What is Gilda And Meek about?
It's about several things at once. It's a story of a Lucky Universe in a Multiverse teeming with Unlucky Ones and how our hero navigates that to her own advantage. It's a funny animal book that bit by bit reveals a huge fantasy and science fiction underpinning, much like Bone. It starts off as an erstwhile comedy until you realize it's actually been a drama the entire time. It's a story that after you read all 90 issues, you'll want to reread them again, as the best reading of The Un-Iverse isn't the first, it's the second. It's a bunch of random and seemingly unrelated characters and stories building and crossing over until they collide in an epic 19-part finale. It's about the antagonistic and loving relationship between the hero Gilda and the kid who looks up to her, Bernadette, and how their feelings for each other prove there is no wrong way to love a person. It's a political satire parodying the ridiculousness of the age we live in made more ridiculous by the fact that real life is crazier than my story's outlandish examples. It's about the fact that evil is uncool and mundane, and it's neat to have heroes to like and root for, and where the heroes are more interesting than the villains. It's about a strong female hero whose gender is irrelevant to the story at hand and is merely a strong hero who happens to be a female. It's about all of these things and none of them at the same time. Mostly, it's a way for me to work through my psychological crap. Which is what I think most writing boils down to for people.
Check it out.
In the final issue of Book One, the Piranha returns home (in a rather anticlimactic fashion) as the heroes and Gabrielle are desperately forced into attacking Augatha's Fortress on Mount Crushmore head-on before they ever planned or wanted to. But their survival takes a backseat to their shock (and cynical delight) at revelations and dirty, embarrassing secrets from Gabrielle's past nobody ever suspected.
In the meantime, meet Augatha's second in command, Tork, for the first (last?) time, and see her come face-to-face with the Conduit!
A lot of questions are answered in the final Gilda And Meek issue for awhile, and a bunch of new ones are raised in the meantime! Can the Piranha repair his relationship with Dr. Raggleworth? Can Gilda put aside her rage and work with Gabrielle for the common good? And will Augatha's nasty head-fakes on an increasingly confused and frustrated Gabrielle actually WORK, since her arguments are actually TRUE?
Plus Bernadette confronts Augatha for the very first time! It goes about exactly as you'd predict.
All this, and we also finally learn once and for all the secret reason Gilda is cool! (That last bit still cracks me up.)