Yes, it's what you think it is!

Recently, Katie Longua got in touch with me about her comic Munchies and the fact that she's running a Kickstarter to expand the original story - such as it is, as I'll get to - and make a bigger print run. Instead of just mentioning the Kickstarter, though, I thought I'd review the original comic, because that's just how I roll!

Munchies (which Longua wrote and drew, with lettering by Josh Richardson) is a 16-page story that is about, yes, someone getting the munchies after smoking pot. Yes, it's one joke, but Longua goes nuts with it, and it's funny that it becomes almost an anti-pot comic (whether she meant to be or not is another thing). Obviously, I don't want to spoil the joke, but I will say it starts when the unnamed girl gets so hungry from smoking that a wolf-like creature erupts from her stomach. Things go wacky from there.

While the story is fairy one-note - even if Longua has a lot of fun with the one note, and it's always nice to see someone go so far with it - Longua's art sells the joke very well. She has a beautiful, cartoony line that reminds me of Brandon Graham, and the details in her line work are excellent. She creates a whole world in just a few pages, and she gives us tremendous characters. The protagonist doesn't say much - she says four words in the entire story - but the ones who try to stop her are goofy clichés (they're meant to be) who talk in wonderfully over-the-top tough-guy (and tough-girl) phrases. She uses interesting points of view (at one point we see the story from the inside of the wolf-like creature's mouth) and keeps everything flowing nicely from panel to panel, using tangible smells and tastes to lead us around the page. Early on, we get a nice example of her attention to detail when the girl and her friend finish smoking and Longua draws drool coming from their mouths after a beat. Little things like that make the outrageousness of the story a bit less so, which, while the story is still bonkers, roots it in something real. Longua also - perhaps unconsciously - equates eating with sex, and it adds a weird, uncomfortable (in a good way) vibe to the story, which helps the joke along, too. I don't even want to show too much of the art, because it will give things away! But here's a few examples:





If you're interested in contributing to Longua's Kickstarter, you can find it right here. It's a goofy comic, but it's still fun, and it will be interesting to see how exactly she can expand it. Maybe she'll give the protagonist more dialogue? The mind reels!