This is less like a comic book and more like a comic KIT. It's four, four, four books in one: three volumes of the tale, compiling all of the MYSTERY DATE stories that appeared in-and-outside the regular FINDER series, as well as a complete set of annotated notes.
If Western comics read left to right and Eastern comics read right to left, MYSTERY DATE reads like a shotgun blast. Okay, it actually reads left to right, but then there's the switching back and forth to check out the footnotes -- it's like an erector set in your skull. The story builds up and out at the same time. Mind you, you don't need to read the footnotes -- the story makes perfect sense without them, but once you discover them, you won't be able to read another panel without flipping to see if there's a note.
Speaking of story: Vary is a college girl like any other coed studying to be a prostitute whose best mate is an anthropomorphic Pomeranian in bondage gear. She has crushes on two of her professors, one of whom looks like a velociraptor. The other one may or may not be blind, has written three books that he forbids his students to read and has mechanical ostrich legs.
What else do you need to know?
Kelly Sue DeConnick relocated from Brooklyn, New York to Kansas City, MO, where she lives with her husband and artbomb.net colleague, Matt Fraction. Kelly Sue writes the English adaptations of several manga titles published by Tokyopop and Viz. She can be found on the web at kellysue.com.
