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- home - REVIEW
THE NORM - Michael Jantze
main characters: Norm, his wife Reine, Ford (Norm's good friend), Will (the intern)
appears daily - in English only
When Bill Waterson retired his comic Calvin & Hobbes, in some newspapers this comic, The Norm, took over. Jantze even turned his comic strip into a Waterson tribute for a week, in which he semi-avoided the cold-turkey switch people would otherwise have had to make from one legendarily cool comic to a new, equally cool but a lot less well-known comic. He did this well - IMHO.
And his comic is a worthy successor to Waterson's, to be honest - but enough about the guy who brought us The Boy With The Stuffed Tiger, on to The Norm. That's which review you're reading now, so that's what I'll write about.
The Norm is about a guy called Norm who looks at the world and is amazed by it - and not always in a positive way. If I lay it out like that, it sounds like hundreds of other (daily) comics about grown men, for grown men. And in that sense, it *is* another (daily) comic about a grown man, for grown men. But it's a lot more.
It's incredibly more insightful and witty than most, the style is very catchy, and it has that one thing that made - to bring it up once more - a comic like Calvin & Hobbes a hit: it simply just appeals hugely. That's something that can't be taught or learnt in any school, and to keep that going in a comic is proof of mastership.
The Norm is a great comic, and you should read it. At the least, you can subscribe to have it sent to you through e-mail if you're too lazy to click the damn link or type the URL daily.
Click here to read "The Norm" for yourself
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