Retro Review

A retcon is a change to the continuity of a story that goes into effect retroactively - not only does the change in the status quo affect the story from then on, but it also establishes that things have always been this way, and any older stories that contradict this reality should be ignored or adapted to fit. It is a practice that DC and Marvel engage in regularly, much to the irritation of plot- and continuity-obsessed readers. However, it is not only the Big Two who change established continuity: it can happen in long-running independent entirely creator-owned series like Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, which ended in 2007, at its heart, it is the story of a group of people and how true love, truth and lies, and lust and obsession affect their lives. Initially, the focus is on the love between three characters: Francine, Katchoo, and David. However, as the series progressed and more characters gained voices and importance, the story developed to accommodate them. It is a good comic with many powerful and emotional moments, and with some excellent fully realized characters, and there are parts where the story, art and dialog shine. It has its weaknesses: the mafia-style Big Six organization’s story requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and distracts from the starker and more interesting reality of the main story; and the series arguably goes on for too long, leaving it sagging in the middle. That said, I still highly recommend it, especially the first few volumes, and especially to first-time comic readers.

However, despite being the vision of one writer, there is one glaring inconsistency that makes it difficult to read through the whole series and completely get lost in the world he created.

(The rest of this post contains plot spoilers for Strangers in Paradise.)

At the beginning of the third volume of the series, we are given a vision of the future that is in store for Francine, Katchoo and David. Francine is unhappily married, dying inside; Katchoo is alone, successful but not content; and David is gone, fate unknown. Francine and Katchoo have not spoken to each other for 10 years. Francine lives with her little girl and her mother, who worries about Francine constantly. Casey and Freddie are also mentioned - still married, still shallow, still not understanding the special bond that Francine and Katchoo could have shared, but apparently did not.

The couple of issues are very powerful, and include some of the best scenes of the whole series. However, they also apparently proved problematic from the writer’s point of view. Having so clearly shown the future, Terry Moore was trapped into either building towards it, and thus giving Francine and Katchoo a situation that would drive them apart for ten years, and keeping Casey as an unlikeable air-headed character, or changing it. By his own admission, he is a character-driven writer, not a plot-driven writer, so he chose to change it, coming in for considerable criticism. By the end of the series, the events of “Ten Years Later” can never come to pass, unless half the cast gets amnesia. There is no ten-year gap in Francine and Katchoo’s friendship, and the other characters (David, Casey, Freddie, and Francine’s mother) end up in slightly or completely different circumstances.

Is it really a retcon when you change a story so that the shown future events can never come to pass? I believe it is. As the reader, you see this future as now, and everything else as flashback. For some time, the story hangs on the sense of dread inherent in knowing that the characters have such pain ahead of them. Then, the story that has been building up to this ten years of loneliness takes a sharp turn, and a new ending is chosen.

Why did Terry Moore choose to ignore what he had written? The original future would have been an emotionally strong ending with a lot of potential for a great reconciliation, but perhaps he felt it was unsatisfying or left too many characters undeveloped. In interviews, he states that character development was the driving force in the story. Keeping that ending would have meant styming the development of several characters. Furthermore, the ending for David would have been far less emotional than the one we got: the suggestion is given that Katchoo and David drifted apart before anything else happened to him, and that would hardly have been as satisfactory as how their story ends in the “new reality”.

Does this retcon work? Unfortunately, I can’t whole-heartedly say it does. If you read the series through, it is very jarring. There is no way to explain the change. You just have to ignore those scenes. If you are counting on seeing them realized, you will probably be disappointed, especially since the bittersweet ending you could have gotten is traded for a much sweeter and happier one for most of the characters. There are many great issues set in the “new reality”, but there’s still a sense of “why was I shown that future if it didn’t mean anything?”.

On the other hand, this is Terry Moore’s comic book, and Terry Moore’s story to tell. If it was a movie or novel, not a comic series released piece by piece, we’d never have known that any part of it changed along the way: it would have been complete before publication. Terry Moore decided he could tell a better story by dropping this constraining future, and we as readers can either go along for the ride, or choose not to. I feel that we get a good enough story despite the retcon being so glaring, so while the retcon doesn’t sit well, it is possible to get past it and still enjoy one of the more interesting independent books ever released.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS