#421 – the brownout biscuit

I'm back from travel! The back pages will get updated with commentary shortly. This storyline remains one of my favorites. It won an Ignatz award in its print form a few years later, and I think it's a genuine turning point for the series. It's Mar's real breakaway from prop punching bag, and a bit of a heel turn for Hanna. The biscuit device was compared at the time to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I admit has sat in the back of my brain since the early 2000s. But the dilemma is from the point of view of a third party, who has mostly imagined her own role in the breakup.

9 thoughts on “#421 – the brownout biscuit

  1. I never understood Hanna's original motivation to be this way with her friends. Was it from being an only child? Were her parents similarly over-involved in their friends' lives? Did her happiness with Marek make her regularly sought out as a source of guidance and wisdom by her friends to the point where she internalized it?

  2. Personally, I wish you'd just postpone posting the comics 'till you had the commentary ready. Now I have to keep checking the previous ones to see if the comments have appeared yet :/

    And that's such a draaaaaaaag 😛

  3. "You do want to, don't you" should be the motto emblazoned across the fake heraldic shield on the family of all toxic friends…

    1. I was going to say, given that Hannah knows about the Eve/Will Valentine's Day stuff (and given that Eve doesn't know she knows), those last two panels are more than "a bit of a heel turn." This is straight-up emotional manipulation.

      1. Wait, when was it established that Hannah knew?

  4. I have always feel so terrible for Marigold. u_____u

  5. "well sure i took my mom to buy that stupid laptop" is up there for best throwaway joke of all time

  6. Somehow I don't see Hannah as a villainous character, even though she did become an antagonist to Marigold. Not even Hannah gives herself that much credit though.

  7. Lots of people came down hard on Hanna. It seems kind of silly to suggest that Hanna “ruffied” Marigold with cinnamon and vinyl (or cassette tape?) and horny goat weed.

    While Marigold is the one changing in every photo of her previous relationship, Hanna doesn’t. In this page, Hanna’s the one who’s stuck thinking of that one time in the past when she thought Marigold might’ve done something violent to herself. It’s a possibility that’s described only as something that was worried about in that much earlier relationship, yet Hanna is still pulling out that brownout biscuit every time Marigold ends a relationship. So perhaps it’s Hanna that’s not learning because she’s so traumatized about Marigold’s past that she keeps reliving that moment. And perhaps it’s that moment that birthed Hanna’s manipulative ways: the realization that the pain of others is unbearable to her.

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