Peepo Choo 2
Posted: May 6, 2011 Filed under: Peepo Choo Leave a comment »Felipe Smith – Vertical – 2010 – 3 volumes
Hmm… the plot thickens. Some of the blatantly satirical elements from the first volume fall to the wayside as the characters all seem to fall headlong into their fantasy worlds, with varying degrees of success.
As embarrassing as Milton is, it’s nice to see he found a friend in Japan. He’s hard for me to deal with, because on one hand, I don’t want to see his dreams crushed, but on the other hand, his dreams are so crazy that I just want him to shut up and face reality. But these things have to happen slowly, and I thought that Miki and Reiko would do a good job explaining things to him. That situation blew up though, then I felt bad about wanting Milton to accept reality when Jody abused him so harshly when reality hit.
Elsewhere, Morimoto Rockstar’s dreams of being a gangster go on uninterrupted. Mysteriously, reality doesn’t catch up with him, even though he indulges in the same caliber of fantasy life as Milton. The last page suggests that someone more well-acquainted with the lifestyle might be ready to coach him, though.
I do like Reiko, Miki’s friend who is fluent in English. I thought she was a stuck-up pretty girl in volume one that hung around with Miki to make her feel bad, but we learn she’s really self-conscious about her looks, and her attempts to learn conversational English by approaching foreigners has backfired due to her large breasts.
One of the best scenes in the book is from her perspective this time around. She gives a detailed account of just what American men are “really like.” There’s a lot of gold across these three pages, but my favorite panel is one where she suggests that “Americans eat T-bone steaks every single morning before going to work.” with an accompanying image of an enormous, table-sized steak with a man eating it while yelling “Good fucking morning! Fucking breakfast, motherfucker!”
I don’t know, I liked it.
I’m still not entirely sure where this plot is going, or how the various plotlines may or may not intersect, but I’m curious to see how much farther it gets in volume three.
