Review: Girl and Boy / Created by: Andrew Tunney / Available digitally from www.andrewtunney.com
Set in Manchester, England, this creator-owned one shot charts the relationship of two young lovers; one called Girl, the other called Boy. Creator Andrew Tunney describes his work as youth focused and street driven, and those are the exact qualities that elevate Girl and Boy high above the competition, creating something fresh and exciting like you’ve never read before.
Girl and Boy signals the arrival of a Manchester-based comic creator ready to compete at a global level. Andrew Tunney has created a comic that says more in its painfully short 28 pages than many people achieve in a career. Imagine if Jim Mahfood and Joshua Middleton both enlisted at UDON Entertainment and were tasked with reinventing superheroes for the hip-hop generation, Girl and Boy might be the result.
Tunney tells the tale of an effortlessly cool young couple that make the city their playground in a whirlwind of spray-paints, champagne and secret identities. The story is suggested for mature readers and however stylishly the subject is portrayed this is a comic grounded by believable relationships and emotional honesty. Unlike the majority of Marvel and DC’s output Girl and Boy is gender-neutral territory and should appeal to anybody that remembers how it feels to be young and in love (or lust!). My only complaint about this comic is that it feels too brief and fleeting. It tells a complete story and sums up everything that you need to know about Girl and Boy’s world but the standard of work here is on a par with some of the biggest names in the comics industry. I don’t want to wait to see what sort of a career Andrew Tunney makes for himself, I want to head out to a comic store to pick up a stack of his graphic novels.
Head over to Tunney’s website to buy the digital version of Girl and Boy and see for yourself what I’m so excited about. You’ll hate him when it’s over but isn’t that the greatest compliment that we could give?
