Geeks Next Door is an exaggerated semi-autobiographic comic featuring four main characters. They are each very individual, with geekish likes and dislikes. Two are engaged, one is family and the other is a close friend whose parents prepaid five years of rent. That gives a decent mix of interactions for themes and storylines to work from. The gags are the sorts of things that happen in daily life if you’re a geek.

The strip is sometimes colored with interesting textures in the backgrounds. Sometimes it is in black and white with tones. Usually, Geeks Next Door comes in the regular three panel flavor but sometimes changes to full page or something in between. These changes let the stories be told at varying paces or with different amounts of buildup before the joke.

One really unusual thing is that (in the color parts) the word balloons have no contour lines and are colored according to the character’s clothing. It lets the artist do some fun things with dialogue since you can dispense with the balloon tails if there’s no space. Some characters need not even be shown - they can be off screen and you still know who is speaking. That’s a neat trick. Usually, the color of the speech balloon matches the color of the character’s clothes.

I kind of find myself being a little picky about it, though. I seem to want each main character to have their own color and stick to it. Of course, to do things that way would be somewhat limiting and potentially problematic down the road. It’s probably better to match balloon color to clothing color and let it go at that. Reviewers always think they know better, huh?

Needless kibbitzing aside, these characters and storylines are truly geek. Geeks Next Door is aptly named and pretty entertaining. They really could be those kinda wierd artsy cosplayers next door. It’s kind of fun to peek into these characters lives and get to know them. Right now, for instance, they are getting married. You’ll like Geeks if you like comics that feature gags, geeks and general, everyday situations.

Rating:

Geeks Next Door
by Jessi Bavolack and Matt Pascal
http://www.geeksnextcomic.com/
review by Delos Woodruff
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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