When Chloe receives a message from her mother from beyond the grave, she is determined to abide by her wishes and make her proud. How hard can the task be? It turns out, very, when the task at hand is to find her sister’s soulmate. This is the premise of Lady Fixie by Metias Gray, one of the fantastic comics to debut at the ShortBox Comics Fair. With the help of their not-so-dearly departed mother, Chloe and sister Fixie are determined to find Fixie’s one true love. But the course of true love never did run smooth…
On the dawning of Fixie’s twenty-first birthday, sister Chloe was tasked with a message from beyond; to find eight suitors, one of whom would become Fixie’s soulmate. Thus, the year of romance began. It didn’t get off to the best start; some suitors were too boring, some too serious or too demeaning, and some not attracted to women! Fixie had all but given up, with her final hopes and dreams resting on her eighth suitor, the elusive Javier. Colour her surprised when, expecting handsome Javier, his sister Natalis is sent in his place. Contrasting with Fixie’s white, prim and proper world, Natalis is dark, bold and exciting, and Fixie must admit; she’s intrigued. Maybe there was a reason that none of her male suitors were able to claim her heart?
The presence of enigmatic Natalis ignites something in Fixie, as she begins to question the rules she has always abided by; what if Chloe is lying about their mother’s instructions? Why can’t she think for herself and pave her own way? As the narrative goes on, it becomes clearer that this isn’t a romance story, and instead, one about the love, hurt and unbreakable bond between two sisters. For so long Fixie and Chloe have abided by their mother’s authoritative voice, never stopping to examine their own complicated feelings and emotions. However, as their mother’s voice grows louder and the sister’s true feelings about each other come to light, they are finally forced to confront their demons.
With strokes of horror, comedy and drama, Lady Fixie made an exhilarating read. From the otherworldly, controlling and frankly quite sinister presence of Mama, to the deep bond between the two sisters to the charmingly bumbling Alexander (Fixie’s suitor turned gay best friend), Lady Fixie exuded charm from every carefully constructed page. The setting was fantastic, focusing on the debutantes and upper-class of the Regency era, evident in the sister’s lavish dresses and extravagant home décor, which were sketched in beautiful detail.
Most of the characters were drawn as different species of animals; Lady Fixie as a duck, Chloe as a deer, etc., which was in parts charming, and in others, horrifying, particularly in the panels in which Chloe loses control, giving in to her animal instincts and reverting to a primitive deer. While the comic is completely black and white, shades are used cleverly for emphasis; Fixie’s world is very bare, white and proper when she feels safe, but there are shadows and darkness when her world is turned upside down, and she begins to question what she’s always believed to be true.
Lady Fixie is available to purchase digitally for the month of October from ShortBox Comics Fair.
Metias Gray (W/A), ShortBox Digital Comics Fair, £8.00
Review by Lydia Turner
