Oh boy, I finally get to talk about one of my favorite webcomics! Last week, I described a common motif in webcomics featuring transgender protagonists. I think the parallels between Assigned Male and Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls were a bit discouraging. The two webcomics lacked a plot, featured two-dimensional characters, and didn’t focus on humor either. Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick’s 2010 webcomic Rain is quite different in that regard.
Rain (or Rain LGBT, as it is featured on SmackJeeves) tells the story of Rain and her group of LGBT friends. It’s highly character-driven, with affection and elation being alternated with hatred and misjudgments. Rain and her friends are 17-year old high school students in an at least somewhat religious area. Her parents don’t allow the aptly-named Maria to wear revealing clothing, the school disapproves of “gaiety” presented by her brother Rudy, and protagonist Rain risks everything if the wrong people find out she is trans.
However, what should be kept in mind is how young these characters are. Though they understand themselves well, the characters are still exploring themselves and expanding their own beliefs. The characters make mistakes ranging from slip-of-the-mouths to reckless choices. Gender-fluid character Kylie finds herself slowly comes to figure himself out and construct a personal identity. Much of the power of Rain is in watching these characters grow up.
There are also outside “threats”, however. Early examples are presented in Rain having to come out to her childhood friend Gavin, who doesn’t quite comprehend the concept at first. One of the interesting aspects about this is watching the audience move from hating Gavin’s guts to coming to love the character. More complex discord is displayed when Rain has to deal with her family, or when Rain’s loving aunt tries to date. Rain has a large cast of characters, by the way, and all have personal relations with one another that range from unconditional love to aggressive resentment.
Interestingly, DiDomenick likes to play around with some (blatant) symbolism, constructing an entire story-within-a-story (inspired by Breath of Fire?) intended to reflect the characters and their dispositions. None of it is abstract, though you are allowed to read as much into the canon as you like. Understanding the characters is key in understanding the appeal of Rain.
This wouldn’t be a proper review if I didn’t mention the artwork, and that featured in Rain is of pretty low quality. You don’t read the webcomic for its visuals. DiDomenick drew the first two volumes of Rain with this fuzzy brush that I personally really dislike, though the outlines get smoothed out later-on. She depicts backgrounds as blank voids of solid color, and in the world of Rain, cars randomly become invisible unless it’s an establishing shot. But it works. Because of the flat colors and simple linework, every page is highly readable and it is easy to follow. The artstyle is incredibly consistent as well, with a bit of steady improvement. I don’t believe the simplistic art ruins the story, and the power of webcomics is that the medium allows comics that would never have had a chance in traditional publication to see light-of-day in print.
I hope that, through this (admittedly awfully one-sided) review, I’ve been able to explain why I put Rain on such high esteem. The reason I love Rain is because its story and characters allow you to look at the world through lenses provided by the fiction. Not everything presented in Rain may be entirely realistic, but it doesn’t have to be. If anything, unlike webcomics such as Assigned Male and Nightmare Girls, Rain actually shows that acceptance and love are the most powerful things you can give to a person, and I suppose I’ve always had a weak spot for that kind of stuff.
…(So much for “updates on Sundays”, grumble grumble)
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