Welcome back! Are you ready for your weekly punishment? I’ve got so many wonderful things lined up! Like a punch in the face. A kick in the teeth. The ear-biting-off to end all ear-biting-off-ings. Later, I’ll glare at a puppy. The inHUMANITY.
Actually, none of that’s true. (This week.) But if you thought I was being a bit hostile,** then you’ve just seen me pull the lamest segue ever, once I jump into the tribute review for the recently-ended webcomic Friendly Hostility.
**You really just thought, “Wow, that’s unnecessarily mean,” didn’t you?
Formerly a thrice-weekly strip, Friendly Hostility began on January 8, 2004 and ended on July 25, 2009. It was the brainchild of the wonderfully demented and prolific K. Sandra Fuhr (whose new webcomic gets a mini-writeup at the end of this tribute). Fuhr’s blurb on the front page of the website relates a good sum-up of the overarching plot: “Friendly Hostility is the story of two best friends who happen to be dating each other: Fox, a reporter, and Collin, a megalomaniacal would-be dictator and former kid’s show host.” Oh, but of course there’s so much more than that….
A veritable melting pot of cultures (and species), the cast of Friendly Hostility is almost as varied as the types of plots that came into play during the comic’s five and a half years of service. Just to give you a taste of what could be expected in any given installment, let’s blab a bit on some of the characters, which conveniently doubles as summaries for numerous plots:
Collin Sri’vastra (smirking at right in the above picture) – Intense, mostly-serious, rather antisocial, and a self-professed asexual (in one storyline, though, he has to face up to actually admitting he’s gay to his family, due to the whole, you know, “relationship with Fox” thing). He looks like “such a nice young man,” as the old lady next door would say, but if you drive-by tap his car’s bumper in the parking lot, you’re likely to find the charred remains of your vehicle smoldering on your doorstep the next morning. Incongruously, Collin works for much of the strip as Safari Sam, a children’s show host. Collin’s not-so-secret ambition in life is to overthrow a South American country, preferably Venezuela, and become dictator by age 30. At one point, he decides it’s time to act out his dream and travels to Venezuela, with rather less-than-successful results.
Kailen “Fox” Maharassa – Don’t let that serious expression trick you. Fox is a happy dork who’s mostly content to let life drift by, work the odd reporting gig, and support his boyfriend’s Venezuelan domination schemes (he affectionately calls Collin “Boss”), although he steps up if a big problem needs solving. Near the end of the comic, he convinces Collin to accept that their relationship has gotten a bit rocky, in order to enroll the pair in counseling. Fox doesn’t care if you’re straight, gay, a demon, Nyarlathotep the Crawling Chaos, or a weekend Satanist–as long as you’re a mostly-good person, you’re more than welcome to hang out and drink with him. Just don’t call him Kailen.
The Demon – The 2,783rd child of Lilith, the Demon’s real name can’t be addressed here, as it causes dripping nosebleeds to any mortal who encounters it. Sorry! Despite his demonic background, he’s actually a decent sort of guy. He drinks with Fox and Collin, tries to meet women, and even takes a job as a nurse. He’s more of a moral voice for the comic than most of the non-demonic characters. Even when he recommends interior decorating with dead babies. (I would argue, “ESPECIALLY when he recommends interior decorating with dead babies,” but my lawyers tell me I shouldn’t reveal incriminating evidence about my hobbies.)
Anne “Bootsie” Khoeler – Collin’s “slave,” won in a poker game against her brother (the prize was actually the guy’s kidney, but he didn’t wanna pay up). Renamed “Bootsie” after a cat of Collin’s, Anne is more of a little sister/housekeeper to Fox and Collin. When her “slaving” contract expires, she wants to stick around to take care of the pair, on the condition that Collin gives her a village in the South American country he finally conquers. She grows up from nervous little girl to a bold young woman over the course of Friendly Hostility, tries unsuccessfully to date the Demon, and eventually moves away to college.
Fatima “The Evil Ice Princess from Hell” Maharassa (addressing the “fine art” of stalking above) – Fox’s older sister. It’s not so much that Fatima’s evil. It’s just that she does things her way, only her way, and she has her own unique moral code, which she rigidly adheres to. She sees The World According to Fatima, and scoffs at anyone else’s ideas that things could be done differently. She rejects notions of femininity and beauty, can and likely will kill you with her bare hands, and is easily mistaken for a long-haired, hairy-pitted man (in stark contrast to the soft and cute baby she was at the beginning of the comic). Fatima resents her mother’s embracing of feminine beauty and life as a housewife, and their relationship is strained at best, even after Fatima leaves her family by moving to Alaska. She was also briefly stalked by a woman named Amanda, who eventually ended up launching (unintentionally) into outer space as a result of being impregnated with Fatima’s “volatile Maharassa DNA.” (Did I mention Fatima’s and Fox’s dad is a mad scientist? No? Well.) In one of the more surprising plot developments, Fatima marries a man who saved her from freezing after she lost a fight with an avalanche (while trying to pick a fight with a bear) in Alaska. This becomes a little less surprising when she states she did so because she wants the man’s beautiful house and cat. Fatima’s relationship with her family is accurately summed up and depicted in this strip–they love her, but they also know that she won’t hesitate to sell them all out if it furthers her goals.
….And that’s just for starters. The cast gets even crazier, with characters like Padma and Nefertari “Bunny” Maharassa, the parents of Fox and Fatima. Bunny is a dancer-turned-homemaker, while Padma is the afore-mentioned mad scientist who has NASA on speed-dial. There’s “Uncle Rafi” Ibrafim (also seen in the above linked comic), a family friend who works as a Satanic priest on weekends, where they host a heckuva bake sale. And there’s Kitty, who begins as a fake girlfriend for another character, then becomes a real girlfriend of sorts, then has to share her fake-real boyfriend with another man (makes perfect sense, right?) And it just gets wilder from there.
The art is in a style that’s uniquely Fuhr’s. She’s not afraid to draw characters with realistic body types, which gives them personality, as well as balance to the amusingly unrealistic situations they often end up in. Friendly Hostility actually begins as a side story that takes place years earlier, when Fatima is still a baby. This means that the characters have to age over the course of the comic, and they do so believably–for example, look at this strip, featuring Padma, Bunny, Rafi, and baby Fatima. Compare it to this one, featuring the same characters a few decades later.
The storylines are sometimes just for laughs, but more often show how the various character relationships develop, fall apart, reconcile, and evolve. Also, sometimes ducks explode. It’s not a comic where you can just jump in at the beginning of any given storyline and instantly know what’s going on. That’s the closest thing to a warning I’ve really got here (and it’s stated to tickle your fancy rather than to tell you “watch out so this doesn’t trip you up”). Years of development have gone into the interactions amongst much of the cast. Fuhr includes more than enough variety in this comic that it never gets old or trite. Even the punchlines that have been done many times before in the world of humour manage to fit in here.
Friendly Hostility is actually connected to numerous earlier webcomic works by Fuhr, with characters from this comic appearing in earlier webcomics. Moreover, characters from Friendly Hostility will be appearing in Fuhr’s newest comic, Other People’s Business. But as Friendly Hostility is the first comic of Fuhr’s I read, this is where I’m placing your jumping-off point.
Now for a little blurb about Fuhr’s newest project, Other People’s Business. It only started up once Friendly Hostility was ending its run, so there’s not a lot to tell–perfect for a follow-up recommendation to a big webcomic review, eh?
Other People’s Business is the story of Daniela “Danny” Alvarez, a girl who’s pretty much given up on getting anywhere in life and prefers to drink herself into oblivion. This lofty goal gets shattered when a thief named Hilary literally comes crashing into her life (via the window), and the two end up on the run from a “fake cop,” who appears to have, at the very least, a secret mechanical arm (okay, so it’s tattoos…for now). And that’s about all I can tell you! At only seventeen pages in, catching up on this comic’s archives shouldn’t take you more than a few minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more about this strip here later….
But for now, you won’t be seeing anything else, because I am outski!
