They feel plenty epic to me

[dorinda]

I was chatting with marycrawford recently, and discovered we are both mad about and emotionally invested in a webcomic (also being released in print form) called The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal. And of course this is one of those things where I've been all "ohhhh man I should post about that sometime". So hey...sometime is now!

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal is by E.K. Weaver, who is also Big Big Truck Productions (who you might remember from the awesome Anime Music Video Failed Experiments in Video Editing). (RENDER!)

The art for the storyline itself is almost all black and white with rare color splash pages, but the website also has a bunch of wonderful color pieces which I hiiiighly recommend you check out (in the Extras and Store sections, for instance).

This is Amal:



He's a gay Indian-American med student who's just come out to his family and been disowned. That night he meets TJ (who looks much more sedate here than is ever usual for him...):



And they make a deal to drive across the country together from Berkeley to Providence, Rhode Island--Amal to attend his little sister's college graduation, and TJ apparently on the track of a job.

It's a fantastic road-trip story, with layered characterization, rich settings, eroticism, mystery (especially regarding TJ), comedy, bonding (and arguing) over pop culture, and terrific art! It's up to Chapter 31 so far on the website, and Volume One has come out in print, covering up through Chapter 12.



I could talk about it for ages, but I'll just leave it there for now and encourage you to give it a look, if it seems relevant to your interests. If you want to know a bit more about it, here's a glowing review with some sample panels, and here's an interview with E.K. Weaver.

Um, in summary: ♥ _________ ♥

Comments

[thefourthvine]

Oh, man, I discovered this a few weeks back and read through it alllll, and then forced several other people to read it, because I HAD TO.

It's the greatest.

[dorinda]

I was re-reading bits last night after posting this, and oh, brother, the entire dialogue-less chapter? The bit where TJ is going to relax like a kitty in a sunbeam, and there's that scritching that's a joke up until it suddenly isn't? TJ's response after Amal reacts to his "decorations"? SO GOOD.

[thefourthvine]

You left this just so I'd get sucked back into the TJ and Amal vortex, didn't you? I DON'T HAVE TIME TO READ THIS. I HAVE VVC PANIC TO DO!

But TJ and Amal, though...

[msmoat]

Wow. I just...yeah, I just spent my evening totally not doing what I thought I would be doing. *g* Thank you! This is completely addictive, isn't it? Oh, dear....

[dorinda]

I'm glad, but I'm sorry! *g* I never want to take time away from your Big Bang! But that's how it affected me too, I kind of fell in and didn't surface until much much later.

[mlyn]

Is it canonically slashy, or fanonically? *Makin' words up*

[dorinda]

Oh, man, canonnnnnnically. With a capital can.

[marycrawford]

OOoooOOo yay you posted!!

I had the entirely inexplicable urge to re-read the whole thing yesterday, and. Yowza. That one dialogue-less page with the little kid walking by outside?

Yeah, I COMPLETELY missed the point of that when I first read it. It's almost embarrassing. And now that I did get it, I cracked the hell up. <3

[dorinda]

Inexplicable, I tell you! :D

Hee, yeah...it's one of the many aspects I love about this comic, in fact, the way she leaves some things for the reader to connect or decipher. It feels good to me, to be doing a little bit of the work in the story (paging Mary Renault... although of course MR could veer much much more toward the Extremely Opaque side of this issue), and things like that also add to my pleasure in re-reading. There's always plenty to go back for; it's not wrung dry the first time through.

(I discovered yesterday that the tjandamal.com website is blocked at my workplace. SIGH. No lunchtime re-reading for me!)