Keeping Two

Crane does a lot of formally interesting things with comics here. I especially like the unclear manner in which the story is told, which mirrors the doubt/uncertainty the characters are experiencing. Page layouts and panel borders are used to create confusion, but in a way that also clearly tells the story. Unfortunately, I wasn't terribly interested in the characters or the story told within this book.

One aspect I did find interesting was the way Crane frames the way people interpret things. At one point, the two main characters are arguing about whether or not a book ends with the death of the main characters:

A: “It was awful and miserable...They die at the end.”
B: “At the end they're alive...if they drown, that's because you are drowning them.”

As someone who often finds hopeful, humanistic messages in endings that many people would call a ‘downer,' I appreciate the way Crane points out how the same text can be read very differently by different people. People fill in the gaps of their knowledge with their own experiences.