By Aaron Alexovitch (Minx Books)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0373-3
In 2007 DC Comics had an honest go at building new markets by creating the Minx imprint. Dedicated to producing comics material for a teen/young adult readership and especially the ever-elusive girl audience, the intent was to tailor material for those who had previously embraced foreign material such as manga and momentous global comics successes like Maus and Persepolis or the abundant market for prose serials/pop phenomena like Roswell High, Twilight and even Harry Potter.
Sadly after only a dozen immensely impressive and decidedly different black-&-white graphic novels, Minx shut up shop in October 2008, magnanimously NOT citing publishing partner Random House’s failure to get the books onto the appropriate shelves of major bookstore chains as the reason for the cessation.
Nevertheless, most of the tomes published are still out there and most of them are well worth tracking down – either in the US originals or the British editions published by Titan Books.
One of the most intriguing was Kimmie66, written by author, artist and designer Aaron Alexovich (Serenity Rose, Eldritch, TV’s Invader Zim & Avatar: The Last Airbender).
It’s a splendid blend of teen awakening tale, smart treatise on the nature of reality and sharp celebration of power of friendship in the age of virtual living and isolation.
In the 23rd century, thanks to the programming breakthroughs of Dr. Mary Tenn and her Tennsys software, almost everybody lives their lives in shared “Lairsâ€: tailored, fully interactive VR worlds where like-minded souls can become comrades, enemies and/or best buds, all without ever having to leave their own physical dwellings.
Parents can still never see their kids even while working from home and never know where the children are even when they’re all in the same room…
The Lairs can be anything from carnage-strewn battlescapes where teenage boys inarticulately express themselves through hitting to rural idylls inhabited by garrulous furry creatures to nerdy types boldly traversing the void in space-ships to…
Telly is fourteen and conceptually hangs out with the gloomily sardonic and gorily elegant Goths in Elysium. She really only has two friends but naturally has no idea what their actual bodies or faces look like. Nekokat is a bit of simpleton and her avatar is a noxious little kid. Telly’s absolute best friend, however, is Kimmie66…
She’s incredibly smart and really very wild. Kimmie66 has acted up lots and frequently made ripples throughout all the Lairs, but when Telly gets a suicide note from her in Elysium, she can’t shake the feeling that it’s for real.
Real real.
Meat-body dead real…
She needs to do something about it, but when you don’t know your best friend’s name, what they look like or where they are options are limited…
Hopelessly lost Telly tries to carry on, but soon she – and eventually others – are being visited by ghostly apparitions of dying Kimmie – even on public VR forums or when plugged into the communal school Lair. If Kimmie is alive why isn’t she in touch? If she’s dead why is she increasing all over the network?…
And so begins a transformative quest as Telly sheds her old life and starts breaking customs, rules and even laws as she seeks to find out who her truest friend is and whether she’s dead, alive or perhaps something even stranger and infinitely worse…
A truly evocative, effective and affecting coming-of-age tale, the revelations of Kimmie66 are also astoundingly clever and warmly amusing; managing the even harder trick of also being truly excellent science fiction for young adults…
This gloriously sublimely understated marriage of smart narrative and compelling cartooning is a perfect vehicle for attracting new and youthful readers with no abiding interest in outlandish power-fantasies or vicarious vengeance-gratification (yes, that does mean girls) to our medium, and whilst Minx may be gone, the stories the company released changed comics for good and for ever.
Why not track them all down and enjoy a genuinely different kind of graphic reading experience?
© 2007 Aaron Alexovich. All rights reserved.