Mike Birchall

Everything is not fine as things get cutthroat in the neighborhood when a dead body has to be dealt with.

Still baffling, still intriguing.

FOR REFERENCE:

Collects episodes 17-29 and mini-episodes 1-4 of the WEBTOON comic.

Contents:
• Everything Is Fine: Volume 1 Recap
• Part 1: Since Last Accident
• Part 2: Working the Angles
• Part 3: Every Unhappy Family
• Part 4: Desperate Times
• Part 5: No Going Back
• Part 6: Heat Death
• Part 7: Pleasure to Burn
• Part 8: All Good Things
• Oscar [Parts 1-4]
• Bonus Material [Real Cat Heads -- Anatomy Reference -- Heads Turnaround]… (altro)

After the events of volume 1, Maggie has to convince Sam to calm down and then the two of them have to cover up a murder. Luckily, the next door neighbors who ratted Maggie out in the first place, Bob and Linda, are conveniently right there.

I still don't really know what's going on, but I'm pretty thoroughly hooked now. Sam and Maggie's murder coverup probably shouldn't have worked, except this world seems to be operating according to a screwed up set of rules that requires everyone to act a certain way, and Sam and Maggie took advantage of that.

One new thing we know now: whatever is going on, it seems to involve everyone's kids. I thought the kids were all dead, like Poor Winston, but from the sounds of things they're maybe being used as hostages to force the adults to stick to certain types of behavior.

Extras:

I don't know if this counts as an extra or if it was just the introduction of a new character, but there was a brief sidestory at the end involving a guy whose house is apparently trapped in some kind of bubble. He generally hides inside and leaves his cat, Oscar, to do most of his interacting with the outside world.

Definitely an extra, though: a redone version of a certain scene from volume 2 in which everyone has been given "real" cat heads instead of cartoonish cat heads. There are also a variety of reference illustrations.

Now I'm of wondering if this series' villains are, in fact, actual cats.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (altro)

This is the story of a couple living in an ordinary suburban neighborhood. Everyone wears cute animal masks on their heads, but somehow this is ordinary as well. Everything is fine, even though it clearly isn't - everyone's being constantly monitored, "freedom" can only be attained if you sell out your neighbors, and Winston the dog has been dead for a while.

I was hesitant to try this because the art wasn't really to my taste. It's simple and bland, and if you just flip through the volume you might think that people's animal heads are their actual faces, so all facial expressions are uniformly happy and cute in a stale sort of way. It works very well for the story, though, so I'm glad I gave this a shot.

This first volume raises a lot more questions than it answers. We don't know how or why everything ended up this way. There are no children anywhere, and characters go out of their way to avoid acknowledging anything unpleasant. Whatever it is seems to have been going on for a while, because Winston was pretty decomposed, but not so long that folks didn't remember how things used to be.

Considering how little effort Maggie, the wife, made to hide the signs that she no longer wanted to pretend everything was fine, it was tough to believe that no one confronted her earlier, and I didn't really expect her to be alive by the end of the volume. Volume 2 may strain my sense of disbelief even more, but I'm intrigued enough by whatever horror is going on under the surface of all of this to want to continue on.

Extras:

A note from the author, plus bonus pages showing comparisons of the original Webtoon artwork vs. the remastered artwork, and some bonus comics ("demonic mode," "headless mode," and "Victorian mode") originally made to interest people in the author's Patreon.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)… (altro)

1984 gets crossed with a childless and paranoid version of the old The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet sitcom where the cast wears Hello Kitty heads to literally mask their inner turmoil and maintain the "everything is fine" facade of their oppressive society.

Weird but sort of compelling.

I think the cliffhanger jumped the gun and frittered away too much of the slow-burn atmosphere for some gratuitous shock, but I'll be back for the next installment to see what the fallout might be.

FOR REFERENCE:

Collects episodes 1-16 of the WEBTOON comic.

Contents:
• Prologue: Everything Is Fine
• Part 1: The New Forever
• Part 2: Swings and Roundabouts
• Part 3: Spaghetti Western
• Part 4: Mise en Place
• Part 5: Friends for Dinner
• Part 6: An Iron Voice
• Part 7: Forget Me Not
• Part 8: Crocodile Teeth
• Part 9: Try It at Home
• Bonus Material… (altro)