Never Ever After by Holley McKend and Chris Baldie

I haven’t written about comics in a while.

I think I got burnt out late last year and I haven’t been able to muster the energy or enthusiasm since.

In terms of my reading habits, that’s really had two different effects:

·  I still pick up my pull list, and I still read through all the mainstream books I get, albeit often feeling like it’s a cumbersome task rather than one I particularly enjoy. I want to keep up with those books, and don’t get me wrong, there are moments of enjoyment I take from doing so, but it’s not been the same for a while.

·  I have a stack of small press books that I bought at events like The Lakes and Thought Bubble (and various things I picked up on their own), that I haven’t dared touch. That’s because I have a resounding feeling that those books deserve better than to be shoehorned into my ennui. They deserve some time and attention and I want to give them that, so I made a decision to wait until the time was right.

I don’t know what it was that made me put a handful of those small press books in my bag this week. But this morning I was glad I did, because Never Ever After by Holley McKend and Chris Baldie is the book I was waiting for to break me out of my recent listlessness. 

This is a special comic, and it made me want to write, as much as anything, because I wanted to break down in some detail what I think it is that makes it such a very good book.

There are a lot of things to love here. A lot. Just to name a few quickly, the pacing, the layouts, the clever narrative timeframe, the well-developed characters and snappy, smart, realistic dialogue, the beautiful cartooning and its ability to graduate oh so smoothly from kinetic, flowing action, to stationary close ups and establishing shots which genuinely give a sense of place to the proceedings. And that’s just off the top of my head.

But I guess the thing that really sucked me in here, that made me the willing audience that will be back for more each and every time McKend and Baldie are ready with a new episode, is that they kept their powder dry.

Let me explain that better: It’s clear that the pair have a story to tell here - pieces are put in motion, characters are introduced, weird moments of magic happen that make us realise there is so much more to come here, it’s all there - but crucially, this first issue stops short of saying too much. 

Reading Never Ever After made me realise that this isn’t something the small press is always good at.

Perhaps that’s understandable. So many small press creators have grand ideas, brilliant unique characters and stories to tell, and they want to get it out there as soon as possible. Perhaps they don’t think they’re going to get that many chances, and in a market so brimming over with glorious new ideas, where your opportunity to reach an audience is so fleeting, that may be true. But in the end, that means a lot of stories never get the space to breathe they deserve, and consequently never become the stories they had the potential to be.

McKend and Baldie aren’t prepared to succumb to that. They know what their story is worth and they set their stall out here to tell it patiently and in the best way they can

That excited me. It made me want to know more. And Never Ever After dangles enough different plot threads to make it very clear that there is a lot more to know - including a fantastically enigmatic prologue that begged me to look again immediately following my first reading.

It’s a comic I plan to re-read a few times at least, eagerly trying to glean hints of who the various characters are, why they say what they say and how they can do the things they do, and looking for some clue as to what I can expect as the story progresses. And I know I will get more out of it each time, because McKend and Baldie have poured their blood, sweat and tears onto these pages and it shows.

In this first issue alone, there are so many highlights it’s hard to pick what to talk about. There’s a page where the events of a party are related silently, and artfully, across a grid of tiny panels that I could look at for days.

There are several action sequences (including the aforementioned prologue) where the flow of the characters movements is so well realised it’s like watching film.

There’s a lovely, clever, four panel grid where two character walk down stairs and the sequence flows out of the traditional comics reading order and it’s so well done that you follow it instinctively, only stopping short at the bottom of the stairs to realise the what just happened and the masterful hands you are in.

There’s a handful of conversations between the two main characters that are so warm, and genuine and charming, that they quickly feel like old friends, their interactions as natural as any I’ve seen in comics.

There’s a story here I want to know more about badly. But I’m happy with that. I’ll wait with baited breath for McKend and Baldie to finish the next issue at their own pace, my only hope for it, that they take the time with it they so clearly did with this one, because honestly, it was well worth the effort.

I would encourage anyone to buy Never Ever After, and don’t wait until you seem McKend and Baldie at a con.

Comic creators like this need our support. They need to know that the hard work they’re doing to tell us their stories is appreciated and that there’s an audience of readers waiting to be reinvigorated and inspired by the efforts of a very talented team, with a unique story to tell and the skill to do it well. 

You can buy a copy of Never Ever After at http://nevereverpress.bigcartel.com/product/never-ever-after-1 and you can follow McKend and Baldie on Twitter @holleymckend and @ChrisBaldie.