Finder: Five Crazy Women

The "aboriginal science fiction" setting of McNeil's long-running serial is a framework for an enormous range of stories, and this eighth collection is romance—from the point of view of the kind of guy who usually leaves women's apartments through the window. Jaeger Ayers is a ritual sin eater for a tribal religion, a hot-looking lowlife from the country on the loose in a big city and a total tomcat. Maybe he brings out the worst kinks, fetishes and neuroses in women, as he describes them in hilarious, R-rated terms to a friend; maybe his experiences with them are just a reflection of his own macho unreliability. The story's got a marvelous, unusual tone—light comedy with flashes of chilling psychological darkness—and McNeil's artwork is a joy, meticulously observing each of her characters' expressions and body language. She packs every panel with details that suggest how her invented culture works, like a professional bathgiver with tiny bars of soap-on-a-rope for earrings. A lot of what McNeil does is world building, fleshing out the ethnography and technology of her imaginary society, but it's a natural extension of her characters' amorous collisions and near-misses. (Aug.)