Simple Pleasures

Simple Pleasures
Chapter	1 of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	November 2, 2009 (2009-11-02)
Page count	6
Major characters	Lucy, Daisy, Paulo
Minor characters	Jordan, Yashy
Locations	Lucy's house
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
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The very first chapter of Bittersweet Candy Bowl serves up a sunny Saturday, a cracked picture frame, and one badly placed turtle. Lucy heads out for a walk, and thanks to Paulo's skateboard it ends with her flying into Mike's arms.

Synopsis

Lucy spends her sunny Saturday hiding under her pillow, while Yashy, her pet lizard, straps on goggles and plank wings for a flight off the bed. The stunt ends in a crash landing on two framed photos. The one of Lucy with her pets is fine, but the one of Mike and Lucy is cracked. Lucy frowns at it. "Nah, she broke something else."

Lucy ties on her pink ribbon and heads out. On the sidewalk, Daisy grabs her tail and takes a reflexive kick to the face, since Daisy keeps forgetting about Lucy's bad ear. She only wanted to return Mikie's workbook anyway, and her question about whether Lucy and Mike are still fighting gets snapped at.

Yashy's crash landing spares the photo of Lucy and her pets. The one of Mike and Lucy isn't so lucky.

Lucy gives a passing stream a nervous glance, and then Paulo announces himself by slapping her on the butt from a moving skateboard. Her fury doesn't survive his grin and boyish charm, and soon he is cradling a blushing Lucy down the sidewalk. The ride ends when his board hits a dopey-looking turtle, and Lucy goes flying. She lands in the arms of Mike, a grey cat in a blue scarf.

Mike informs Paulo that skateboarding isn't allowed in the park, and David panics about park rangers and, inevitably, park bears ("THEY KNOW OUR FACES!!") before fleeing with a protesting Paulo.

Lucy notices the workbook already back in Mike's hands. Mike asks whether he missed anything, and Lucy decides that he didn't. He invites her out for ice cream, and Lucy smiles to herself. "Nah. That's exactly what I wanted."

Character dynamics

• Mike and Lucy: Best friends since grade school, the two start the chapter in a rough patch the comic never explains: their photo lies cracked on Lucy's floor, and Daisy's "still fighting?" question gets snapped at. By the last page Mike has caught her out of midair and invited her out for ice cream, and Lucy privately counts the day as exactly what she wanted.
• Lucy and her pets: Lucy is the long-suffering keeper of a rowdy household, and the pets barely pretend to be managed. The chapter opens on her surveying the damage from Yashy's latest stunt, and her parting instruction to Lily is the rather hopeless one of keeping the others from destroying anything.
• Lucy and Daisy: The friendship runs mostly in one direction, and neither girl seems to mind. Daisy does the chasing and the chattering and takes the brush-offs in stride, while Lucy keeps her at arm's length and sees her off with a muttered "Idiot."
• Daisy and Mike: Daisy adores Mike, and the feeling is loud and entirely one-sided. She's smitten with "Mikie" before he ever appears on panel, and returning his workbook is mostly an excuse to gush about him.
• Paulo and Lucy: Paulo is sweet on Lucy and shows it in the least gentlemanly way available, and Lucy is nowhere near as immune to him as her screaming suggests. His opening move earns him a furious dressing-down, but his grin gets her onto his skateboard anyway, blushing all the way.
• Mike and Paulo: A rivalry with Lucy at the center of it. Paulo treats Mike as competition to be insulted and shoved aside ("Cry me a river, pansy. Give 'er back"), while Mike answers him with nothing warmer than the park rules.
• Paulo and David: David is the audience Paulo performs for, and he is not a critical one. He follows Paulo's lead happily right up until his own imagination scares him worse, at which point he'll haul Paulo off bodily over every objection.

Trivia & observations

Page 1 as it looked in 2009.

• The pages on the site today are the 2020 versions. Veronica's commentary explains that the comic's first 850 pages were given edits, redraws and recolourings for the Bittersweet Candy Bowl Omnibus, keeping "the simplicity and charm of the old art but a whole lot less scribbly".
• The monochrome grid panels on the final page are a nod to the comic's beginnings. Per Veronica's commentary there, the original early chapters were drawn in pencil on lined paper in that same grid format, and she kept the ending "nostalgic and simple".
• The authors' company, Lovely Sunny, LLC, takes its name from the chapter's opening radio line, "Welcome to a lovely sunny Saturday, America!" Oliver has said they "wanted a nice name that wasn't necessarily bound to Bittersweet Candy Bowl", and credits a fan for the suggestion.
• An author-drawn timeline chart places the chapter in July 2005, with Lucy and Daisy both twelve years old.
• The dopey-looking turtle that fells Paulo makes its first appearance here and goes on to become a running gag. It later trips Mike in the middle of a race, and takes Paulo down a second time while he's carrying Lucy.

Related chapters

• Gaming Rivalry: The very next chapter carries on the household antics of Lucy, Yashy and company. A childhood flashback there also reveals where Lucy's pink ribbon came from.
• Show and Tell: The explanation for the deaf ear Lucy brings up on the sidewalk. Mike reveals that her left ear is deaf, and Lucy adds that it's genetic.
• Left Behind: A flashback chapter that tells how Mike and Lucy became friends in the first place, from kindergarten separation to their first-grade reunion.
• Troubled Waters: The reason Lucy winces at that stream. This flashback chapter covers Mike's childhood near-drowning and reveals that Lucy can't swim.
• December: Many volumes down the line, this is where Mike and Lucy's friendship finally breaks. It casts the cracked photo on Lucy's floor in a rather different light.