Brush and Pen reviewed by Breakdowns

Breakdowns.
Reviewed by Christopher Allen.
Brush and Pen by Shannon Smith is a minicomic about Click the Ballpoint Pen and his wife, an unnamed brush. We see Clicky bemoan his short life, financial pressures and other woes to his philandering buddy Q, the Quill Pen. He gets home and the wife gives him a hard time, taking out her cabin fever on him. Smith has a very modest story to tell here, but it is a story, and though he doesn’t do a very good job of making this world seem real (pens work as they work for us in our world, but somehow they also live in a city, have homes, bills, etc., his dialogue is pretty amusing once the double-entendres start coming—something I can appreciate. This leads logically, yet still surprisingly, to a classy but impassioned love scene for the couple. It’s silly but romantic and bound to make you smile. One problem, though—drawing Pen in pen and Brush with brush is a good idea on, um, paper, but it unfortunately makes Pen look thin and flat as a character.