11.20.25
Creator: Violaine Briat | Published by: Peow Studios 2
Rodney R. Rodney is a cleverly written, horror comedy about your average everyday couple dealing with their very eccentric neighbor, artistically wrapped in a monochromatic blue bow. Formatted similar to your average newspaper strip, the comedic timing leads you into an almost false sense of security and expectation of quippy dialogue and comedic timing only to take you on an overarching emotional roller coaster of a story. The comedy is cleverly written as a thin veil of the horror of how stressful life can be under the surface.
People contain multitudes and eccentric feels like an understatement when we explore the world of this average neighborhood and these multifaceted characters.
Rodney is our star of the show, very unintentionally, as his offputting vibes frame him as an antagonist rather than someone who just wants to be left alone to his own devices. In reality, or at least in my perception, he’s truly just an autistic man who doesn’t really understand social cues all that well. While everyone fears him, he’s just trying to live his best eco-friendly and maybe too modest life. And because of this, we get our deuteragonist, Karen, a woman that’s so petrified of Rodney that it creates a rift in her relationship with her fiance Chad, a man that is truly trying to act as a medium to bring Karen and honestly the neighborhood peace.
It’s both a wonder how Chad gets through all of this (he stress smokes, that man is not getting through all of this healthily) and also endearing that he does try for Rodney. While he sees Rodney as terrifying as well, he can see behind the curtain that Rodney does in fact need someone. And that’s where the world really becomes colorful. Because Rodney does know people and there’s a very cute and funny duality of the two old women that know him well and treat him lovingly vs literally everyone that first meets him and is immediately terrified.
Violane does a wonderful job with these kinds of subtleties because the majority, if not all of them, are seeds planted for a much larger part of the story as a whole. I love the very specific detail that Rodney is so ecofriendly, he goes as far as using Ecosia for all of his searches to plant trees.
Violane has an exceptional understanding of writing characters for laughs while building up their complexity in a short span of time. This occurs in many of the characters, but it’s highlighted in Travis and Travis -- that boy ain’t right (affectionate).
But by god is there a reason for it. But in an effort not to spoil too much, many of the characters outside of Karen and Chad have such peculiar vibes about them that on the surface level can be off putting but ultimately have a way of misleading the reader and the people around the characters in a way that makes this story a fun page turner.
The bonus that I received was after my read through, giving this story to a friend to experience and getting the live reactions, offering me a secondary experience which only brought out more subtleties and themes that I missed or didn’t think twice about during my initial read. Which means, you can read this at minimum twice over and get new things out of it.
All in all, a very good story that you should check out [Here].
See you in the stars 🌟