Strangers in Paradise - Pocket Book 5. Terry Moore

This fifth volume of the Pocket Book compilation edition of the Strangers in Paradise comic books contains the original comics numbered Volume III, issues #61 - #76 plus issues #46, #49, and #73. The author plans to bring the series to an end with comic #90 so there is probably envisioned eventually a Strangers in Paradise Pocket Book 6 that will bring the series to completion.

This volume starts with a lengthy flashback to David and Darcy's youth and adventures leading up to the time where the first volume begins. This is followed by a glimpse into Katchoo's successful career as an artist in Dallas. She is seeing a psychiatrist who encourages her to keep a journal as a way to explore her buried emotions. Another sequence explores Francine's relationship with her father and her mother's past. Then the story switches over to Casey who has decided to put aside her gym training career and become a Las Vegas showgirl. David and Katchoo go to Vegas with her and rekindle their romance. Freddie has fallen for a pathologist at the Dallas morgue but has a hard time with her work. Meanwhile Francine and her doctor husband move to Dallas which causes Katchoo to long for Francine again. Just when the reader thinks that there may be some closure on this three-way romance, the author leaves our characters and ends the book with a very long digression called Molly & Poo: A Collection of Moments, a 19th century Gothic mystery romance with two women.

With nine issues of the original comics yet to be written and published, it will be over a year before we the readers ever get a chance to buy the final Volume 6 of this Pocket Book series. For the impatient, the author's website does offer a subscription to the final issues of the comic books.