Somewhere inside Jay Naylor’s Better Days are, well, better days- or at least a more enjoyable comic strip about a young cat growing up in 1980s Georgia. Unfortunately, it’s buried underneath a mound of unpleasant elements, including but not limited to some unneeded attempts at being edgy and shocking, some sexist overtones and constantly out-of-nowhere preaching.
Fisk Black, our feline front man, is obviously the voice and muse of Naylor, though I imagine he’s also an exaggeration. He sort of reminds me of a more objectivist-leaning Huey Freeman from Aaron McGruder’s Boondocks, another over-the-top author avatar with character flaws. Writing this review, in the interest of fairness I admit I took some time to ask myself if my issues with Days were partially influenced by my disagreements with the viewpoints being expressed. Would I feel the same way if its agenda were more progressive minded? It turned out I probably would.
Black’s surly attitude and impulsiveness lead him into a variety of misadventures, including accidently sending his sister Lucy to the hospital after giving her the wrong medication, an encounter with a hyena girl seguing into a manhunt for her terrorist father, and perhaps most notably, as pictured above, his snarky attitude landing him into hot water with his teachers and principal. One starts to think his surname is pretty appropriate given the bad luck his presence brings other characters. When Longfellow makes unwanted advancements on his mother Shelia, Fisk winds up cracking his jaw with a baseball bat and is then sent to counseling. His sessions show him to be insufferably precocious and blunt, with a might-makes-right mentality that carries well over into his adult life as a US marine.
Days is especially infamous for the nature of its relationship between Fisk and the equally as sassy but more flighty Lucy. After she gets dumped by a sleazy teen stud, she looks to Fisk for emotional support, which causes sparks to fly between then. Even if this were better written, an incest subplot would still obviously be a huge gamble. Alas, this felt really forced. The kitten siblings don’t seem to be especially stunned by their attraction, and surprisingly angst about it very little. It doesn’t do much to define them as people or add anything to their story arcs, and as a result it’s even more gross and off putting.
When the cast reaches college age and Fisk hooks up with the artistic minded Beth, romantic intrigue is added to our soap opera. Unfortunately, there’s a heavy sense of chauvinism within the comic that keeps it from gaining any sort of traction. There are frequent jokes about bimboish and skanky women, topped off by Naylor’s insistence on bombarding the reader with constant fanservicey ass/boob shots and every other female character looking like a stripper or porn star. And yep, some of them actually are strippers and porn stars so I guess when there’s smoke, there’s fire.
The frequent moralizing and rants from the cast don’t help matters either, as we get at least one or two epiphany speeches per story arc. It got to the point where I began to wonder if this was a web comic or storyboards for a Tyler Perry movie with talking animals. Worse, the author is most definitely on board here and he’s got a lot to say. I never got the sense that these were the words of characters as individuals with minds of their own- at some point, someone will suddenly become possessed by the spirit of Naylor and how he sees the world, Fisk being his most frequent vessel.
Icky subject matter aside, Naylor’s art is pretty solid for the most part. His style is very clean and anime influenced with strong proportions, and his use of expressions, while they always remain very angular looking, improve as the comic goes on. However, unless you’re into furry girls (or you just value your eyeballs, the babyish look of the characters combined with their anatomy was very unsettling to me) I wouldn’t go looking for his extremely NSFW art outside the comic.
To give credit where I think it’s earned, Naylor knows how to generate a good sense of drama and occasionally there was a funny gag or two. But sadly, Better Days can’t get past its many and increasingly bothersome fetishes, nor its inflated sense of self importance to tell its story (or what there is of one). I get the feeling in the hands of someone else, the subject matter here could be executed in a much more entertaining fashion. But as it is, I’ve gotta call this one a definite skip. If you enjoy conservatism and creepy cheesecake though, go ahead and click these highlighted letters.