He physically longs for her and simultaneously hungers for her love. His obsession is both carnal and transcendent. Regardless of Tina’s lackluster, almost grotesque image and persona, Martin becomes completely infatuated with her, in a suffocating and overwhelming way that he cannot understand. She is completely hedonistic in her philosophy of behavior. She lacks the ability to consider the feelings of others. Tina’s personality does not have much to allure either. She has the most peculiar canines, almost like those of a dog. Tina, by no means, is a physically attractive woman. In trying to muster up any piece of inspiration, Martin decides that his grant will produce paintings for an exhibit tritely titled, “The Eroticisim of Homeliness.” What begins as a dull concept of trying to paint conventionally unattractive women in an erotic light spirals rapidly out of control when Martin meets his first model, Tina. Upon the notice of an unexpected grant award, Martin’s stupor of indifference quickly ends. After failed attempts at making underground comics, his entire existence has morphed into a cotton candy malaise as he spends his days illustrating facile children’s books for a post-Barney generation. Sad, funny, and often uncomfortably titillating, Ripple is a remarkably introspective graphic novel, rendered with kinetic realism in a pen technique that calls to mind a more controlled Edward Sorel and Jules Feiffer.Martin, the narrator of our story, is an uninspired illustrator. Throughout it all, Ripple is a complex love story poked and prodded fromall angles, from Martin and Tina's physical and emotional feelings toward each other, Martin's dishonesty to himself, Tina's self-loathing, and everything in between. Meanwhile, Tina's own motives behind working for Martin are slowly turned upside down as well, building the book towards its inevitably explosive end. Martin's initial repulsion for Tina slowly turns to attraction and eventually lust, causing him to re-evaluate his own notions of beauty and sexuality.
Over time, Martin and Tina's relationship evolves from a tenuous working relationship to a confused sexual one. He hires a homely model, Tina, to pose for a series of "erotic" paintings that he hopes will be his breakthrough into the gallery world.
Martin is a floundering painter desperately attempting to pursue his fine art inclinations rather than toil in the world of commercial art. Unlike those works, Ripple is a highly realistic story in terms of subject matter and drawing style. Ripple is a breakthrough graphic novel for Dave Cooper, creator of the wildly surreal and critically-acclaimed graphic novels Crumple and Suckle.
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