Customer Reviews

Strangers In Paradise: Love Me Tender

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The next installment of Strangers in Paradise, Volume 4: Love Me Tender contains the following comics: Volume 3, Issue 1: Love Me Tender; Volume 3, Issue 2: A Beautiful Day; Volume 3, Issue 3: She Has Reasons; Volume 3, Issue 4: Dance; Volume 3: Issue 5: Stranger in Paradise. If you haven't read the first three volumes (The Collected Strangers in Paradise, I Dream of You, and It's a Good Life), you should do so before reading this book. At least, I hate jumping into a story mid-stream.

The beginning of this comic really threw me for a loop. I mean, I think that's Francine, but ... maybe not? Or maybe she's the kid? What? Where are my beloved characters! Oh. Wait. There they are. Panic averted, persistence pays off.

Katchoo and Francine, back from Hawaii (see It's a Good Life and evicted from their home, move into a teeny garage apartment provided - free of charge - by Margie McCoy (who you might remember from Volume 1). It's time for life to get back to normal for these two, and they take their best shots.

Francine re-enters the working world, which turns out to be anything but normal. Between the manic, stress-loving boss, the artiste director, and the conniving co-worker (you remember Rachel, don't you?), and the wardrobe (oh my), Francine is in for more than she had ever anticipated. And she can take little comfort in the fact that Katchoo's life isn't settling down any more readily.

Katchoo, who is singularly unsuited to working life in the regular world, decides it is time to go back to her art. And David would be the perfect subject... even if he doesn't think so. But turmoil sets in when David has second thoughts, and it may be too much for their relationship to handle. What will happen there?

All in all, this is more of what we've come to expect from Terry Moore: Tight storytelling with interesting characters who get into situations that make your head spin. Good stuff!

"Strangers In Paradise" is the wonderful story about the friendship between Francine, Katchoo, and David. All three of them seem to be from opposite ends of just about everything, but they learn to live together and love together.

It is a wonderful story, even for those who do not particullary like comic book stories. Volume 3 is one of the few volumes that are in color and is a great place for readers to pick up on!

Strangers in Paradise is the tale about three friends who seem stuck in their love for each other. Each one trying to figure out what to do with their feelings, they get confused, surprised, disappointed and cheered up during events.
Where most titles start off strong and then fall into the big grey area, this title keeps me interested and entertained. This here is vol. 4 of the collections but it can also be used as a jump-on TPB for newcomers to the title. It collects the first 5 issues of volume III.

First off we make a jump in time, many years past the events in the previous collection ("It's a Good Life"). Francine is a middle-aged woman now, with a little daughter, and has been married for ten years. It's been equally as long since she last saw her best friend Katchoo. When she's sitting in a restaurant oneday an old acquaintance walks by and mentions she just saw Katchoo sitting in the lobby. Right there memory-train leaves the station for Francine. She starts thinking about how things were when she and Katchoo used to live together.
The rest of the paperback is about those memories (which are the real continuations from the previous volumes). We see Francine trying to get a job and trying to gain some self-esteem. We see how our main three characters (David, Katchoo and Francine) keep on struggling with their feelings in their little love-triangle where nobody really oversees it all. Katchoo realizing how she really knows little about David, and off course there's still the humor in the dialogues (or else it wouldn't be Strangers in Paradise).

The colors in the first few issues seem a little strange at first. That's because this trade is in black-and-white and the original issues collected here were in color. Imagine making a black-and-white copy of a colored page and you know what I mean. Luckily that's only in the first few issues, the rest is back in original black-and-white (as seen before). The art is as good as it ever was (fluent, realistic and clear) and the story never stopped being interesting. Although I would advise to get "I Dream of You" and "It's a Good Life" (they together collect vol.2 in its entirety) first, it isn't really neccesary. You should get them to get to know the characters and because they're good, but this is a good jump-on point as well for new readers. There's minor hinting to what happened previously in this volume, but it's nowhere essential.
This title is a good diversion from most other comics and can best be described as a action-humor-dramatized-soap-opera centered around three characters. And it works ...

People who like this title should also keep an eye out for "Box Office Poison" and "The Waiting Place".