If you do and you are able to attend the London launch party in November I'll sign your copy and give you a big thank you hug! If you come dressed as Edward Nygma I'll even give you a thank you kiss ;) ;)
Here is a sneaky preview of my featured short comic Pest!
Hi guys - sorry for the silence! I've been preparing for a milestone in my career: having my first ever short graphic story published! So in honour of that I present to you my next Minx Review, the graphic story Confessions of a Blabbermouth written by Mike Carey and his daughter Louise Carey and illustrated by Aaron Alexovich.
Confessions of a Blabbermouth is about teen blogger Tasha whose mother moves in her new boyfriend, Jed, and his boring daughter Chloe. Jed is a writer, something Chloe also aspires to be which severely puts Tasha's nose out of joint when Chloe applies for the same job as Tasha on the school paper. Tasha takes to her blog to air her grievances about Chloe, even if what she says isn't true, causing all sorts of mayhem however from the flames of animosity friendship might still bloom.
I think the thing that stands out most about Blabbermouth is Jed. He most definitely can be added to the Minx douchebag list. He starts the story a minor douchebag and finishes, not redeemed but as a super douchebag (only enhanced by Aaron's ability to make him look like a crazy man)! As someone who doesn't really get on with their mother's partner I find it strangely satisfying though I can also see how it might feel weird. We are forever being sold realistic stories where the step-parent is miss-portrayed as the villain and that it is actually the hero(ine)'s grudge where the problem lies (compared to fairy tales where the step-parent is always evil). It's kind of nice to know that sometimes the problem IS with the grownup and that the teenage protagonist isn't just being hysterical! Jed, however, is a bit of a super villain in a what is supposed to be a realistic story. He is a character designed purely to be disliked and I think if you cannot empathise with someone who doesn't get on with a step-parent you will find him too one dimensional. Jed being a nogoodnik whilst Tasha and Chloe cement a relationship does cause for a strange ending. It makes you wonder how their future will be able to continue when surely if Jed is removed Chloe will also have to make an exit.
The second most obvious thing is that ever present lesson: be careful what you say in the Internet! Back when I was Tasha's age I had a livejournal where I wrote every little thing that popped into my head. I shudder just to think about it now! But that's how the Internet was back then, you were in your personal little space not realising the whole of the world could read it if they so chose. Of course the Internet's a little different now, blogs are usually themed and feature informative articles such as this one (hehe), all grievances are saved for Facebook and instant messengers and though I steer away from both I'm pretty certain all it takes for an unwise word to go nuclear is for one not so friendly friend to re-share it.
Teenage girls are always going to gossip. It's a fact. And things will always be said as fact that are actually pure feeling and opinion. This is one of the book's best lessons for both Tasha and Chloe - learning to actually get to know a person before judging them - but to be fair that's one of the hardest lessons we all need to learn! In a sense Tasha is lucky that she unites with Chloe over a common cause. If that had not existed and Chloe had been completely innocent Tasha would have come across as a complete bitch. I most definitely don't recommend bitching about someone you see as a threat as a way of becoming best buddies!
The art is by kimmie66 artist and writer Aaron Alexovich and is much more realistic (for him) so as to suit the realistic setting. It definitely feels like a good access point for his art as the characters contain his trademark level of expression without appearing too stylised. Tasha is hyperactive, Chloe always seems to be carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and Jed is terrifying! It's also very curious to see a British secondary school through the eyes of an American artist. I especially loved how he managed to express various students through how they wore their ties.
Unlike the other Minx titles Blabbermouth is the one most purely enjoyable by teenage girls only thanks to it being half-written by one such creature! If you have never experienced the highs and lows and emotional rushes of being a teenage girl you just won't get it. Characters over-react, the go into moods for no reason, do completely unreasoned things and see other characters either as purely good or purely bad...which is how it is as a teenage girl. It won't make for the best reading experience if you are looking for some classic Mike Carey but if you're a girl and you just want someone to empathise with then you could do much worse than read Confessions of a Blabbermouth.
You'll like Confessions of a Blabbermouth if you like: Re-Gifters,Gossip Girl, Mean Girls,The Parent Trap, Step Brothers, trashy talk shows and a bit of cheeky gossip blogging.
You'll like Confessions of a Blabbermouth if you don't like:
Your step-dad.
Selected graphic novels also by Mike Carey: Lucifer, The Sandman Presents: Petrefax and The Furies, various Hellblazer volumes, Batman: Gotham Knights #37: "Fear is the Key", Detective Comics #801-804: "The Barker: When You're Strange", My Faith in Frankie, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, various Crossing Midnight volumes, God Save the Queen, Faker #1-6, Re-Gifters, The Unwritten, Ultimate Elektra: Devil's Due #1-5, Spellbinders #1-6, various Fantastic Four volumes, various X-Men volumes, Ultimate Vision #1-5, Ender's Shadow, The Torch #1-8, Thor: Wolves of the North, Sigil #1-4, Red Sonja #0-6, Vampirella: Revelations, Wetworks: Worldstorm, Voodoo Child and The Stranded #1-5.
Novels also by Mike Carey: The Devil You Know, Vicious Circle, Dead Men's Boots, Thicker Than Water, The Naming of the Beasts and The Steel Seraglio (co-written with Linda Carey and Louise Carey).
Also by Aaron Alexovich:Eldritch!, Serenity Rose and kimmie66.
This week's Minx Review is dedicated to my friend Len. I trawled the whole of London to find a copy of Re-Gifters for her and it got 'lost' in the post (being a parcel I had weighed at the post office that means someone stole it grrrr). I know a review isn't the same but perhaps we can live vicariously through it. Re-Gifters is written by Mike Carey and illustrated by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel.
Re-Gifters is about Korean-American hapkido competitor Dixie. She blows her $200 entry fee for a big championship on a birthday present for fellow martial artist and crush Adam only to discover that not only is he disinterested in her present but also her! Completely off her game, Dixie must now fight the street rounds to get the chance to re-qualify for the championship where she takes on tough guy Dillinger. Re-Gifters is also the story of the warrior statue Dixie buys for Adam and its journey around LA.
Re-Gifters is the most accessible Minx comic if you're a guy: it features sport, tough guys, girls who act like tough guys and eye candy Megan. That is not to say it's not also entertaining for young women, in fact it is perfect for young women who are bored of the weak, bland, overly-girly lead characters that often appear in young adult media: Dixie and her very charming best friend Avril are tough-talking city girls who are more than capable of standing up for themselves (though the male characters do spend a lot of time talking down to them). Dixie is also trying to battle with her teenage hormones resulting in a volatile temper and a giant crush on Adam. When Avril makes Dixie over for Adam's birthday party Dixie is literally stripped from her armour revealing her more fragile side. This provides a nicely balanced heroine you instantly want to root for.
Adam is a douchebag. Not as much as a douchebag as Jake from Water Baby (Water Baby is probably the most adult of the Minx titles) but he gets pretty close. Not only does he not realise that Dixie is crushing on him (even when he makes her give him advice on how to get closer to Megan) but he gives the warrior statue to an equally unappreciative Megan without a second's thought and even plays mind games with Dixie when he thinks she might beat him in the hapkido championship. Apart from being blonde he really has very few redeeming features.
Though Dixie harbours feelings for Adam for the majority of the book the last thing you want is for her to get together with him. Enter Dillinger. Dillinger is the rather unbelievable bad boy. He's a tough guy with morals (not always logical morals) who, when he's not beating up Megan's brother is helping Dixie get out of her Adam-induced funk and win the championship. He is much more likeable than Adam but does feel strangely motivated. He's there to prove that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover (aka just because he's a street kid it doesn't mean he's out to murder you) but his desire to pound on Megan's admittedly annoying brother (a device to get the statue to continue to circulate LA) somewhat sullies it and makes when he is being nice a bit cheesy. The men in Dixie's family are always spot on though, in particular her twin brothers who are lively little monkeys and very endearing.
The ending is pretty predictable however because you're rooting for Dixie from the very beginning and she gets the ending she deserves (rather than the one she thinks she wants at the beginning) it has that warm, cute, satisfying feeling.
Much like the subject of Re-Gifters the art feels very male centric - it doesn't have the smoothness and artiness you expect from a graphic story aimed at young women - if anything it looks perfect for a comic aimed at pre-teen boys. I appreciate that a young woman new to graphic stories might reject it for something more elegant however if she is already into graphic novels she'll appreciate its indie feel and obvious quality. It somehow manages to balance simplicity with detail and is wonderfully lively - which is perfect for a story about martial arts. Also a quick thumbs up to Jesse from Good as Lily for the shading. It might just look like a bit of grey but that bit of grey adds so much dimension to Sonny and Marc's lines.
Re-Gifters is about learning to expand your horizons and by attempting to blend boys comics with a female protagonist it mostly succeeds on both physical and thematic levels. It is also a story about not only people but things going on journeys...so if you see a copy of Re-Gifters floating about it's probably the one I sent to Len. Do a blogger a favour and gift it on to someone you care about and maybe, like Dixie's statue, it might also eventually find its way back to Len.
You'll like Re-Gifters if you like: Confessions of a Blabbermouth, My Faith in Frankie, The Next Karate Kid, Bamboo Blade, Peach Girl and being a tomboy.
Selected graphic novels also by Mike Carey: Lucifer, The Sandman Presents: Petrefax and The Furies, various Hellblazer volumes, Batman: Gotham Knights #37: "Fear is the Key", Detective Comics #801-804: "The Barker: When You're Strange", My Faith in Frankie, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, various Crossing Midnight volumes, God Save the Queen, Faker #1-6, Confessions of a Blabbermouth, The Unwritten, Ultimate Elektra: Devil's Due #1-5, Spellbinders #1-6, various Fantastic Four volumes, various X-Men volumes, Ultimate Vision #1-5, Ender's Shadow, The Torch #1-8, Thor: Wolves of the North, Sigil #1-4, Red Sonja #0-6, Vampirella: Revelations, Wetworks: Worldstorm, Voodoo Child and The Stranded #1-5.
Novels also by Mike Carey: The Devil You Know, Vicious Circle, Dead Men's Boots, Thicker Than Water, The Naming of the Beasts and The Steel Seraglio (co-written with Linda Carey and Louise Carey).
Also by Sonny Liew: Fighting Turtle, Malinky Robot: Collected Stories & Other Bits, Marvel's Sense and Sensibility, Au Pays des Merveilles, Le Tour du monde en bande dessinée vol 2, Marvel Adventures Spiderman #50, Wonderland, Liquid City (Vol.1, 2), Flight (Vol. 2, 5, 8) and My Faith in Frankie. Also by Marc Hempel: Sandman: "The Kindly Ones", Breathtaker, Mars, Blood of the Innocent, Gregory, Tug & Buster, Marvel Fanfare, Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal, Jonny Quest, Tarzan the Warrior, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, Flinch, My Faith in Frankie, The Dreaming, Lucifer, and Disney Adventures.
This week's graphic novel in my Minx Review series is Good As Lily written by Derek Kirk Kim and illustrated by Jesse Hamm.
Good As Lily is about Korean American high school student Grace Kwon. After getting her head stuck in a magic birthday piñata Grace is visited by three versions of herself (a child, aged 29 and an elderly lady) who seem intent in ruining her life...which couldn't come at a worse time as she is desperately trying to keep her drama club from folding and also win the heart of her high school drama teacher. Through all these events she realises that turning eighteen is not the end of the world but just the start of a new one.
I need to address the elephants in the room: the story has nearly nothing to do with Lily and the cover art is drawn by Derek Kirk Kim whilst the inside art is by Jesse Hamm. I feel the only time a graphic novel should have a cover by an artist who has had nothing to do with the inside art is when the book contains art by multiple artists or if it is a trade paperback where each section was published separately using the cover artist. I mean I hate it when people buy a book then complain about the weird art when it is obvious from the cover what they're getting but in this instance I think it's fair to feel cheated. Though Derek is also an artist and quite obviously wanted a hand in the art of the story too nothing suggests a lack of faith in the inside art than to choose a separate cover artist (the biggest offender being using Kouyu Shurei's amazing cover art for standard western manga Return to the Labyrinth).
You can see more of Derek's art of Good As Lily here.
It is evident from the amount of story packed into Good As Lily that Derek is full of good ideas. Good As Lily is a fantasy with a subtext of embracing life, a slice of life drama about friends fighting to save their high school drama club and even a romance but thanks to the restrictions of the single volume format it feels like too much is going on to be full explored satisfyingly. For instance the first 28 pages (nearly a 1/4 of the entire page count) are dedicated to getting to know Grace's friends. Endearing as this set up is only Jeremy and Rona deserve such a detailed introduction as the other friends barely return again. Perhaps if there was no fantasy aspect we would be able to focus on the drama friends more but once the fantasy part kicks in and Grace's friends retire to the background it makes such a long beginning feel redundant and slightly wasteful. The rest of the story races to deal with the lack of balance and never really catches up.
Then there is the titular Lily. Lily is Grace's dead sister. She is supposed to be this heavy weight that Grace compares herself to throughout the story but she is barely referenced and when we eventually do find out who she is Grace's feelings towards her are resolved in a matter of panels in the middle of the story. Because the book is called Good As Lily you are on the constant look out for her or at least expect to be drip-fed hints about who she was. Because this does not happen it feels like the most unsatisfying aspect of the story.
The story is written in a friendly, sometimes even comical tone and Grace has good conflicts with her other selves (yet another reason why her friends are not needed). In particular she has trouble with her 29 year old self who also has a crush on her drama teacher. This finds a satisfying conclusion as does Grace's evolving friendship with Jeremy however her eventual friendship with her bully does feel less believable.
Jesse Hamm's art is detailed and very indie. I particularly like Grace's look. I can imagine her as a drummer of an indie rock band! There's the odd weird panel (and few too many floating heads for my liking) but it's mostly of the good quality you would expect from a Minx artist. It does, however, have a slightly stinted feel. At first I thought maybe Jesse was a new artist still trying to perfect his style but as I looked over Derek's notes on Good As Lily I realised Jesse was trying to recreate Derek's style rather than embrace his own which is a shame as you can tell there is something not quite comfortable about it. I would like to see something in his own style to see if it feels more relaxed and natural.
Good As Lily is probably the weakest of the Minx books though it is still worth a try if you have enjoyed the rest of the series. Despite its faults it is a perfect gateway for exploring the art and writing of Derek and Jesse. Just surfing around Derek's blog makes me want to read and watch more by him. I hope to feature more by both Derek and Jesse in the future.
You'll like Good As Lily if you like: Freaky Friday, 13 Going on 30, 17 Again, Glee (and The Glee Project), Western slice of life manga, 1990s kids shows set in and around high school, cheesy Asian drama.
Also by Jesse Hamm: Negative Burn, Hawkeye Volume Two and Hawkeye: Little Hits
Graphic novels written by Derek Kirk Kim: Same Difference, Flight Volume One, Bizarro World and Electric Ant Issue 1
Graphic novels drawn by Derek Kirk Kim: Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, The Eternal Smile and Prime Baby
As the cat dispute continues (she's refusing to give up coming here) I present to you the next graphic novel in my Minx Review series: Token written by Alisa Kwitney and illustrated by Joëlle Jones.
It's the summer of 1987 and daddy's girl Shira is spending another summer alone seeing as her social life was ruined by an unfortunate incident with a bar mitzvah cake. Life's okay though, she's best friends with eighty year olds Pearl and Minerva and has her dad all to herself...until he starts dating his secretary. Feeling that her dad is changing for the worse Shira lashes out by shoplifting a scarf only to be spotted by Latino hottie Rafael but instead of turning her in Rafael offers her shoplifting lessons and so begins their flirty and thrilling relationship.
First of all YAY. A mainstream western graphic novel written AND illustrated by women. So it IS possible! More please!
Read Token on a beach / in the garden / by a pool / anywhere sunny and warm. It won't be half as enjoyable in the middle of winter (unless you need some reminding of what summer is like of course)! I wouldn't say it's anything new, but then it's not trying to be - it's the story of a daddy's girl learning to share her father with another woman wrapped up in a summer romance - but thanks to likeable, well shaped, well drawn characters it doesn't need to do anything crazy and daring to be enjoyable.
Shira is perfect for Minx's target audience: she's pretty but also gawky, cool but not part of the cool crowd, intelligent, self-aware, melodramatic and very spunky. It's very rare in mainstream graphic novels and most other genre writing for a feisty female character to be so well rounded (and also likeable) and I have to say it's because she's written by a woman. Male writers like Paul Dini, Ross Campbell and Joss Whedon get amazingly close to understanding the female mind (and I love them for it) but then there are people like Steven Moffat who think they write females better than they actually do and those who just don't care as long as the female has big boobs to bounce about. Believe it or not nothing beats a woman for understanding a woman! Or the pains of being a teenage girl (trust me guys there's much more to it that PMS). Alisa understands it perfectly and writes it perfectly, getting just the right balance of fragility and feistiness. She also fills Token with settings and secondary characters that are completely up an intelligent, daydreamy teenage girl's street: the 1980s John Hughes beach setting; a wry, 1940s screen siren, Jewish grandmother best friend and a charming bad boy love interest.
Rafael is hot. Just saying. Joëlle's art is fantastic (more on that later) and she manages to make him practically smoulder. For the first time in all the Minx books I can actually see why the lead falls for the boy. I would. The scene where he catches Shira shoplifting is so loaded! Shira's feistiness combined with Rafael's smoothness leads to some great banter and top notch flirting. Be still my beating heart! Usually I want to vomit when I read / watch a romance but I actually wanted to read Shira's and Rafael's scenes most of all - I wanted to see how their relationship would end considering all the complications connected to it - and I wanted to see them get it on (a bit of vicarious living).
Despite the dream ingredients Token also has a very realistic feel and resolution which I think is to it's credit. Shira's father's secretary is not an evil stepmother stereotype - she's actually really nice - any animosity is purely from Shira and it is up to Shira to realise it. The ending is also not a happily ever after ending. As Batman would say, Shira doesn't get everything she wants but she gets what she needs and when Alisa has been so careful to craft a story and characters with so many layers and dimensions it's the only correct ending there could be.
Now what was I saying about Joëlle's art? IT'S EPIC! It is proper mainstream stuff with all the quality and detail you would expect and see in an issue of Batman or X-Men whilst maintaining a unique and personal style. The characters' expressions are just perfect, very much taking Alisa's writing and running with it. I could look at Joëlle's art all day. It makes me so happy that she is now working with the big comic publishers. I would most definitely love to work with her should I ever get so lucky!
What was that? You want some endearing, perfectly written, perfectly drawn summer romance? Then get yourself a copy of Token!
You'll like Token if you like:
John Hughes' 1980s films, Dirty Dancing, The Lost Boys, Mermaids, Grandma's House, The O.C. and Ocean Waves (I Can Hear the Sea)
Also by Alisa Kwitney: Till The Fat Lady Sings,The Dominant Blonde,Does She or Doesn't She?,On the Couch, Sex as a Second Language: A Novel, Destiny: A Chronicle of Deaths Foretold, Vertigo Visions: The Phantom Stranger andSandman: King of Dreams
Also by Joëlle Jones: 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, You Have Killed Me, Sexy Chix, Shojo Beat, Fables, Popgun, Portland Noir, Madman Atomic Comics #16, Dr. Horrible,Madame Xanadu, Troublemaker, House of Night,The Girl Who Owned a City, Spell Checkers and Ultimate Spider-Man #150
So I was going to review a different Minx title this week but I was so distracted drawing my own graphic story (which I'll share with you at a later date) that I forgot to re-read it! D'oh! So to make up for it I'll review two other Minx graphic novels in one go: The Plain Janes and Janes in Love written by Cecil Castellucci and illustrated by Jim Rugg.
The Plain Janes is all about...uh...Jane, a popular girl who is caught in a terrorist explosion. Jane survives but afraid that next time she might not be so lucky her parents relocate from the city to the safe suburbs of Kent Waters. The explosion really gets Jane thinking and she realises she wants more in life than being popular. She redesigns herself and instead of sitting at the cool girl table on her first day of school she sits with the 'rejects', a group of girls (and one guy) who all happen to be called variations on the name Jane. Jane wants to channel her feelings from her bad experience into making the world a more beautiful place and together with the other Janes create art installations in the dead of night (think Banksy or Knit Bombing) however not everyone can see the art in P.L.A.I.N's (People Loving Art in Neighbourhoods) art and will do anything to stop them from defacing Kent Waters any further.
Janes in Love continues the activities of P.L.A.I.N with Jane realising the only way she can continue to make Kent Waters more beautiful is to make her art legal however whilst she's applying for an arts grant the other Janes are flaking out on her as the Leap Year Dance (their school's Valentine's Day ball) is coming!
The Janes books are some of the more positive books in the Minx series. You know that whatever the plot suggests things are going to turn out okay for Jane and her crew. This is great if you need a lift on a miserable day but not so good if you want some gritty realism. A more subtler positivity that the books contain is the concept of turning something ugly into something beautiful. Jane believes deeply in her cause - a project that will not only help her work through her trauma of the bombing but also change for the better the lives of everyone around her - and works at it doggedly no matter what fate throws at her. When you think of the more popular Young Adult heroines such as Bella Swan and Clary Fray such selflessness and dedication puts Jane head and shoulders above them as a positive young adult role model.
The other Janes are more stereotypical which is fine in the first book but a little lazy in the second. Each Jane is known as their thing eg Theatre Jane and Sporty Jane and that's pretty much as deep as they get. There is the odd twist to their stereotyping eg Sporty Jane though very unladylike is the first to bag herself a boy in Janes in Love but it's rare. Clever Jane's quirk is that her parents are two gay men which though unusual and refreshing isn't really about her, is it? Then there is James, the only gay in the village...er...I mean Buzz Aldrin High (best name for a school ever). We know he's gay because his face is drawn differently from all the other male characters and he only ever hangs out with girls. He is most definitely stereotyped by his sexuality which is sad as I know that wasn't the intention. I really wanted him to find some straight / gay male friends so that he could explore aspects of himself that he couldn't with a bunch of straight girls.
The most developed of the other Janes is Theatre Jane which is ironic as her speech patterns are the most unbelievable (she talks like a male Shakespearean actor). This development happens in Janes in Love where she goes to meet her crush (theatre actor Rhys) on the same day Jane goes to her arts grant pitch. Theatre Jane goes from being a stubborn drama queen to showing a gentler, more nervous and fragile side as well as displaying very endearing resilience.
Janes in Love definitely has the stronger narrative (The Plain Janes' overarching story is very basic - succeed at spreading art - leaving lots of space to explore Jane making friends, spreading art, understanding her feelings, getting an art crush on a guy in a coma and winning bad boy Grant) but the 'girls falling in love' part of it is much less original. Maybe it's because every slice of life Young Adult book aimed at female readers involves at least one obligatory romance or maybe it's because the other Janes don't really expand beyond their characters established in the first book that it feels unimaginative. I mean if you're going to do teen romance you really need to put a new spin on it. Theatre Jane's visit to Rhys does have that spin and there is a suggestion of a lesbian encounter but apart from that it's all pretty much paint by numbers stuff. Luckily art is not completely forgotten in the second book and Jane's attempt to continue P.L.A.I.N is enough to carry the book through (though you are never in any doubt about how the art grant will go).
Apart from James not looking like anyone else in either of the books (this is particularly apparent in Janes in Love where his eyes are just dots) the art, as usual, is first class. Jim manages to combine bold lines with wispy shading. The characters (apart from James) have large eyes that really do act like the doors to their souls. I could honestly stare at main Jane's eyes all day. The characters and backgrounds, though not always 100% realistic have so much beauty an emotion to them. They feel like art which I suppose makes them perfect for books about the beauty of art.
You'll like The Plain Janes / Janes in Love if you like: Rookie, Art School Confidential (and the art class scenes in the Ghost World movie), The Gilmore Girls, It's Kind of a Funny Story, The Perks of Being s Wallflower and knit bombing
Also by Jim Rugg: Street Angel, Afrodisiac, One Model Nation, and The Guild.
Novels by Cecil Castellucci: Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool, Beige, Rose Sees Red, Grandma's Gloves, First Day on Earth, The Year of Beasts and Odd Duck.
Cecil is also an indie rock musician releasing music as Nerdy Girl and Cecil Seaskull. Maybe I should do Friday Feature on her music. What do you think?
This week's Minx review is the graphic novel kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich.
kimmie66 is a sci-fi noir about gothic teen Telly's search to find out not only why her best friend killed herself but also who she actually was. In Telly's world people spend all their free time (and the majority of their work / school time) online in virtual reality habitats called 'lairs'. The real world just isn't cool enough anymore. Once you pick a 'lair' you have to stick to it for the rest of your virtual life (let's hope you still like now what you liked when you were seven) and hopping lairs is a serious offense. In your lair you can be whoever you want to be (as long as it matches the theme of your lair) however Telly's avatar is pretty much her, which is great for us to latch onto her as a character but not so good for her when Kimmie kills herself. Telly has never met her best friend in real life and realises that everything she knows about Kimmie is whatever Kimmie wanted her to know, aka nothing real.
kimmie66 was the final Minx title I read (I think I finished it two months ago) and I sought it out more to complete my collection than because I wanted to read it. In retrospect that was a very dumb attitude but quite a few things put my younger self off buying it when I had the chance:
I judged the book by its cover. I couldn't deny the bottom half of the cover looked cool but the upside down line art of Telly looked a bit rubbish (the shaded version inside the book looks so much better).
At the back of each Minx book are samples of other titles. The sample for kimmie66 was not elegantly chosen. It featured some incredibly unattractive man and generally looked like the art didn't fit the pages properly (I'll talk more on that later).
I was still new to American and indie comics (I only read manga at the time) and was very close-minded about art styles.
The biggest positives about kimmie66 are the characters. Telly's humbleness is very endearing and combined with her uncertainty she becomes a unique 'detective' in what is basically a noir comic. The other characters also fulfil both the roles of stock noir characters and internet user tropes. Her helper is Nekokat (the queen of drama llamas), her brother is the guy who thinks with his fists (and the kind of idiot who trolls any Batman video on youtube that isn't set in the Nolanverse), super smooth hacker Coil is completely untrustworthy but completely essential, Kimmie's mother (a silver surfer) is the boffin with bad intentions, and not forgetting Kimmie who is the mysterious femme fatale.
The sci-fi setting is very imaginative - the most creative of the Minx titles - but it's detective plot is standard...there is only so much you can do in a single volume story. One of the biggest qualms people have is the 'confusing' ending. I wouldn't say it's confusing, I'd call it 'rushed'. Aaron devotes a lot of pages to establishing Telly's world and situation (which is very necessary) but means the final third of the detective story, though still packed with unique ideas, does not have enough space to use the same level of detail. Cramming so much in will always confuse people. Telly's personal ending is much easier to understand and better paced. It is very thoughtful and relevant and as someone who spent too much time making and breaking online friendships as a teenager I very much appreciate it.
The art is love or hate. I'd say the more inclined you are to indie comics the more open you will be to Aaron's style. If you've only ever read manga or mainstream American comics you'll probably hate it. The characters are very stylised (Aaron had previously worked on the designs for Invader Zim), the most stylised out of all the Minx comics. The characters are stubby and the backgrounds are usually quite bare. Aaron uses thick lines and extreme facial expressions to portray emotions. Looking at the images without the words they can tend towards the ugly but once you add the dialogue they become perfect.
A lot of the pages either have black backgrounds or are white with extremely thick black borders - these look fine - but about 10% of the pages are white without thick borders, it are these that look like they have not been sized to fit the page. It is very off-putting as it makes the book look amateurish which, considering Minx was an imprint of DC just wasn't the case. Whoever picked them as the sample pages for kimmie66 in the rest of the Minx titles doesn't deserve to work in a visual industry as there were much more attractive and representative pages on offer.
Five years on from when I first picked up a copy of kimmie66 I've read a hell of a lot more graphic novels. The biggest thing to change is I'm much more likely to buy a mainstream graphic novel by an indie artist now than one with a more stereotypical style. Of course story is paramount but those artists with unique styles seem to understand and express emotion and mise en scene so much more easily than those worried about accurately depicting muscle tone and hair strands. I think it's natural when you first get into graphic novels to judge a story by the quality of its art (perfect art = perfect story, right?) but as you read more you begin to understand that it is the synergy between the art and the story which makes a graphic novel work, not the art alone. Flipping through kimmie66 you may find the art too blocky and the expressions too over the top but once you start reading you'll understand how perfectly matched to the characters it is and how enjoyable those characters are.
You'll like kimmie66 if you like: Serial Experiments Lain, Paprika, The Matrix, A Scanner Darkly, dystopian sci-fi novels such as Brave New World and those graphic novel artists from the 1990s who were mainstream whilst retaining very unique styles such as Sam Kieth, Bruce Timm, Tim Sale and Mark Badger.
This week's Minx review is the graphic novel Water Baby by Ross Campbell. I think Ross Campbell is epic however I promise to be subjective with this review (mostly).
Water Baby is a story of two halves. The first part focuses on surfer chick Brody's recovery from having her leg bitten off by a shark. She is plagued with nightmares of a mutant version of the shark which attacks not only her but also her best friend Louisa. Just as Brody starts to get used to her loss another shark enters her life: ex-boyfriend Jake. Jake is a total douchebag and is ruining Brody and Louisa's peaceful existence. When he trashes their apartment Brody decides it's time to send Jake packing. This is where Water Baby enters phase two and becomes a road story. Instead of just ejecting Jake, Brody takes it upon herself to drive Jake back. At a service station he meets Chrissie. They say bad people attract each other and this is very much the case and before Brody and Louisa know what is happening Jake has invited Chrissie along with them. Chrissie's boyfriend apparently abandoned her and it becomes obvious why as she systematically tries to destroy the trio's already strained relationship.
As far as I remember Water Baby was my first Minx graphic novel and though, by no means perfect, it was enough to get me hooked on not only on the Minx imprint but also Ross Campbell.
I'll talk about the art first. It's faultless. If you like the slightly moody and decaying style of Wet Moon then you will be at home with Water Baby. When Brody shaves off her hair she very much looks like Mara. The story too has a very Wet Moon-ish feel to it (it was written between volumes 2 and 3). It is definitely the most grown up of the Minx stories. Brody's accident and nightmares are very graphic and the characters have very mature relationships with sex and sexual fluidity.
The first part of the story is very much the strongest. Because you start with Brody and Louisa a few minutes before the accident you already feel like you know them and their relationship when it happens. You are much more invested in Brody's recovery than if you had started a few seconds before the attack or just after. Louisa takes a lot of crap from Brody but because you know how close they were you want to see their relationship recover too. Then there's Jake. He is a trigger for the nightmares and causes some good extra tension but he is such a selfish, ignorant, douchebag that whenever he pops up he really sticks out. Everything is so nuanced and subtle and inferred then Jake comes along and does something dumb because he is an irredeemable idiot. You could say that maybe his stupidity is cute but he is also a chauvinist so unless you like guys who treat women as little more than put on the earth for their gratification he is not cute. I guess what I'm saying is he's a little bit too much of a jerk. I most definitely would not have offered to drive him home - but then that is also part of the story - Brody realising that you don't have to tolerate or pander to jerky exes.
The second part of the story is the road trip. It is very standard fare. It is here we meet Chrissie. Chrissie is cute but poisonous. I knew a girl exactly like her at university and maybe we all know girls like Chrissie but if you don't you'll probably find her a bit of an evil seducer stereotype in a book that is otherwise very liberal. I think because the book is so open to all sorts of ways of life if feels strange to have such an obvious 'villain' but like I said...girls who look cute and use their cuteness to do incredibly destructive things do exist. I suppose it doesn't help that Jake really is such an idiot and falls for her sly ways so easily whilst Brody and Louisa know there is something up and want as little to do with her as possible. I think because the books is a single volume and a big chunk is devoted to Brody's recovery there is not much space to develop Chrissie as much as the other characters. Though it is not intended she has a tendency to come across as bad because she sleeps around rather than bad because she is generally out to cause trouble.
Water Baby desperately wants to be two different stories but if you're willing to overlook the meandering plot there is a lot still to enjoy, notably the naturalistic dialogue, Brody and Louisa's relationship and Ross' beautiful art. It is also refreshing to find a male writer who can actually write good female characters and isn't afraid to write a less than perfect male. It gets very tiring seeing male writers mouth off about how great they are at writing strong females when in reality though their characters are not the 1950s housewife stereotype they are still no way near dimensional enough to be 'real' (yes there is a difference between 'strong' and 'real'). Long live Ross Campbell's obsession with deep, gutsy girls!
You'll like Water Baby if you like: Wet Moon, Ghost World,Kakera: A Piece of Our Life, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, female road trip movies such as Boys on the Side and grungy surfer stuff.
Also by Ross Campbell (writer and artist): Too Much Hopeless Savages!, Wet Moon, The Abandoned, Resurrection (v2), Shadoweyes and Shadoweyes in Love
Also by Ross Campbell (artist only): Spooked, House of Mystery #1: "The Hollows", Hack/Slash, Fraggle Rock(v2 #2),Glory (#23-34) plus a load of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff.
Sorry I forgot to do this last week - when I start writing I get completely carried away sometimes! Anyway, I thought I would start with my favourite Minx graphic novel Emiko Superstar by writer Mariko Tamaki and artist Steve Rolston.
Emiko is the kind of girl who drifts through life. Bad things happen but she's always too scared of the repercussions to ever try to shake things up...that is until she sees Poppy, a beautiful, alternative teenage performance artist, at the mall. She is faced with a choice: attend young executive summer school with her 'safe' frenemies (but the closest she has to friends) or explore an alternate side of herself at the not-so-legal performance venue 'The Factory'. At first Emiko is fine just watching the performances but soon finds herself performing pages from the diary of the young mother she babysits for. She is an instant success but soon finds all that glitters isn't gold when 'The Curator' of The Factory (and Poppy's sleazy older boyfriend) comes on to her.
I think out of all the Minx heroines Emiko is the one most appealing to the intended readership. She is an everyday, intelligent, slightly introverted girl (much like the average Minx reader) who decides to leave a world and friends that dissatisfy her and reinvent herself for the summer as a character with no restraints on her freedom of expression (probably the biggest angst a teenage girl has) . Because The Factory is not some alternate world, just a hidden place on the other side of the tracks, it makes the idea that anyone can explore a different side of themselves much more accessible. Mariko doesn't try to over glorify the alternative scene though. Yes Emiko makes good friends there, but she also finds parts of it unnatural to her nature / personality and is especially unsettled by the motives and pushiness of The Curator. Mariko and Steve depict life at The Factory as beautiful but transient with those unable to move on paying the price. The biggest example of this is Poppy. Poppy is Emiko's idol and appears to revel in her role at The Factory and with The Curator but is also the most unhappy. She is like a butterfly trapped in her chrysalis with the lifestyle that created her slowly suffocating her and her life's full potential.
The art is also very likeable. Everything has a gentle roundness to it like the character designs for Lilo and Stitch. The panels are characterful and detailed without being crowded. Emiko is also a refreshing character design being short and curvy rather than tall and skinny or massively out of proportion like a your usual DC female.
The only niggle I have with Emiko Superstar (and it is a small one) is that Emiko refers to her school friends as being geeks (and she does not mean the cool kind like yours truly ;-) ). I'd say the people she hangs out with aren't geeks but friends of convenience (we've all been in that situation where you haven't managed to make any real friends so hang out with the first group willing to take you). Mariko somewhat assumes that if you're a geek you're uncool and unpopular (therefore lumping the three together) but that really depends on what circles you move in. I'm happy being a geek and *shocker* I have friends who *bigger shock* think I'm cool(ish). Being a geek doesn't necessarily make you uncool. Being a douchebag does. I think the best way to perceive it is that Emiko is a geek AND unhappy with her position in life. Throughout the story she remains herself (therefore remains a geek) but comes to understand herself and her needs better.
You'll like Emiko Superstar if you like:
Andy Warhol and his Factory, Kids on the Slope, Adventureland and modern American poetry and prose such as the work of Jack Kerouac, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg etc
Also by Mariko Tamaki: Cover Me, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice, Fake ID, Skim and Set Me on Fire.
Also by Steve Rolston: Jack Spade and Tony Two-Fist, Queen & Country, Pounded, Mek, One Bad Day, The Escapists, Tales of the TMNT #28, Degrassi: Extra Credit vol. 4, House of Mystery #4 and Ghost Projekt.
This week is my last (for now) graphic novel for female readers, Wet Moon by Ross Campbell. Wet Moon is a series of graphic novels set around the eponymous college town featuring the trials and tribulations of the young adults (mostly female, mostly into alternative cultures) who live there.
Though Wet Moon features an ever widening ensemble cast much of the action rotates around eighteen year old Cleo Lovedrop. Cleo is still getting over ex-boyfriend (and ultra broody love of her life) Vincent when she bumps into screamo chick Myrtle. They quickly become attracted to each other and Cleo must work out if she is gay, bi or just going through a phase whilst still trying to get over Vincent. Things start to get complicated when Cleo's sister falls pregnant by someone very familiar, Myrtle turns possessive and Cleo realises she'd much rather have a relationship with childhood best friend Mara. Then there are the 'Cleo Eats It' posters posted all over town, the mysterious almost magical Fern, the FBI guy with the monkey, a mysterious slasher, a masked vigilante and the weird stain on Cleo's bedroom floor.
Wet Moon's a little like a sub-culture soap opera. Every character has a story, no matter how grand or small, and whatever happens ends up being everyone else's business. My friend compared it to a load of gothic girls being bitchy about each other...and it kind of is...but then that's what teenage girls do. What she means is Wet Moon is as much about creating characters and an atmosphere as it is telling a story - its focus is much more on dialogue and the everyday life of the town than it is fast moving storylines. It will appeal much more to young women already into or accepting of sub-cultures than someone who isn't as to be 'normal' is to be the odd one out in Wet Moon.
The best thing about Wet Moon for me is that Ross Campbell never exploits his characters. It would be so easy for a graphic novel about gothic girls to be aimed squarely at over-sexed male readers looking for a quick you-know-what but instead he rises above it and creates a world anyone open to it can enjoy. His cast is all encompassing - characters come from all races, all sexual orientations and all body shapes. Some are inherently cool, some are geeks and some are complete mysteries. Campbell doesn't take the obvious root of making his gay characters' storylines about being gay - refreshingly (apart from Cleo) the majority of the gay characters' storylines are those anyone could go through with being gay being as incidental as the colour of their hair. Ditto for body shape. Characters such as Fern and Zia are disabled but Wet Moon never becomes a freak show and they are depicted as so much more than their missing limbs. The same goes for curvy Audrey - she could easily become 'the fat girl' - but is instead a radiant, gentle, blabbermouth and moral compass. Indeed it is because Wet Moon is a town where unique is the norm that so many of the characters' beauty is so easily accessible. I am especially fond of main character Cleo. She is by no means perfect - she can be two-faced and flaky - but we share the same body shape (short and curvy) which I can promise you is not what your average comic book heroine looks like!
Of course we would not know what Cleo and here friends looked like without the art. Campbell's style finds a wonderful balance between detail and decay, embracing the grayscale of the indie graphic novel medium. All his characters are gorgeous without being gratuitous. I'm not going to lie - I find his style one of the most unique and beautiful I have encountered - I truly find it a feast for the eyes. I really hope one day I'll be lucky enough to write for him!
Campbell starts the first few volumes of Wet Moon in a more realistic style then between volumes three and five become more cartoon-like (Cleo's eyes in particular become very large) and in volume six he returns to his original style. Despite the change in style neither to me is better than the other. As a Batman reader I'm used to characters being drawn in multiple styles and though I must admit I prefer Campbell's more realistic work I completely appreciate the effort and love put into his more cartoonish style.
Wet Moon is the perfect place to go if you're searching for someone to relate to as there really is someone there for everyone. I only ever read Wet Moon in the bath. Bath time is my escape from the stresses of the real world. Likewise Wet Moon is the place I go when I want a relaxing escape. I can spend hours exploring its strange streets and breathing its originality in...well until the bath water goes cold and it's time to face the real world again.
You can find out more about Ross Campbell, Wet Moon and his other works here.
Everyone in Wet Moon likes Bella Morte so here is a song by them!
Next week: We return to music with La Sera!
P.S. - did you enjoy this series? Would you like to see more recommendations? Are there any graphic novels in particular you would like to see featured?
Minx was an imprint of DC Comics for teenage girls but sadly only ran between 2007-2008. It was aimed at intelligent and creative young women who enjoyed manga and indie graphic novels but felt too intimidated to read more mainstream American graphic novels such as Batman or Wonder Woman. Unfortunately due to factors such as mainstream booksellers placing Minx graphic novels with the 'boys comics', manga readers often shunning manga-style comics and the majority of Minx's creators being male the whole 'alternative graphic novels for young women' idea was considered not worth the trouble and Minx was cancelled.
To begin with each Minx graphic novel was a one-shot (single issue comic) though sequels were planned. The protagonists were always female (high school - college age) with their stories often being slice of life (though some had fantasy elements) sometimes featuring romance and always featuring personal growth. Though aimed at teenage girls the stories were never sugarcoated with the aforementioned life lessons often coming the hard way.
Due to the desire to attract readers of manga and indie graphic novels each book was A5 in size with a colour cover and greyscale pages. At the back of each book were samples of other Minx titles and three pages of blank panels to draw your own comic.
The Minx graphic novels were:
The P.L.A.I.N. Janes and Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg - the artistic exploits of a group of high school misfits all called Jane.
Re-Gifters by Mike Carey, Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel - a young martial artist learns that there is much more emotion involved in the art of giving than just passing an object from one person to another.
Clubbing by Andi Watson and Josh Howard - a city goth discovers a sleepy village's creepy secret.
Good as Lily by Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm - a girl encounters three different versions of herself.
Confessions of a Blabbermouth by Mike Carey, Louise Carey and Aaron Alexovich - a young blogger learns you shouldn't write up every thought that pops into your head unedited.
Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich - a 23rd century girl investigates the suicide of a friend she has only met on the internet.
Burnout by Rebecca Donner and Inaki Miranda - a young girl literally plays with fire when she starts dating a new boy.
Water Baby by Ross Campbell - a surfer girl who lost her leg goes on an ill-fated road trip.
The New York Four by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly - explores both the glamour and loneliness of moving to the famous city that is New York
Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston - a sheepish girl creates a new persona for herself during the summer holidays as a performance artist but learns glamour is subjective.
Token by Alisa Kwitney and Joelle Jones - when a single father starts to date his secretary his already awkward daughter vents her feelings of rejection and frustration by taking shoplifting lessons from a handsome stranger.
Unfortunately all the graphic novels only had single print runs and you probably won't be able to get them in a book or comic book shop anymore (I pretty much looted Forbidden Planet London...sorry guys) however you can still get them for reasonable prices from places like the Amazon Market Place and eBay.
I plan on reviewing each of the titles separately but if I had to pick one favourite it would be Emiko Superstar which features an extremely shy Japanese-American girl getting drawn to the surface glamour of an underground alternative performance art scene. Desperate to be cool for a summer she finds a way to join in but realises all that glitters isn't gold and that to maintain her fame she will have to compromise her morals...and I will leave the rest of that for its review!
I think it's a terrible shame that Minx didn't succeed. The reason more young women (or females in general) don't read graphic novels is because they don't feel many are aimed at them. This in turn creates a feeling that if a female IS interested in graphic novels she is being fake and doing it because that is what is cool with menfolk (which of course well all know is a load of guff). I sincerely hope that at some point DC does try Minx again...and when they do I want to be there writing for them.
Next week: We explore another of Ross Campbell's works further as the last (for now) of my graphic novels for female readers series!
Maybe I've spent too much time with guys but it always makes me laugh when Rookie references Steve Buscemi and all the comments shout SEYMOUR! rather than MR PINK!
Who is Seymour? Seymour is a character from the 2001 film Ghost World starring Thora Birch and a young Scarlett Johansson as two bored teens floating around a completely average American town in that hinterland between high school and college. My friend Gina recommended the movie saying it was just like me. I watched it and was like, "You think I'm like Seymour?!" and she was like, "No...I thought you were like Enid...!" at which I blushed.
Ghost World the film is equal parts humorous equal parts snarky but with a bittersweet ending. It is essential viewing for any young woman uncertain about her future. Not because it will give her all the answers but because it will help her know she's not alone.
The main reason Gina recommended Ghost World to me was because it was based on an indie comic of the same name written by Daniel Clowes in 1997.
If you found the humour of Ghost World the film too dry and the characters of Enid and Rebecca too hard to empathise with then you will not like Ghost World the graphic novel as it is completely unfiltered. Though humour is there the tone is much darker, coming from the girls' sardonic view of the world and playing on cringy situations you know you shouldn't really laugh at. Think Happiness.
When together Enid and Rebecca have a tendency to be cruel, extremely potty mouthed, bitchy, judgemental and melodramatic. Separated they manage to be deceitful whilst displaying a vulnerability you cannot ignore or not understand even if only on a basic level. Sorry to ruin it for you boys but they are real teenage girls, warts and all.
Just like in the film Enid is playful and over the top, acting out to both get attention from 'normal' Rebecca (who she sees as her superior) whilst also trying to steal all attention away from her. It is an almost poisonous relationship as the more the girls stay together the more they realise it cannot last and that it won't be the end of the world when it doesn't. They judge each other as much as they judge those around them. They betray and lie as much as they support and defend. They begin to notice each other's flaws and as they grow into two different women they realise that they are flaws they are not willing to live with. As with their personalities it is a depiction of a relationship warts and all.
One of the differences between the film and the graphic novel some Rookie fans will shed a tear at is that there is no Seymour. By that I mean there is no single character called Seymour but there are various male characters who if put together make Seymour (mostly Bob Skeetes and Bearded Windbreaker). The story structure as a whole is much more episodic than in the film. It is a series of events, mostly unrelated, that when put together tell the story of two young women struggling and on the most part failing to find meaning and hope in their small town lives. Yet these events are not without charm or pathos. In one chapter Enid spends two pages telling Rebecca how great Daniel Clowes is (extremely surreal to say the least) only to meet him and find he is a weedy perv (perfect 4th wall joke).
Despite the episodic nature of the storytelling the girls' often mean jokes are not without consequence. The results of a prank call to Bob Skeetes make Enid feel incredibly guilty and are the begin of her realisation that she does not like the woman she is becoming if her world doesn't change. It are such bouts of conscience that make Enid the more likable of the two girls.
The artwork is simple and unfussy without looking lazy or ugly. No one is glamorous in Ghost World. Like everything else they are warts (in some cases giant tumours) and all. It is silly but one of the biggest pleasures I got from the artwork was the use of mint green.
In summary Ghost World is a story that finds its beauty in unflinching honesty and the recreation of the everyday. It is as brutal as it is wistful but has both in equal measure. There are no magic powers or happy ending. Only the future and what you make of it.
Next week: We continue exploring graphic novels I think all young female comic book fans should read by looking at the short lived DC imprint Minx.
