ooh, matters of viewpoint and protagonist are so complicated in graphic narrative! at the same time, i think everyone missed hopey when she and maggie separated for a while -- well, every time they separate, since they've done it more than once. hopey is absolutely essential; even when she's not on stage (maybe especially then), everyone thinks and talks about her. i see her as a catalyzing agent (usually unaware of it), and very often an object of desire (that adventure of hers on the east coast with all the fashionable dykey girls subtly battling over her was a fascinating example).

but that said, i do feel like it's only relatively recently that we have been getting a lot of story time in which it's hopey's perspective, hopey's emotional state, and hopey's uncertainties that anchor and pull the story.

i feel like i remember having read an interview with jaime somewhere, in which he talked about how -- at least early on -- hopey sort of represented that impossibly cool person, who everyone always wants to be around... but she's _impossibly_ cool, and perfect, or almost. (of course part of what's so interesting about jaime's representation of her is that it's a profoundly unusual kind of cool, and an unusual object of desire, to see represented in media. mainstream media never represents girls that way, although of course within subcultures, girls like this exist. this is part of what i think makes jaime's punk project, and just jaime generally, so awesome.)

but now the story is changing, and i like that.

annyway! where does your strangely beautiful icon come from?