www.strangertwostranger.tumblr.com
$2
Hendricks states that this is his first attempt to create and self-publish comics, having discovered them in his late 30’s. He began as a photojournalist, picked up sketching and drawing, and now offers this visual representation of real-life Craigslist “Missed Connections” from Chicago, Detroit, New York, and San Francisco. The project reminded me a bit of a low-fi version of Ellen Forney’s terrific book “Lust” published by Fantagraphics, which depicted online personal ads. The pieces here range from sweet to strange, but they’re always interesting. We get short bursts of entertainment about making friends on a bus, reading people at Starbucks, waking up with a thong on your floor and then piecing clues together to inform your recollection of the night before, some prison “buddies,” etc. This isn’t autobiographical, more biographical I suppose, but like good autobio comics, the observations catalogued here provide commentary about daily life, which illuminates the universal human condition, ideally causing us to consider our own actions in introspective fashion. Stranger Two Stranger is well-drawn, and an old-school, made-it-at-Kinko’s, honest-to-goodness, hand-stapled, DIY mini-comic. It’s a fun first effort that succeeds. Grade A-.
