Broken Frontier

Webcomics are notoriously iron clad in their irreverent armor – often a vessel for sharp jabs at the outside world, societal norms, and their fellow internet brethren. What’s rarer, however, is a webcomic that can speak to us with that same wit and humor, and still be poignant and touching. Hell, the funny pages in print don’t even hit like that, usually. I’m talking Calvin & Hobbes grade emotional connection. Well, if you haven’t read Minus (you lucky dog) by Koala Wallop’s own Ryan Armand, you’re about to fall in love.

But first, the bad news. Minus ran its last strip last week. In fact, the final run of prints are available this week.

So what’s all the hubbub? Minus is a simple strip about an ordinary girl. She has trouble relating to other people, so she often retreats into her imagination. Sometimes, she makes her imagination real by using her magic powers. Hmm, I guess she isn’t so ordinary after all. I suppose she gets into a lot of trouble, actually. Like when she leads an army of rebellious food-stuffs against their human devourers. When the humans strike back (via giant missiles, typical humans) she simply turns the guns to fireworks, and watches the show from the docks with her edible friends.

Then there was the time that she drew herself into a rocket ship… and then takes off to a very real alien planet. Minus even goes head to head with a world ending meteor, but that strip is so damn good, so touching, so brilliantly conceived, that I can’t spoil it by revealing anything else. Just go read them, in order. You’ll see what I mean.

Minus, which overall could be called a "happy comic" finds moments of great sadness within. Inherently, at least in it’s earlier stages, it is the story of a girl who can do anything, but still finds herself lonely and/or unfulfilled. Once again, I’m reminded of that Watterson-esque solidarity. If you could have it all, but only you, and you alone, would it really be worth it? The answer, of course, is no – and to that end we are slowly introduced to Minus’ world – curious children, greedy adults, and everybody in between.

In a particularly great story, two bratty classmates of Minus get into an argument over a heads-or-tails game. One of them asks to be sent back in time to change the outcome, but Minus doesn’t even take the time to listen. She simply banishes one of the girls about 90 years prior. We then watch the little girl get adopted, go to school, make friends, get married, have children, and grow old. But the true mastery of the story, like all Minus stories, comes from its resolution. The two friends are finally reunited, although under very different circumstances, and without so much as a word, we are simply allowed to understand and accept the final panel, on our own terms.

One of the great themes that reverberates throughout the comic is our ability to create and destroy. In real life, our experiences compound and what we do is always with us, more or less. In the Minus world, the slate is wiped clean time and again. One man whom Minus gives a tour of the spirit world doesn’t think that the afterlife should look so similar to Earth. In a snap, he finds himself rowing down a river of souls in a homage to the hades if ancient civilizations. In another instance, Minus creates a giant octopus that ravages Earth into a postwar paradise. Politically correct? Maybe not. Effective? It’s just like pressing the "reset" button.

It seems only fitting, then, that Minus ends the way it does. Call it a giant "reset" button, a weird twist on the fate of the human race, or just a kid having some fun. It’s Minus’ final look at our world, and it shows us as we are. For all our meanderings into the = of philosophies, the greater meaning of things, and the quest for the truth, we’re most likely just an amusing pastime in the grand scheme of things. Minus shows us that all the great accomplishments of man can never match the majesty of the night sky, or the simple pleasure of being free. We think of ourselves as so complex, so vast, that it’s a shock to realize that we’re just a small piece of the puzzle. Minus, for all her omnipotence, never truly puts that puzzle together. We don’t see a finished product all wrapped up with the answers to the big questions. All we see is ourselves, the way Minus saw us: full of wonder, and still searching.

To investigate the world of Minus from the very beginning  click here to go directly to the debut strip.