3 out of 5

‘Miriam,’ the title said, and then was often about Pete, Miriam’s friend… and on whom she so generically has a crush.

This is slice-of-life, done up in Tommaso’s flat and friendly style, though he’s toned down a lot of his stylization to really sell the everyday nature of these short tales, which mostly cover class-by-class snippets from one particular school day. Miriam is a cartoonish; Pete is a film kid, who’s all set to interview a guy who once worked with Roger Corman. (Just to set some frame of reference for how ‘cool’ the book is.) Pete’s also a bit of a player, so we hear from Miriam, grousing over how he’s been working through her friends…

And because it’s slice-of-life, that’s pretty much it. There are no conclusions, no real ‘point,’ and at only one issue, not quite enough for us to empathize with anyone. The text feels somewhat problematic for the way it hangs Miriam on Pete, and given that this ‘Issue #1’ eventually became part of a book called Pete & Miriam, perhaps Tommaso realized that was a problem as well.

It’s pleasant enough, though, with its meandering Ghost World vibe tolerable precisely because of its shorter format, and the Alternative Comics over-sized color printing is quite wonderful indeed, with a cover that suggests / promised more interesting stuff for Miriam to eventually get up to…