Between Gears, by Natalie Nourigat

 Natalie Nourigat's BETWEEN GEARS was a bit of a surprise: I picked up the book expecting a more "comic-booky" sequential retelling of her final year of College, and instead found what amounted to a daily greatest-hits style illustrated blog. Once I got over that initial bump, I quickly found myself getting drawn into the day-to-day life of Natalie, her Family and friends, and her everyday trials and tribulations. Natalie has an endearing art style, veering between styles as the subject matter calls for, and she shows a great deal of courage by putting her life out there, warts and all. My only beef with BETWEEN GEARS was that it became a little too insiderish at times; There were things and places that she talks about (Such as JET....) that had me stumped. A little background information on some of these things/people/places would have gone a long way towards smoothing out the rough spots, but in her defense, I doubt she thought that her work would be collected by Image Comics in a few years. I also felt that, although I knew there was going to be one page per day for every day of her senior year, the book went on a lot longer than my attention span could tolerate. There are only so many times you can read virtually identical pages of Natalie agonizing over her Thesis. That said, Natalie Nourigat is a talent to watch, and I'm eager to see what she has coming up next.