Strangers in Paradise Book 2: I Dream of You

I have been collecting comics for as long as I can remember, and sometime around the time I hit high school, I lost my interest in comics, believing that they were pretty much all the same. I got tired of the same repeating storylines and lame plots. For some reason, I can't remember, I picked up an issue of Strangers In Paradise, trying to waste some time in a book store, probably. What I had come to discover was a wonderful, touching and suspenseful story that went above and beyond what any other comic besides The Sandman was doing at that time. It made you love, and care for the characters in ways that made them seem real (or made you love them so much that you wish they were real). If you are like I was, tired and put up with the comic book industry, you should pick up this book and fall in love with the people in it the way that everyone who reads it does.

The cover of this book says volume II but in reality storywise THIS is where it all starts. Where the 'real' volume I (named "The Collected") gives you a brief introduction to who the main players and Terry Moore (the creator, both artist and writer) are, here is where the story as we know it today really begins. So see this as volume I and see "The Collected" as a big intro-special because that's basically how it is. The book starts of with some mild-mannered interaction between two of our three main-players, named Katchoo and Francine, who haven't seen each other in years after Katchoo took of all of a sudden and unexplained years ago. So it's all fun and jokes at first. But then it turns out that both girls/women have some skeletons in their closet. Problems and emotions which NEED to be worked out for their relationship to be ever as good between them as in the past. Francine turns out to be an emotional wreck and Katchoo turns out to have got herself in quite some problems in the years she was gone. And all the while this is all going on they're also involved in this sort of love-triangle with the third main player named David, who turns out to be a major factor in the story later on. And that's mainly what this first self-contained volume is all about. I think it's great and for me it was the start of what is up to this day one of my favorite series around. I think everyone who isn't too stuck on just superhero comics has a great opportunity to explore something really good in purchasing this volume. THIS is the essential book for this series. If you like it you're probably hooked. When you don't (which I can hardly imagine, but it happens) this series is not for you.

Watch out with this book, if you read one Strangers in Paradise, you are going to have to read them all. Because the story is so sweet, and you can really get into it. Terry Moore is a great great man for coming up with this comic and continuing it. Thanks.

I just finnished the whole STP series on recomendation from a friend, and I couldn't have been more pleasently surprised. My preconception was "chic comic" but Terry Moore depicts real life people in amazing relationships. The gesture and expression in his drawings bring Kachoo and Francine to life, and wow... Women read up- this ones for you (finnally) and guys, maybe you'll learn something.

Amazing things happen when you read Terry Moore's I Dream of You. It will be something that you can't put away. It will be something that you want to share with your close friend. It will be something that will stay with you.