3 out of 5

Yer pushin’ it, O’Malley.  This was really close to two stars.  AND YOUR FANBASE WOULD INSTANTLY TANK IF THAT HAPPENED, MARK MY POSTED WORDS.  ULTIMATE POWER HAVETH I something something so I’m going to try to keep this brief, because there really isn’t all that much to ‘Seconds.’

…But let’s step back a moment.  I haven’t read ‘Lost at Sea,’ O’Malley’s pre-Pilgrim book.  I’d intended to for quite some time, though something about the cover made me think it’d be a tad too indie weepy boy, and now with ‘Seconds,’ I’m more convinced that’ll be the case.  And I will review Pilgrim, probably book by book, but my recollection of it at the moment is tied to my last reading from several years back: a girlfriend got me hooked when, I believe, books 1 through 5 were available, and then I was caught up by when book 6 came out.  I definitely read books 1 through 3 (loaned from her) without pause, but there would’ve been a break while I purchased books 4 and 5 on my own (*cough* post breakup).  This is important… because Pilgrim… sort of tanks at the end.  The movie, I felt, wrapped things up much more effectively whereas O’Malley’s conclusion (though eff me I can’t remember it right now, so my argument is all without weight weeee), whereas the book made it all feel slightly trite, with Bry trying to weasel out of that by pointing a finger at it and cheekily declaring that it’s trite.  Which he does in ‘Seconds’ as well.  But the experience of SP is still worth it because of the extensiveness of the character study: six couple-hundred paged books concerning the dating travails of one man, whom, love Scott or hate him, there’s a guy or girl in that mix for whom / with whom you feel a pang of something because you’ve been there.  Swirled with all the geeky pop-cultureness of the book, I found it irresistibly charming… against all the internal nagging that it was just crowd-pleasing.  But again, it worked because you trekked it out over several years with O’Malley; our lives are trite and we do attempt to crowd-please, but when boil it down to one read, or one graphic novel – a la ‘Seconds’ – instead of a journey that in part might reflect our own, you get a rom-com.

In ‘Seconds,’ Kate is waiting at her days as the featured chef at a restaurant (named the same as the title) before the construction of her own restaurant –  her dream – is completed.  But construction is dragging, and Kate is plagued with doubts as to whether it’s the right location, or the right choice, or whether she should’ve broken it off with hottie ex-boyfriend Max, who keeps dropping into Seconds, or whether she should never have started up a fling with her protege chef…  And then one day, Kate discovers some magic mushrooms with a little book and a note, telling her to write down a mistake, eat a mushroom, go to sleep, and when she awakens, the mistake will be no more…  This is really only meant to be a one-time thing, but of course Kate abuses it, rewriting her past one mistake at a time, and surely you can see the “things are the way they are for a reason” lesson coming a million miles away.  So can O’Malley, and he keeps trying to wink at us about it through a cheeky VO narration from Kate.  To his credit, Bry weaves some extras in there – a nice subplot with a surprising friendship that forms at the restaurant; house spirits; and some quirky “rules” regarding the mistake-rewriting that I can sort of amusingly see as having been written in after the fact in order to keep the story focused on present day – but on the whole, there’s really nothing ‘fresh’ to the story itself.  Even some cryptic imagery is pretty easy to decipher for anyone who’s taken a trip through a comic book or two.

However, as was the case with Pilgrim, O’Malley’s saving grace is his enthusiasm in his presentation: we’re even more anime than Pilgrim here, but Bry’s strength in showing a wide range of recognizable emotions with simple lines is charming, and he again masterfully manipulates the open space on the pages to pace his dialogue and action well.  And, as with Pilgrim, you recognize these people, and, yes, there’s no way to not think of your own mistakes whilst Kate agonizes over hers (however you deal with them), making the tale fully accessible.  Both traits of a good rom-com: connection with the audience, and making the material, y’know, entertaining.  It lacks the scope of Pilgrim, and the surreality of the video game influence, but if this was 7 books of Kate and it had Mario Bros. references (besides the mushroom, if you think that counts), we’d say O’Malley was washed up.

Dot dot dot, last notes: wonderful hardcover presentation from Ballantine Books, and an excellent red-tinged palette of colors from Nathan Fairbairn.  Pilgrim was in B&W, but even from the covers, you can recognize that this is a separate book, and the colors help capture that.  And like five stars to Nathan Fairbairn for lettering; I was actually surprised O’Malley didn’t letter this, as the appearance of the dialogue and narration is so integral to how the pages feel, it seems impossible to it not have been concocted along with the art.  Meep.

Lastly lastly: this wasn’t brief at all.