Review by Frank Plowright

Giant Days as it’s now known and loved wasn’t initially created in that form, and when the opportunity came to for US publication, John Allison tweaked his original idea. Early Registration collects what are now best viewed as three prototype stories. It’s definitely Giant Days starring Daisy, Esther and Susan, but not quite as we know it.

Most obvious at first glance is Allison drawing the strip himself, which is no great hardship as from his earliest webcomics he’s been a tidy and expressive cartoonist. Visually Daisy and Susan are much as they later were, but as seen on the cover, Esther is very different, far more subdued and uncertain, which is reflected in her appearance. Almost normal, in fact. It’s also strange seeing her with a boyfriend and acting lovey dovey. The recalibrated Esther in Giant Days proper is a far stronger personality and it’s vital.

Also apparent is how far Allison’s storytelling instincts had developed by the time the American series manifested. There are some very good lines and jokes here, but they lack the comedy timing of the later work, and the page layouts are unnecessarily complex, with the sheer number of panels per page quite astounding at the start. It feeds into some jokes being undersold and others overplayed, and Allison would eventually whittle the cast down. While Daisy, Esther and Susan are leading characters, a fair amount of space is given to others, and they don’t greatly resonate. None would recur until the alternate reality story found in Extra Credit.

This may seem relentlessly critical of early work showing considerable promise. Had there been no later success, these stories would read as okay slice of life comedies, but had there been no later series these stories would have been long forgotten, so comparison is inevitable. However, there is creative progress all the way through.

Consistent characters were key to Giant Days, and Allison has this right from the start. There’s very little difference between the lovesick Ed Gemmill here and his later counterpart, Daisy and Susan are innocent and grumpy respectively, and by the third story there are signs of Esther becoming the wild card defining her subsequent incarnation.

Early Registration is interesting archive material, but don’t expect anything more.