She’s a devil. She’s also a boss, but she answers to a greater darkness. She’s got a big project at the office that’s causing her major stress, and it’s honestly the least of her worries in Sweet Paprika #2. Writer/artist Mirka Andolfo continues her exploration of a metropolitan world of angels and devils that plays like a casual rom-com drama. The story is fun enough on its own, but it would lack substantial appeal without the angel/devil iconography that drives the whole series visually. Andolfo’s world of angels and devils amplifies its complexity admirably in its second outing.  

A couple of employees of Heaven’s Express are having a conversation. An older devil is hitting on a younger angel. Things could easily go in a very predictable direction if it weren’t for the case that the devil’s son shows up...and he turns out to be an angel who is working for the same delivery service...he’s an angel who only happens to be a major source of frustration for a certain high-ranking manager at a publishing company who has quite a few problems of her own. She’s having difficulty living up to the expectations of her work and her family, and...things are about to get that much more complicated as a bit of her past walks through the door.

The angel/devil metropolitan soap opera drama that Andolfo is exploring has a great deal of weight to it. The boss from hell has a greater boss from a darker hell, and they’re all working on getting a movie off the ground. The deeper psychology of the devil boss and the womanizing angel messenger gets a satisfying amount of backstory. Good and Evil might have been fun to explore in the context of a contemporary white-collar drama. Still, Andolfo clearly gives the central ensemble more than enough psychological complexity to make for a compelling story.

The visual world of Sweet Paprika lacks the kind of immersive background that would make it feel like a fully fleshed-out world. The psychological drama is amplified to cartoonish levels in the manga-inspired embellishment that is Andolfo’s hallmark. Her best work, though, lies in. subtlety in an issue that shows deeply complicated emotion in a way that’s both cute and sexy WITHOUT being amplified. All of the cartoonish exaggeration starts to get in the way somewhere around halfway into the second chapter. Which is too bad as it DOES seem like a compelling story that might be able to explore breathtaking nuance if Andolfo would only allow it to do so.

With the world fully established in the first issue, Andolfo dives into some further exploration of what makes it tick...the family drama and the background on everything is nice, but. a greater integration between the angel/devil iconography and the contemporary metropolitan drama would make for a far more compelling serial. As it is, Andolfo is working with a fun concept, though.

Grade: B