Friday, Book One: The First Day of Christmas

This is the latest title to reach print from Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s Panel Syndicate operation, which has creators offering their comics to readers on a pay-what-you-want basis.  The creators in this case are Martin himself and writer Ed Brubaker, which does set my expectations for this story quite high.  It does have a cute setup in that it imagines what happens when a couple of teen sleuths right out of a young adult novel grow up and have to start dealing with real life and real emotions.  Or, to frame it in a way that’s specific to the story that’s being told, what if Sally Kimball and Encyclopedia Brown had to deal with another situation right out of a John Bellairs story right after the former has come back from college for Christmas.

Nobody gets any points for guessing what I grew up reading.  That said, Brubaker’s take on these characters hews closer to homage than ripoff.  Friday Fitzhugh was bodyguard and best friend to Lancelot Jones, the smartest teenager in the world.  Together, through junior high and high school, they went on adventures and solved mysteries in the small Northeastern town of Kings Hill.  Until the day that Friday went off to college and things got… weird between them in the physical and supernatural sense.  Now, no sooner does Friday get off the train from college, she finds herself dragged back into another mystery with Lancelot.  One where the youthful shine of their adventures has definitely come off.

The biggest problem with this first volume is that there isn’t enough of it.  I’m not talking about the, “Because I want more of it!” factor (which I sure do), but this is a slight 120-page volume with less than 100 pages of story where it feels like things are just getting started by the time it ends.  As for what is here, Brubaker does a great job of establishing the characters and adding substance to his what happens when YA grows up setup while also making sure the grounded and supernatural aspects of the story feel like they both belong here.  Martin also does the typically excellent work we’ve come to expect from him, making things look effortlessly stylish with some inventive double-page spreads.  It’s good stuff, but the brevity of this first volume has me feeling that it’s best appreciated by existing fans of the creators who are ready to believe this is going to be the start of another great series from them.