of two mates on a night out trying to find just the right girl. As you'd expect from Tony McGee the art has direction, and while he never shies away from cramming the page, he never exceeds the boundaries by overcomplication. This is a lot accessible, the story is warm, funny, with lots of pop culture references in the manner of the show Teachers or a Tarantino movie. Actually, I really want you to look at this, as it's one of the finest small press comics I've seen this year.
I had a desire for a while to write a fun night before/morning after story, although the script ended up a lot less serious in tone than I'd originally intended. Which is definitely a good thing. The two guys had a similar dynamic to my favorite comedians Laurel & Hardy, Ralf being the knowing idiot and Alex the unknowing idiot. Unusually for me, everything in The Right Girl is from Alex and Ralf's perspective, where the reader's impressions of the other characters are formed solely on what Alex and Ralf make of them. The title comes from that old expression 'you'll meet the right (whoever) someday', which got me thinking, is there such a thing as the perfect person for you, or are we all just doomed to a life of settling? I think Alex's desperation stems from the one who got away syndrome, and finally when he absolves himself of that emotional baggage, he's free to make the same mistakes all over again.
