by Wednesday White

Fish aren't particularly well known for their brain power. They can get through basic tasks just fine, but they're not really up to creative thought or event memory. If fish worked at fast food chains, they could bring you a standard combo, but God help you and your special-ordered plain quarter pounder. (The cynic suggests that this would not, in fact, alter the status quo in any significant fashion. But I digress.)

Fish Institution posits smart, thinking fish, brought together and educated by an intelligent octopus. The octopus, Eddie, was taught by human scientists who released him to see what would happen next. Eventually, they'd pick up a new subject: Vinnie, a black fish of some sort.

Injected with "pure elemental power," Eddie turns pale purple as a result of the experiments. Then he kills everyone in the lab, a fairly sensible reaction to the fashion faux pas, and escapes through the sewer pipe. Conveniently, he collides with Eddie -- now thoroughly insane -- and a quippy cardinal fish named Arthur. As of this writing, they're off to join the other smart fish (and squid?) of the titular institution.

Goforth holds that the strip is British humour, drawing inspiration from the usual elderly BBC reruns. I'm not convinced so far. The byplay between fish is certainly dry enough, but very little makes it stand out as uniquely British. Eddie likes to sing Celtic folk songs and Tom Lehrer, but that might just place him in Nova Scotia with a Doctor Demento tape or six. Two significant chunks of back story (and all of Vinnie's narration skew) are jarringly, creepily serious, almost heavy-handedly so in many places, which rather confuses the tone. Time should even this out.

The fishie world is clear and bright. Our protagonist's party is drawn simply and appealingly in their understated sea. Round, bubbly, friendly lettering sometimes seems crowded in, but otherwise adds a thoughtful and distinctive touch. Characters and dialogue play gently around their panels' borders, casually floating and spilling out into the gutters.

For some reason, though, the tale changes visual style completely (down to the lettering!) for a flashback sequence after relatively few pages. Colour, colour... muddy, claylike greyscale inkwash. It's competently handled, but feels out of place at this stage in the game; at a page a day, this might not have been so bad, but it sticks out dreadfully when reading the early archives in one pass. Goforth might as well have switched artists; his versatility is impressive, but it's not really *time* yet.

It's difficult to tell whether the strip will flourish as a dark comedy, or set down all this tension only to largely ignore it. It's also difficult to tell which would be preferable. At the moment, it's going in too many directions at once, giving off mixed signals. Right now, the fish brains are just way too full of information. With some tweaks to the pacing and more attention to dialogue over narration, however, Fish Institution could fulfil what's so far an enticing promise.