Local

"Where am I from? All over, really. No place exciting."

—Megan McKeenan, "The Last Lonely Days at the Oxford Theatre"

A 12-part comic series published by Oni starting in 2005 and ending in 2008, Local covered twelve years in the life of Megan McKeenan. Each issue was a stand-alone Slice of Life story, sometimes with Megan as the main character, sometimes with her only in the background. Written by Brian Wood (DMZ, Northlanders) and beautifully drawn by Ryan Kelly (Giant Robot Warriors), each issue took place in a different city in North America and featured Megan at a different place in her life.

The twelve parts were:

• "Ten Thousand Thoughts Per Second" (Portland, Oregon)
• "Polaroid Boyfriend" (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
• "Theories and Defenses" (Richmond, Virginia)
• "Two Brothers" (Missoula, Montana)
• "The Last Lonely Days at the Oxford Theatre" (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
• "Megan and Gloria, Apartment 5A" (Brooklyn, New York)
• "Hazardous Youth" (Tempe, Arizona)
• "Food as Substitute" (Wicker Park, Chicago)
• "Wish You Were Here" (Norman, Oklahoma)
• "Bar Crawl" (Austin, Texas)
• "The Younger Generation" (Toronto, Ontario)
• "The House That Megan Built" (Vermont)

Each issue also has an amount of back matter, notes from both Wood and Kelly, including their own soundtracks to each issue. It is a definite must read.

Tropes used in Local include:

• Abusive Parents: Megan's dad to an extent.
• Allergic to Love
• Alliterative Name: Megan McKeenan
• Bittersweet Ending
• Boredom Montage
• Cain and Abel: "Two Brothers"
• Coming of Age Story
• Domestic Abuse: There's never any evidence that Megan's dad hit her mom, but there was certainly verbal abuse.
• Dysfunctional Family
• Emo Teen: Megan's cousin Nicky, who has his own problems.
• Imagine Spot: The first issue is mostly Megan's imaginings of what will happen at the pharmacy if she tries to use a forged note from her boyfriend.
• Mama Bear: Megan's mother to an extent.
• Mood Whiplash: An interesting issue about a band ("Theories and Defenses") is immediately followed by a Wham Issue, "Two Brothers."
• Nippled and Dimed: Averted. This is an indie comic, of course.
• Parental Abandonment: In spades.
• Photographic Background: Somewhat; photographs are used as references, but most everything is drawn. It's just drawn so freaking well.
• The Runaway: Megan
• Shown Their Work: Twelve different cities, each one got right. The back matter explains all the various ways in which they got photographs of locations and such.
• Silent Scenery Panel: So much, it could count as Scenery Porn.
• Slice of Life
• Stalker with a Crush: Sort of; the eponymous "Polaroid Boyfriend" lets himself into Megan's apartment and leaves a polaroid of himself. In return, she actually leaves a polaroid of herself for him to find.
• Stopped Caring: Possibly the "rich hottie" in #8.
• Time Skip