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Don't know whether my voice carries any additional weight after all the previous kudos, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it greatly. Your style at many points reminds me of Marc Hempel's (Gregory, Tug & Buster, chunks of Sandman, especially "The Kindly Ones"). I liked how you played around with the reader's (at least this one's) expectations at the start of chapter 2, since it's expected that this story is from Jake's POV and thus that these images we see are from his dream (and, I suppose, as Cleve fails to mention the initial images to Roy, they could well be), but the angle of the initial image of Jake as seen from Cleve's window would seem to imply that we're in Cleve-land (arf arf) from panel 1. That's some admirable comic fu you sport there. I also liked how the sequence when Jake awakes is almost exactly repeated between the dream sequence and the reality, save for the addition of boxers.
I'm guessing that the house itself is serving as some sort of metaphor, since you've got the Butts in the middle, Cleve (being a dual term both for a separation or cut [vaginal imagery? a reference to the crack in the bathroom?] and for a coming together [Cleve and Jake? Jake and Clarissa? Clarissa and Cleve?]) on top and Jake (perhaps a reference to the older term for a joke, or sometimes the male of a species; is this some Anglophonicism of which I'm unaware?) on the bottom. I can also see a possible allusion to the Holy Trinity in these three characters, though which is which may be a matter of some contention. Again, maybe it's my hopeless colonialism or maybe that's the joke in itself, but whatever it is for which poor Clarissa takes the piss in school about her name is lost on me.
I predict that there will be some sort of head-butting between Roy ("king"?) and Jake as the alpha males of this equation, and that somehow despite his anemic appearance Jake will come out the dominant one, with Roy being cast into a Lucifer Descending role. Nevertheless, I don't necessarily see a storybook ending with Jake and Cleve hooking up and adopting Clarissa to raise as their own with a new last name being in the cards.
Too much analysis? Or am I onto something? I'm afraid I sometimes have a knack for foretelling plot twists just before everyone else figures it out; I hope that doesn't skeeve your plans any.
I guess I like this more than some might since it has some relevance to issues in my own existence, though to what extent will likely depend on how the story turns out, both yours and the one I'm living.
Anyway, keep us notified of any developments. It's always good to be reassured we are in the company of eminently creative, intelligent people.
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