Giant Days Vol. 3

by John Allison

Max Sarin (Illustrator)

Continuing their first semester at university, fast friends Susan, Esther, and Daisy want to find their footing in life. The girls, along with their male hall-mates, Ed and McGraw find that college is more than academics and bad microwavable meals. Add some pub hopping, hookups, breakups and political scandal this might just be the most eventful first semester ever. Giant Days, the comedic slice-of-life series from creator John Allison (Bad Machinery, Scary Go Round), and fantastic newcomer, Max Sarin has graduated to a third volume, collecting issues 9-12 of the critically acclaimed series.

• ISBN10: 1608868516
• ISBN13: 9781608868513
• Publish Date: 17 November 2016 (first published 5 October 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Boom! Studios
• Imprint: BOOM! Box
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 112
• Language: English

Reviews

[Chelsea]

This series still mostly confuses me but at least I'm having a good time

[Quirky Cat]

I’m continuing my binge reading of all of the published Giant Day volumes, and it has been so much fun! Honestly it’s the perfect break I need from my normal reading preferences (don’t get me wrong, I love everything else I read – but sometimes it’s nice to sink into a series where I can laugh and never have to worry about character deaths or permanent consequences). It’s a breath of fresh air, truth be told.
Giant Days volume three is brought to you by John Allison (Bad Machinery, Bobbins, Scary Go Round), Max Sarin, Whitney Cogar (Colorist for: Steven Universe, Over the Garden Wall, Adventure Time), Jim Campbell (Over the Garden Wall, 1000 Ways to Die), and Lissa Treiman (animator for Disney). I know there are a couple different covers for this one floating around, but my favorite one (totally not because it’s the version I read or anything like that…) has a striking sky blue background with Daisy sitting on a phone line (along with a very confused pigeon).



Our crew is back for volume three and I couldn’t be happier! Seriously, I love it when I find a series that’s fantastic and has a huge chunk of backlog (too frequently it seems like the good series end up getting cut short). I loved this volume, and it defiantly felt like there was more effort being made to include the secondary characters more, they’re slowly becoming main characters in their own right.
As mentioned above, both Ed and McGraw are given more time to shine in this volume. While I’m still not sure how I feel about McGraw (simply because his introduction is so different from the man we’ve been shown) I absolutely adore little Ed. And Ed certainly got a lot of time on these pages. That being said, I’m sure that if Ed was a real person he’d be mortified by some of the things that were shared with so many people…like his erm…dating issues. Yeah, that’s what we’re going to call that.
Not only was Ed’s plot funny (I promise, it’s not painful humor, though he does feel a bit of a sting at times) but it’s really interesting too. Ed ends up joining the newspaper in an attempt to get over his Esther obsession…which is shockingly sound reasoning (thanks Daisy!). I really respect his choice here, and he actually seems to have both a passion and knack for journalism.
But don’t worry! All of that happened in a relatively short amount of time, leaving plenty of pages for Esther, Daisy and Suzie in particular to get into lots (and lots) of trouble. I thought Esther’s old friend Big Lindsay was pretty interesting – I can easily see how old expectations would cause quite a bit of a problem, when meeting old friends. And this plot even found a way to loop back around to Ed, which was interesting (it ended up being pretty cute – I totally ship Ed and Big Lindsay now).
Suzie gets herself into quite a mess this volume…to put it kindly. She’s always struck me as the type to buy into all sorts of conspiracy theories, so everything that ends up happening isn’t too shocking. I love the portrayal of a person lacking sleep – it’s a serious issue and can literally cause you to hallucinate if it goes on long enough…though I don’t think people typically see what poor Suzie did.
As for what happens at the end of that…um…I’m not sure what Suzie did during this issue deserved what McGraw did here. (Spoiler warning!!!) Seriously, I know she got obsessed and didn’t confide in him while she was freaking out, but does that honestly justify him dumping her on her birthday??? I feel like most people would have told him to wait at least another day or two. Though I’m likewise sure that McGraw didn’t want to be dishonest about his feelings…which I guess I respect.
This volume was a whirlwind, quite possibly more so than the previous two, which I feel like is saying something. It was nice seeing more of Ed, but I feel like Daisy got shoved into the background a lot this time around (with the exception of the camping issue at the end). Here’s hoping we see more of her next volume! Though the final revelation at the end of this volume makes me think that at least the first issue of volume four will be Esther heavy (good thing I like her!).


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks