Comic Review: Lucky Penny

Lucky Penny is a quirky comic that wants to be awkwardly endearing but settles for just being awkward. It’s almost appropriate as the leading character, Penny Brighton, leans heavily on childish antics and social ineptness than willingly act like an adult. It’s not hard to see why Penny refuses to act her age when the cards she’s been dealt with in life always turn out duds.

Written by Ananth Hirsh with art by Yuko Ota, Lucky Penny follows Penny as her terrible luck leads to her losing her job and apartment within the same day. Worry not, she finds a new home sweet home in a storage shed filled with her furniture, apparel, and collection of risque romance novels handed down by her gram-gram. As for employment, her best friend Helen sets her up for a job at a laundromat run by her 12-year old snot-nosed brother. Penny later hooks up with another awkward soul named Wallace at a community center, where the two engage awkward activities almost like they were competing with each other.

There’s nothing terribly wrong with Lucky Penny, but there’s nothing engaging about it either. Much of the comedy in this book limps on while the comical expressions are left with the thankless task of salvaging a joke. You may get a slight grin every now and then, but nothing here is laugh-out-loud material. Penny fantasizing about her boyfriend in a steamy Dungeons & Dragons inspired dream should be a hoot, but by overstaying its welcome with beautifully illustrated, but ultimately unnecessary pages, the gag is reduced to a smirk.

Reading Lucky Penny may remind you of another slice-of-life graphic novel conveniently published by Oni Press, Scott Pilgrim, with its laid back setting and similar character designs. What sets them apart is that Lucky Penny isn’t overbearing its audiences with numerous nerd references like it’s desperately trying to prove its geek cred.

On the flipside, Scott Pilgrim had stronger characters to play off, while Lucky Penny really only has Penny. There are supporting characters in Lucky Penny, such as the aforementioned Helen – who sparked an entertaining chemistry with Penny as the voice of reason – but leaves the story right after the setup is done. Wallace, who takes on a dominant role in the story following his introduction, just isn’t exciting the watch when his socially awkward behavior is often generic and forced. There’s some fun dynamic between Penny and her grouchy kid boss, but those moments are brief.

If there was one moment in Lucky Penny that screamed Scott Pilgrim it would be the last few pages. Without revealing too much, the conclusion drops the book’s silly, yet, grounded-to-earth vibe for something comically outlandish. The turn of events wasn’t exactly undeveloped, nor was it uninteresting, however, it stick out like a sore thumb when compared to everything before. It almost comes off as tacked on, like Lucky Penny thought it needed an over-the-top finale than what was actually warranted.

Perhaps this review is coming off harsher than intended. Lucky Penny is far from terribly – especially when it favors sight gags over verbal humor – however, it’s more ho-hum than it would like to admit. It’s an okay read, but not a great one.

Lucky Penny is now available for purchase at retailers.