The Hair and Now

The second noteworthy event of 2011 -- no, I haven't mentioned the first, yet -- is that Francis also got an updated look. Remember the last time that happened, where he didn't actually change much (Aside from losing the Charlie Brown / Cole Richards "unibrow". The event was clearly geared towards changing Marcy's look, which perhaps... didn't really paid off in the long run? I'm just saying that we saw Francis a hundred times more often than Marcy, and now her character is in a position where we could, conceivably, never see her again)? This isn't like that time. Most importantly, his replica of Cole's glasses are gone. That isn't just a "good riddance", that is the best riddance. We've flip-flopped between seeing those things portrayed as glasses and as eyeballs, and now we don't have to wonder what they were -- unless Francis mentions three years from now that he used to wear glasses. What to make of the new Francis? Well, he has real eyes, now. The curvature of which makes his nose look like a real nose (Perhaps a coincidence! But it looks nice). The bad news? They seem to be bug eyes, received from Jade since she wasn't using them anymore. His chin doesn't look like shit anymore. Ooh, he changed his shirt...? No, sorry, the alien skull came back in the next panel. He grew shoulders! He still doesn't know how to style the back of his hair, but that's not too embarrassing if you really consider Cole's long-lasting failure in the same department. Essentially, he looks like the previous Francis' old and busted shit melded with Scott Pilgrim's new hotness. Wait, Scott Pilgrim predates Francis' previous look? Well, I didn't know about it back then, so it doesn't count. Scott Pilgrim's popularity is still pretty new to me. Alright, alright, I get it! There are some similarities going on. I'm not claiming some sort of shenanigan is happening, though; far from it. I'm just saying that this kind of thing has been done before, which is the saying that falls one rung above done to death. If everyone's aware of Scott Pilgrim now, then maybe repeating something both you and Bryan Lee O'Malley have done isn't the best way to ring in the new year's promised "better writing"? Ring in the new, wring out the old.