Left Turns

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy draws sad comics about girl—the Chasing Amy–esque story line rings only too familiar in this earnest if uneven outing from Ross (Tales of Mr. Rhee). Through years of sacrifice, David has nursed his ambition—always just out of reach—to become a professional comic book artist. Along the way, his neuroses have confounded his family and alienated his friends (“Can’t I sulk by myself?”)—and now his longtime girlfriend has dumped him. The aspiring cartoonist struggles at the drawing board and in pitching his portfolio, and is introspective to the point of myopia, ignoring more than one cute girl throwing herself at him as he bemoans his lack of dating opportunities. Drawn classically handsome, he’s also a classic crank, literally bothered by the cracks where the light gets in: “There’s just enough sun shining through these windows to be annoying.” Ross’s clean-line style and simple monochromatic color scheme draw readers into David’s world, and there are insightful and self-aware moments that will resonate with starving artists and the people who love them. But the inability to connect is David’s fatal flaw, both in the plot and for those weary of romans à clef detailing the angsty love lives of misanthropic cartoonists. Whether readers dig this may depend on how stuck they still feel in their own youthful regrets. (Jan.)