High School Spirit: Should You Be Reading ‘Oh! Holy!’? [Love & Sex Week]

With Should I Be Reading… ?, ComicsAlliance hopes to offer you a guide to some of the best original ongoing comics being published today. For the week of Valentine’s Day, we’re celebrating some of the best romance and erotica comics.

What if you were a big deal at your high school, but haunted by something you did as a kid? And what if you were a kid nobody noticed, but haunted by actual ghosts? And what  if those two people were meant to be together? That's the story that drives the Korean webtoon Oh Holy.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

High school student Holy Joo seems to have it all: great grades, popularity, guys fawning over her, the works. But Holy is continually drawn to the one kid who never wants to speak to her: Jamie Oh.

Jamie, who is so quiet that he's basically invisible, is smitten with Holy even though she traumatized him long ago. As kids, the two were inseparable friends, planning to marry and travel the world together. But when Jamie had to move towns and went to say goodbye to Holy, he overheard some boys teasing her about their friendship and Holy angrily insisting that they weren't friends.

Since then, Jamie's been withdrawn and reserved... except for the random curious looks from passerby he gets because he tends to talk out loud to ghosts. Ghosts like Jacob, a young kid who's actually a few years older than him.

However, Holy finally reaches back out to Jamie, and things start getting better between them. Until mop fights, comas, and astral projection enter the picture...

WHO'S IT BY?

Ahyeon writes and draws the strip, with story assitance from Hyungnam Kim. Unfortunately, English-language info about either of them is nonexistent.

WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL?

The webtoon format is distinct from most Western webcomics in that it's almost entirely vertical, which Ahyeon uses as an opportunity to indulge in some unique panel composition and design that speeds up the pacing and make gags land better.

Beyond borrowing a lot of traditional manga/manhwa visual tropes, Ahyeon also knows how to play up character beats through body language and lettering.

Speaking of lettering, probably the best running gag in the strip involves characters being literally stabbed by another character's balloon--literally wounded by words. 

Little tricks like that go a long way, especially in this case, where there are numerous grammatical and spelling errors in the translated lettering.

WHO SHOULD READ IT?

Fans of Giant Days, Sarah's Scribbles, or the works of Hannah Blumenreich. Anyone who's ever binged through any fluffy K-Drama on Hulu or Crunchyroll. Fans of Fruits Basket and Nisekoi.

WHERE CAN I READ IT?

Oh Holy (styled as Oh! Holy!) is available to read for free on LINE Webtoon, where it's updated every Sunday. LINE's website also contains fan translations in multiple languages.