Questionable Content

A recent find worth checking out is the web comic Questionable Content. It's the fictional life I wish I'd had back in my 20's--passive indie rock guy finds his life taken over by a bitter and witty girl who becomes his roommate, her boss and coworkers at the local coffee place, and adventures and love ensue. Throw in robots, a girl raised on a space station, the superheroine Pizza Girl, and occasional trips to the local dive bar and the romance novelist who lives there and you've got a daily comic about relationships, music and life's uncertainty done with wit and verve. Yet even with the outlandish details the comic retains truth and bite due to the way Jacques grounds bizarre plotlines with believable details and relatable characters. Even with my hatred of the Monk-ification of mental illness, I root for Hannelore and her small improvements.

I got turned on to it through my weekly ALA Direct email, where they spotlighted a recent story line featuring the anxious Hannelore visiting Marten at work in the local college library and enduring tales of library spiders and innuendo from his coworker. It's worth going back to the beginning to enjoy the subtle way Jeph Jacques builds his cast and characters, from the gradual revelation of the trauma that turned Faye into the new Dorothy Parker to the corruption of Winslow by Pintsize. It's a timesuck that's rewarding--go for it!