McCloud Post #1: "Mim's Last Coffee"

Below is the link to the comic I used for this blog entry:
http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/mi/mi-26/mi-26.html

I wasn't sure what to expect when looking at a comic online rather than in the traditional ink and paper format, but I was pleasantly surprised! The comic I chose was called "Mimi's Last Coffee". It went through the the morning in which a lady, Mimi, would serve her last cup of coffee. Mimi is a waitress in the coffee shop and her primary customer is a lady named Leslie, who is married to Mimi's brother, Marcel. This comic is unique in that it provides numerous (6 I believe to be exact) sort of spin-offs with alternate endings.
1. Mimi gets no tip from Leslie!
2. Mimi learns that Leslie is to give up coffee because her husband Marcel has asked, or demanded, (the reader infers as they read on about Marcel and his numerous good qualities!) even though Marcel is not giving up his one vice-hard liquor.
3. This set of panels goes through an extravegant display to show how ridiculous Marcel's expectations can be. It seems that everything that can go wrong for poor Leslie does-from it raining on her to her almost being sexually assaulted.
4. Here we see another man in the coffee shop, as the reader I assume he is a regular. He can shed some light for Leslie on how relationships are hard.
5. These panels show how jealous Marcel gets over Leslie having a platonic relationship with the boy from the Deli down the street.
6. Mimi offers to have Leslie stay with her and her children if she decides to leave her husband--who by this point is clearly abusive.
The actual straight through reading ending results in Marcel being shot (over a dispute without another girl). Leslie, as she leaves in a rush to by her husbands side, leaves her purse behind. Mimi notices and rushes out the door into the street to catch Leslie before she is too far away. When in the middle of the street, Mimi gets hit by a car. Mimi dies.

This relates to certain things McCloud refers to in his book. One main concept from his book is Closure. This is really seen in some spots in "Mimi's Last Coffee". There is a panel that says "Hey, what's that falling out of the sky?" followed by the panel that just has a city scape engulfed in the word "BOOM!" Another good example is at the end, the last few panels. After the reader fills in their own crash and how that happened, they get to infer for themselves whether or not Mimi dies.
Also this comic exemplifies the inexact science of categorization of panels. There is a showing of moment-to-moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, and scene-to-scene just as McCloud says there would be!
In the end, you get to choose what Mimi's fate will be, although as the title alludes Mimi perhaps is destined to serve her last cup of coffee that morning.
Another thing I noticed was that this comic exemplifies the idea that serious issues can be tackled or even merely discussed in a comic. "Mimi's Last Coffee" deals with things like abuse and sexual assault--both serious issues that may not even be discussed in some other venues of writing.