Smile Brush: My Old Pictures - Reviews

Waroo, the patron saint of self-consciousness and social cowardice, gives us a series of autobiographical snippets. There are quite a few stories about romantic run-ins. Interestingly, while Waroo does mention in passing that fe's had at least one girlfriend, fe doesn't provide any details about how that came to be or how long it lasted. Fe focuses more on the failures, as it were--the times when fe didn't recognize that a girl had a crush on fem or the times when fe turned down confessions out of fear and confusion or the times when fe had presumably unreciprocated crushes on girls. Some of these stories sorta felt like humble brags ("I had a bunch of girls interested in me, but I was too inept at social interactions to recognize how much of a chick magnet I am"). There are also quite a few character studies about the outcasts or weirdos fe had encountered as a child, several stories about the various part-time jobs fe's had, stories about guitar-playing as well as feir current job as a comic artist, and finally a handful of stories about some people fe had looked up to or attempted to emulate.

For the first little while, each installment ended with an image of a photograph (still drawn, but more detailed) that was supposed to be the photograph which the story from that installment was centered around. But that shtick was dropped after a while and it just became a series of stories. Throughout the series, though, there was consistency in the contemplative tone and attempts at insightfulness. Fe often ends installments with some light armchair psychoanalysis or life lesson or commentary about the story fe had just told.

The artwork is very basic, but also pretty sweet. The unimportance of certain characters is made obvious by them being drawn as silhouette-y, detail-less figures. And the meaningful, recurring characters are given designs (sometimes very unique designs, like with that one bandmember). It's in full-color. Waroo draws femself being shorter than everyone else (which is ironic since fe's actually probably taller than them in real life) and having lip protrusions like a duck bill. There is an idea brought up several times throughout the series about how someone's self-image or intentions can differ from how others interpret you and your actions. This idea is perhaps best encapsulated within a single image in chapter 26 when Waroo's reflection is shown to be vastly different from the chibi way fe draws femself.