Image Comics Review: Big Girls #3
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer, Artist, Colorist:Â Jason Howard
Letterer:Â Fondgrafiks
Reviewer:Â Tony Farina
SummaryÂ
Farm life is no escape from the Jacks, but Ember has worse problems as she battles her toughest foe ever! We learn about Ember’s life before she joined the Big Girls and we learn even more about the Jacks. More than we wanted to know.
Positives
Big Girls #3 has this image in it. Go ahead and see it and then try to unsee it and then tell me it is not amazing.
So, that happened. We learn so much in one beautiful and horrific splash page. First, for full disclosure, I am a vegetarian so the dead cows were hard for me to see and for Jason to draw as he explains in the letter’s pages at the end. That was hard enough to see, but the way he juxtaposed it with a young, clearly little girl in a giant body, Ember rips your heart out. She is just a little girl. She clearly doesn’t mean to do anything wrong and yet, she is hungry. Even I, the pacifist that I am, could not fault her for what she did. Howard’s commentary on what kinds of life are important is on full display here.
We also see her sitting with a Jack and of course, the world thinks Jacks are terrible, but Ember knows different. The way that this scene comes back later in the book when more grown up Ember faces another Jack proves what an amazing writer Howard is as well. We only need to see his pages to know he can draw, but the storytelling, the world building and the misdirection is excellent writing.
Negatives
Big Girls #3 ends after 24 pages. That is a problem. I have to wait another month. What an ending. I feel pretty confident that Ember will survive, but who knows. It could be a dodge like that episode of Buffy when Tara was on the opening credits for the first AND ONLY time!
Verdict
Big Girls #3 is heartbreaking good. I mean. You know how sometimes you get the wind knocked out of you? Well, that is seemingly bad right? Well, what if you got the wind knocked out of you by scoring the winning goal of if you save a kitten and fell on your back out of the tree? You would feel pretty good right? That is this. I just love it so much. Get reading people.
