Alaina Ewins' Night Things

Night Moves, by Alaina Ewins, is a delightful romance comic in a fantasy/magic setting. The plot, surrounding classmates Spica and Muna, sees them secretly preparing glamour spells for the big Valentine's Day dance. The complicating factor is that Muna develops a crush on the charismatic Spica. Ewins then deftly drops in the big plot device: if you don't cast glamour with pure intent, the "consequences can be dire!" Inevitably, the glam duo has a fun time at the dance but things go horribly awry as everyone at the dance is drawn and attracted to them--very aggressively! The cute confession that seems to fix everything dissolves into a surprise ending. 

The plot structure is cleverly constructed, but the real star of this mini is Ewins' character design. The attention to detail regarding garments, hair, and a variety of different faces and body types is essential to conveying the emotion and attraction between the characters. Despite this being in a fantasy setting, Ewins' attention to dialogue and high school social dynamics adds to the verisimilitude necessary to pull this off without feeling forced or cloying. Instead, the stress that Muna feels combined with her ambition in trying to impress Spica with glamour imbues the plot with real comedic tension. Ewins' drawing style is dense, with lots of hatching, spotting blacks, and a minimal use of negative space. Despite that density, Ewins' is an adept storyteller whose composition never confuses the eye, even if it does deliberately distract it with a lot of decorative touches. This immersive style works at quickly placing the reader right in the middle of this world that her characters are in without having to do much in terms of excessive narrative explanation. Ewins seems poised for longer and more complex stories of this nature.