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Rating: 
Summary: A must-read for any SIP fan!
Review: I thought this book was a great addition to the Strangers in Paradise series. It gives a lot more insight into the characters of Francine and Katchoo, and it lets us learn more about the events that led Katchoo to run away. I like how it starts out, showing the parallel between Katchoo and Francine's lives. This book is like a prequel to the other ones in the series. The Princess Warrior comic at the end is a funny, light-hearted comic putting the characters in a different setting. This is a great book, and even if you've never read a Strangers in Paradise comic before, you should try this one. I would recommend any of the SIP books to anyone. If you have read any SIP books before and enjoyed them, you will like this one as well. Even if you're not a comics fan, there's a good chance you'll find something you like about Strangers in Paradise.
Rating:
Summary: Ah, high school.
Review: Strangers in Paradise: Volume 6: High School is the next trade paperback collection in Terry Moore's comic series about Francine Peters and Katina (Katchoo) Choovanksi. This book collects the following issues: Volume 3, Issue 13: Prosody; Volume 3, Issue 14: Passion Cry; Volume 3, Issue 15: Cowboys and Cowgirls; and the inexplicable Volume 3, Issue 16: Princess Warrior.Francine and Katchoo have always been a study in contrasts. Francine is soft, chubby, and flighty, prone to fits of giddiness and a constant worrier. Katchoo is hard, lean, and dangerous, prone to fits of violence, and constantly vigilant. That these two should be best friends baffles, until you delve into their high school years. Does anyone remember high school fondly? At least, anyone real? The jocks and the cheerleaders may remember riding high, but for the rest of us, high school was one long unending study in awkwardness, humiliation, and inadequacy. The same holds true for Francine and Katchoo, though in wildly different ways. For Francine, torture came in the forms of being a klutz, always being the odd one out, being the starry-eyed romantic when she's just a chubby girl on the fringe. Francine has a family who loves her, a mother who feeds her whenever something goes wrong, a father who spends an awful lot of time at the office, and a brother more interested in college life than his little sister. Katchoo, on the other hand, is a self-declared outcast. She smokes, she rides a motorcycle, she is just as likely to punch you as to acknowledge you, and generally has no use for the people serving the same four-year term at puncture high. But where Francine's family provides (in their own way) comfort when the chips are down, Katchoo's family is likely to be the reason the chips are down. Maybe it's not so surprising that these two girls find one another, and take solace in beig outcasts together. It's interesting to finally see in print some of the things that have been referred to in passing in the earlier issues of Strangers in Paradise. It seems that we well and truly can't escape our pasts (which all good SiP readers should know by now, anyway). And, you get to see Francine as Xena, and Katchoo as the sidekick (don't tell her that). Another winner from Terry Moore!
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