Last night I was talking to Susan and Tim about a webcomic I had read yesterday. I started from the beginning and read the entire thing (as I often do). Normally, if a comic is interesting enough for me to read I will share it. This one I was a little hesitant, though I don’t really know why. I guess the idea of me spending a couple of hours reading a shoujo-esque romantic drama gets a reaction from my brain saying, “hey, maybe you should, you know, keep that to yourself.”
After thinking about it for a moment, and remembering how I found myself tearing up more than a few times while reading it, I decided that my initial reaction simply wasn’t justified. So, I began to describe it:
“It is a great story about all kinds of relationships between different people, taking place primarily in high school, with characters and stories carrying over into college, as well as with the parents. I know it sounds kinda odd, but it actually starts out with an arranged marriage.”
At this point, Tim, who was eating a cookie, stops chewing and looks at me sideways. I am thinking I have something on my face. Instead, “wait, are you talking about Red String?”
Turns out there are least two fans in this place (which hasn’t been named yet, c9th was our last home)!
Red String is as I described it above. It is about love, mostly. The best comparison I can think of is DramaCon by Svetlana Chmakova (who has a pretty website, by the way). It isn’t actually that “best”, it is more like if DramaCon was a tri-weekly webcomic with a lot more time for character development (Svetlana’s FAQ says that she wants to continue the story, happy news to me!). If you happen to be an informed connoisseur of this genre that I can’t quite peg down, please drop some suggested reading in the comments.
Anyhow, if you are curious about Red String just pop over and start reading (at the beginning, of course). Red String is created by Gina Biggs, and is part of a collective of romantic comic artists called Strawberry Comics. There are six comics produced there (I started a couple of the other ones, I will write them up sometime soon). The interesting thing about Red String is that it is published (printed) by Dark Horse! That should tell you something about the quality write there.
I put it on my comic shopping list. One would think that linking to a webcomic is the easiest way to get people to read something, but I have found that placing the wooden rectangle in their hand is much more effective. 