One of the phrases I overuse to describe comics I really like and admire is to say that they cohere. I don’t know if I’ve ever adequately explained what I mean by that, so I’ll take another shot at it.

What I basically mean is that all of the elements work together to achieve a specific, worthwhile effect. Plot, dialogue, characterization, illustration, tone – everything clicks into place. There can be discordance in the way the elements come together, and I think it’s generally preferable that there is some appealing, diverting clashing going on. (Look at how Fumi Yoshinaga’s lanky, sexy art jangles so pleasingly against her chatty, airy dialogue, or how Joann Sfar’s bursts of philosophizing amiably derail a conventional narrative.)

Added to the list of “books that cohere” is Matthew Loux’s Salt Water Taffy, due May 7, 2008, from Oni. It’s an all-ages comedy-adventure about young brothers on a family vacation to a decidedly unpromising seaside town. Jack and Benny discover that Chowder Bay, Maine, is a lot more interesting than it initially seems. I’m extremely reluctant to describe the plot in any more detail, because the fun of the book is discovering the town’s weird secrets with them.

I can say that I really, really love the look of this book. It just lopes along, visually speaking. The kids are charmingly gangly, and they seem to run everywhere. Character design and facial expressions are spot-on. The detailed settings are familiar but cozily odd, and the action sequences are clear and sharp.

Tone and timing are also just right. Loux is able to introduce likeable characters quickly and without fuss, and he can throw them into endearingly odd scenarios right off the bat. The comedy is very organic and very funny, which is no small feat for a story set in a quirky small town. There’s an overall feel of effortlessness, of everything falling serendipitously into place. It all just works.

What works best, I think, is that Loux gives the kids ownership of the weirdness. The discoveries are theirs, and grown-up skepticism only makes those discoveries more appealing. They’re rewarded for being open-minded. Boredom is vanquished; imagination and adventure win.

(This review was based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

Lars Brown’s North World (Oni Press), a collection of Brown’s webcomic, is a sometimes frustrating collection of strengths and weaknesses. Brown displays some good instincts in the development of concepts and characters, but his grasp on pacing and structure needs work.

He’s constructed some concurrent narrative elements that are mutually supportive in smart ways. Young adventurer Conrad wants to move to the next level of his profession; he’s stuck at the “giant beasts” plateau and wants to face the kind of menaces that “get the bards to come to [him] for a story.” Just such a challenge comes his way, but it forces him to return to his hometown after an absence of several years, just in time for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. He’s also estranged from his family to some degree, particularly his disapproving father.

So Conrad is juggling career issues, possibly unwanted romantic closure, and unfinished emotional business that ties into his autonomy as an adult. The book has promising architecture, thematically linked but tonally varied. Unfortunately, I don’t think Brown is enough of a juggler to keep things in balance. There’s a lack of focus. It’s a book where everything almost works, but the storytelling is nowhere near as tight as it needs to be to succeed.

Conrad is a promising protagonist, and he’s at a believable impasse between adolescent self-indulgence and fully realized adulthood. Conrad isn’t so immature that he can’t listen to people who care about him, like his father, but he’s not so confident that he can figure out when his ex is jerking him around. (She’s always jerking him around in punishing, passive-aggressive ways, flirtatiously flaunting her current happiness when she isn’t trying to reel him back in.) It’s unclear as to whether a life as a bard-magnet adventurer would be Conrad’s best happy ending, and that’s all to the good. (He’d definitely be better off if he bought his ex a nice place setting and skipped the wedding.)

But Brown can’t quite seem to shape scenes in ways that give the story momentum. Sequences always feel like they’ve run too long, to the point that the concurrent narrative elements lose energy. A subplot that could have been illuminating and even mildly amusing – Conrad runs afoul with some present-day punks who are just as obnoxious as he used to be – goes on for what seems like forever. The subplot provides some fight sequences, but those aren’t really Brown’s forte as an illustrator, so they don’t really serve to change the pace of the proceedings.

It’s a book that’s badly in need of some rigorous editing. I don’t mind a story unfolding casually when that approach serves it, but there’s too much going on in North World to allow this much lingering. It’s somewhat against my nature for me to call for fewer slices of life and more plot, but this story needs to move farther and faster than it does.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.)

(Updated to note that I can type the same wrong thing over and over, even though some part of my brain knows better. I don’t know where “Caleb” came from.)