On The Edge takes place in a fictional realm called Wonderland, very loosely influenced by possibly both Hell and Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland (probably not the Tim Burton version, I’d wager), so if you’re looking for your average police procedural then you may as well turn back now. Creator Leisel Adams instead uses her strip as a sounding board for a number of psychological and relationship-themed stories, and whatever cases we get are usually to further those prior goals.
Despite its subject matter, the atmosphere manages to be both cynical and sweet at the same time. The Alice figure, here named Alice Little, eventually became a Wonderland police officer, working alongside a well meaning but occasionally dense cat-person partner named Jim. Their eventual relationship becomes something of a running gag among their fellow detectives.
Her roommate is Mr. Negative, or “Negs” for short, and no, he’s not an angry 12-year-old on a message board- he’s actually a demoted demon who makes his living as a therapist. I don’t mean to sound prejudiced, but that’s probably not the best career choice for someone of his….particular persuasion.
He spends a lot of time giving Alice headaches when he’s not playing off of his fellow creatures, and even though they’re more effective at spreading misery, they still often have more common sense than him.
The comic gradually evolves its storytelling, starting out as a newspaper style gag-a-day strip before transitioning towards more fairly complex plots. It never becomes The Wire, you can get the gist of everything in one read. (There’s no Omar Little stick-up demons to be found here, and Jim is certainly no McNulty.)
Still, Adams does expand her universe and its concepts as she progresses, including the delicate relationship between Wonderland’s demons and its humans.
While On The Edge spends a lot of time joking about things like anxiety and mental issues, it doesn’t do so ignorantly or carelessly. Art can be a powerful teaching tool about one’s self, and Adams admits the strip serves as such. The romantic angles are cute and charming, and they manage to avoid a lot of unneeded melodrama- though the strip’s format does a good deal to help prevent that. Adams’s art is fairly decent and the visual direction is somewhat Warner Bros. esque, which suits it well as Edge does feel pretty Looney Tunes sometimes in how it relies on wordplay (with maybe the occasional slapstick moment).
I enjoyed it, but I recommend it (head here) if anything because I think it’s going to get better. As of now it’s a very clever concept that you can do a lot with, so I’m very interested to see what Adams has in mind.