PanThe Comics JournalMore or less, your enjoyment of Jordan Crane’s Keeping Two depends on whether or not you think it is a compelling depiction of domestic life; whether you think that the central male characters in the comic love their partners ... The instances of death that do not pertain to Will, Connie, Daniel, or Claire are used to contextualize the dotted line device as a thematic gesture, and to fortify the narrative tension spurred by the aforementioned portent: that death is a constant fixture, that the death of a loved one is carried around with us, and that life without someone we love is untenable, haunted ... The depiction of all of the instances in which these women die is quite grotesque. It is a constant, page-by-page reality of Keeping Two that women die violently. Not only is it violent that women die, or that the ways in which women die are violent, but also that their death is inherently violent to their male partners, who are left without them ... I did not care for em>Keeping Two. I found its six-panel grids and its monochromatic (green and black) presentation dull. It uninspiringly depicts the ins and outs of life in a partnership with tense mundanity that offers little to no spiritual or personal fulfillment. It is well-drawn, to be sure. The cartooning is clear, precise, and accurate to its emotional delivery. The most clever gesture is the intermixing of fantasy and reality, but it sacrifices bold notions by clearly articulating which is which. It seems like the book relies on the reader being flippant enough with their eyes to not notice that the wavy borders are fantasy or flashback and the firm ones are capital R reality. I would have appreciated a bit more ambiguity, since the central tension of whether or not Connie or Claire are actually dead is dispelled by these borders. The climactic psychedelic sequence gets tired after a few pages, despite being a welcome break at the outset ... More pressing is the depiction of women and unhoused people. The only personhood any women have in this comic depends on whether they’re living or dead, being killed or killing themselves. Unhoused people are depicted as cruel monsters of fate that exist only to be a negative fantasy for Will, to kill him or to kill his wife ... Nothing conceptually or aesthetically difficult is going on here ... The trouble is that this is all Keeping Two has to say about relationships; you fight with each other, you are frequently uncomfortable in each other’s presence, but when you think one of you might die then you are then allowed to tap into your heretofore inaccessible sentimental organs such that the ultimate sacrifice of love can be made. For me, that statement is about as outdated as Crane\'s cartooning style, which leaves little room for ambiguity or interpretation, inspiration for life, or even the veracity of death. It is a comprehensively one-note performance premised on a dated phobia.
