Category: Young Adult

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A Quick & Easy Guide to Consent


By Isabella Rotman with Luke B. Howard (Limerance Press/Oni Press-Lion Forge Publishing Group)
ISBN: 978-1-62010-794-2 (PB) eISBN: 978-1-62010-815-4

I’ve constantly argued here that comic strips are a matchless tool for education: rendering the most complex topics easily accessible and displaying a potent facility to inform, affect and alter behaviour. Here’s another superb example of the art form using its great powers for good.

The Quick & Easy Guide series has an admirable record of confronting uncomfortable issues with taste, sensitivity and breezy forthrightness: offering sound solutions as well as awareness or solidarity. Here, Maine-based cartoonist Isabella Rotman (Wait What?: A Comic Book Guide to Relationships, Bodies and Growing Up; You’re So Sexy When You Aren’t Transmitting STIs) and New Orleans colourist Luke Howard collaborate on a cogent, compelling primer covering the irrefutable basics When, Where, Why and most especially What can be taken as Consent. This is such a charged issue that the light, informative lecture is preceded by a very clear and well thought out Content Warning defining terms and the specifics of situations, with firm regard to gender, scope and even an Informational Disclaimer – that’s how hot a topic this still is…

Terms are examined and situations explored during a tenuous first encounter between two healthy young adults. However, as things heat up, a phantasmal guide pops in to steer the participants and give voice to their suppressed concerns, through chapters such as ‘What is Consent?’, ‘Consent is Simple’, ‘What is Sex?’ and ‘Consent Must be Freely Given!’, all emphasised through sidebars like ‘Tell Them What Turns You On!’ and an enumeration of what definitively ‘Have Nothing to do With Consent!’…

The dialogue and comics show-&-tells are punctuated by quotes from professional Sexual Consent Educators, augmented by role plays, quizzes and a section outlining and defining current (US only) ‘Age of Consent’ laws, before asking ‘Is Everyone Fully Informed?’ This last is primarily about all the many factors – physical and emotional – potential partners should always be apprised of, but also broadmindedly enquires ‘What About Kink?’, and even tackles the ever-present – and potentially devastating – ‘Fear of Rejection’…

In closing, the convivial confrontation offers a list of potential faux pas in ‘So Don’t…’; a summation ‘In Review…’ before providing a ‘Yes. No. Maybe So Checklist’ as well as a selection of ‘Safer Sex: Contraception’, ‘…STI Risk Reduction’ and ‘…Activities’ suggestions.

Being wise beyond her years and probably acutely aware of how inventive humans are, the author closes with sagacious questionnaire ‘Anything Else?’, plus a fulsome Bibliography and list of Resources to contact including Sex & Relationship Education, appropriate Hotlines and online Checklists… although considering how hostile most parents, many governments and all organised religions are to such dangerous knowledge in the sweaty hands of actual consentors/consentees, these might no longer be of much use…

I hail from (and am a grateful survivor of) a fabulous far-distant era where we happily ravaged the planet without a qualm and believed emotional understanding led to universal acceptance. At the same time, it seems most of us never stopped being greedy cave monkeys obsessively snatching whatever we wanted with no consideration of others or the greater consequences. Then again, some seem (apparently) a little more in tune with the planet now, and finally learning to share and play well with others…

This witty, no-nonsense treatise offers sage advice on becoming our best selves by dealing with our selfish natures – something that really should have been bred out of humanity eons, if not centuries, ago. This should be compulsory reading in every school and college… and pub, and nightclub, and scenic natural beauty spot, and cinema and waiting room and…
A Quick & Easy Guide to Consent™ & © 2020 Isabella Rotman. All rights reserved.

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Fires Above Hyperion


By Patrick Atangan (NBM)
ISBN: 978-1-56163-986-1 (TPB/Digital edition)

Might as well face facts: I’m old, opinionated, infirm and easily angered. Thus, as I finish recovering from my latest blue light hospital stay, and rapidly readjust my plans for Pride Week/Month reviews, I’m again compelled to switch to summer re-runs for a few days until normal service can be resumed. First off then, another plug for one of my absolute favourite graphic novels, bar none. If you haven’t seen this one yet, why are we still even talking?

Bad times for human beings, these days. With people daily dying in incalculable numbers, whilst denied the simple solace of friendly or familial contact as the end comes, with most of the world’s leaders continually fumbling the ball and losing their metaphorical bottle as the world dies from commercial abuse and obsessive exploitation: with the haters and bigots proudly – and utterly without a trace of shame – spreading their bile again, it seems odd to moan about comparatively minor issues.

Nevertheless, I’m adding another sin to the list. Perhaps the cruellest, most pitiless of the minor horrors besieging us – as “othering” returns as a method of political advancement and with COVID apparently setting up Round Two of the war against humanity – are increasing threats associated with simply congregating with like-minded friends and hoping to live life their own way. Hypocritically, that’s a right I’d happily deny every racist, homophobe, misogynist and fascist in existence, but hey, I’m “complicated”…

Over millennia, a large proportion of mankind decided (or just didn’t care) that it was okay for men to love men, women to love women – and in fact every flavour of person to enjoy the brief or sustained company of any other person or persons, as long as it was mutually consenting and age appropriate (admittedly those last two have always been a major problem for most men and some women).

I know it’s hard for some to let go of hate and fear, but we’d made a good honest start. Over time people began convening in vast, colourful bustling parades and parties: rowdy affirmations of a struggle that was generally regarded as won. LGBTQ+ folk are resilient and when that happened, carefully adapted and carried on, but some threats don’t end: they just retrench.

It’s long been an aphorism – if not outright cliché – that “gay” comics stories are the only place in the graphic narrative game where true romance still thrives. As far as I can see though it’s still true; an artefact, I suspect, of a society seemingly determined to demarcate and separate sex and love as utterly different and opposite things. I’d like to think that in the 21st century – at least the more civilised bits which actually acknowledge and welcome that times have changed and should STAY changed – we’ve outgrown those juvenile, judgemental, religion-blighted bad old days and can appreciate powerful, moving, wistful, sad and/or funny comics about ordinary people without any kind of preconception. That battle’s still not completely won yet, but hopefully thoughtful, inspirational memoirs such as this will aid the transition…

Californian Patrick Atangan (Songs of Our Ancestors, The Silk Tapestry, Tree of Love, The Yellow Jar, Invincible Days) is a multitalented Filipino-American creator with many strings to his creative bow. He’s as deft and subtle in his computer-generated comic tales and retellings of Asian myths as with the tools he uses to craft high-end designer furniture. Here, to his printed canon for youngsters, he’s added a wry, charming yet deeply moving collection of short intimate musings and recollections on his “romantic gaffes and failures” with the results enough to make the toughest cookie crumble…

Pitched as if Sex and the City had been created by a gay Charlie Brown, these utterly compelling, seditiously humorous slices of a life lived a little too much inside one’s own head kick off with chronological logic as still-closeted Patrick attends his ‘Junior Prom’. The problem is that he is escort to obsessive beard Mildred, whose attention to detail and fierce determination to make the event “absolutely perfect” cannot help but fail. At least the string of disasters the fervent Promzilla endures take the spotlight off his own failings, petty jealousies and perceived inadequacies…

‘Secrets’ skips ahead to the emotional and intellectual liberation of college, as our introvert resolves to reinvent himself. It begins an ongoing process of “Outing” which gradually encompasses friends, family and everybody new in his life. Sadly, that in turn leads to a sort-of romance with Calvin, who never really comes to terms with his own sexual identity…

On leaving academe, another character-building debacle involves ‘Gary’: someone our author judged far too lovely for a dweeb like himself – and therefore something of a self-fulfilling prophecy – before eponymous vignette ‘The Fires Above Hyperion’ turns the screws even tighter. This episode finds Patrick coolly contemplating LA’s now-annual forest fires threatening his stable existence whilst he foolishly attempts to rekindle or reinvent the three-year relationship he has just ended with Roger…

Eschewing his usual ‘New Year’s Eve’ ritual, the narrator then attends a big party and suffers inebriation, gastric trauma and the humiliation of mistakenly putting the moves on a chain-smoking straight guy before ‘APE Shit’ reveals the sorry fallout of a trip to San Francisco to attend his first Alternative Press Expo in a decade: a concatenation of domestic disasters comprising old friends with new children, commuter congestion and a total change in the way Indy comics are sold. At least he connects with gorgeous, seemingly ideal Bryan – before Fate and Patrick’s own conscience play a few pranks to spoil what might have been a perfect moment.

More self-inflicted trauma comes from ignoring the custom of a lifetime and attending a wedding as a ‘Plus One’. Naturally, he didn’t mind his “date” Julia going off with a guy, but when Patrick zeroes in on wonderful, apparently available Peter, events and the author’s own treacherous tuxedo (not a euphemism) conspire to make the soirée memorable for all the wrong reasons…

A heartbreakingly harsh assessment of Patrick’s failings leads to the awful conclusion that he is ‘Nobody’s Type’ before the excoriating romantic recriminations conclude with one more ill-fated, self-sabotaged first date that founders from too much introspection and accumulation of ‘Baggage’…

Insightful, penetrating, winningly self-deprecating, guardedly hopeful and never afraid to be mistaken for morose when occasion demands, this collection of misjudged trysts and missed chances offers a charming glimpse at the eternally hopeful way most folks of every persuasion live their love-lives. The result is magical and unforgettable, making this a must-have item for anyone graced with heart and soul…
© 2015 Patrick Atangan.

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This Land is Our Land: A Blue Beetle Story


By Julio Anta, Jacoby Salcedo, Francesco Segala, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: ?978-1-77952-282-5 (TPB/Digital edition)

¡Hola! Feliz Cinco de Mayo. And a happy Early May Bank Holiday to the rest of us too…

Published by Fox Comics and cover-dated August 1939, The Blue Beetle first appeared in Mystery Men Comics #1. The character was mostly created by Charles Nicholas (AKA Charles Wojtkowski, in the collaborative shop environment of that era) as a pulp-style mystery man, but clearly had adaptability, evolution and change hardwired into his chain-mailed manly torso. He was also a born survivor and habitual nomad. Over years and crafted by a Who’s Who of creators, the Beetle was inexplicably popular and hard to kill: surviving the collapse of numerous publishers before ending up as a Charlton Comics property in the mid-1950s.

After a few issues sporadically published over years, the changing tastes and his latest company shelved him until the superhero revival of the early 1960s when Joe Gill, Roy Thomas, Bill Fraccio & Tony Tallarico revised and revived the character in a 10-issue run (June 1964-February 1966). Cop-turned-adventurer Dan Garrett was reinvented becoming an archaeologist, educator and scientist who gained superpowers whenever he activated a magic scarab and uttered the trigger phrase “Khaji Da!” (Those stories are slated to be reprinted in August of this year in a DC Finest TPB collection and you’ll get my verdict pretty soon after that)…

Months later, Steve Ditko (with scripter Gary Friedrich) utterly reimagined Blue Beetle. Ted Kord was an earnest and brilliant researcher who’d been a student and friend of Professor Garrett. When his mentor seemingly died in action, Kord trained himself to replace his hero: acting as a purely human inventor/combat acrobat, bolstered by advanced technology. This version joined DC’s pantheon in 1985 during Crisis on Infinite Earths, winning a solo series before gaining quirky immortality after partnering with Booster Gold in Justice League International and beyond…

When Kord was murdered in the run up to Infinite Crisis, it heralded all-out war across realities and at the height of the linked catastrophes El Paso high schooler Jaime Reyes found a weird blue jewel shaped like a bug. That night, as he slept, it crawled inside him, turning him into a bizarre insectoid warrior. Suddenly, shockingly granted incredible powers, his perilous Hero’s Journey revealed how some are remade, not born – especially when a sentient scarab jewel affixes itself to your spine to transform you into an armoured bio-weapon and fifth column for alien invaders. Almost instantly, Jaime was swept up in the chaos, joining Batman and other super stars in a climactic space battle to save Earth.

When inexplicably returned home, Jaime revealed his secret to his family and tried to do some good in his hometown, but had to rapidly adjust to huge changes. Best bud Paco had joined a gang of super-powered freaks, the hero learned the local crime mastermind was the foster-mom of his other best bud Brenda, and scary military dude named Christopher Smith (The Peacemaker) started hanging around. He claimed the thing in Jaime was malfunctioning alien tech, not life-affirming Egyptian magic…

That led to a secret war against an alien collective of colonizing conquerors called the Reach whose shady dealings and defeat have been covered in Blue Beetle: Jaime Reyes volumes 1 & 2. You should get those. They’re very good.

Here however, we’re exploring a fresh permutation of the unfolding legend, incorporating much of the Reyes/Latinx flavoured iteration (as well as the recent movie), whilst very much going its own way: exploring contemporary themes of pressing immediacy and toxic nature, not just in America but across the entire planet.

In El Paso, high schooler Jaime Reyes is a dutiful son deeply concerned about the growing hostility facing his family, people and culture. Unlike his fiery friend and classmate Brenda he’s no firebrand, just an astronomy geek who would far rather spend his time watching the skies than defending the streets and fighting for his community’s rights. However, once the President closes the border and very publicly scapegoats refugees and immigrants – and by inference non-whites – for the nation’s woes, tensions rise across the city. All over the usual troublemakers exploit the situation to target anyone they don’t consider to be “Real Americans”. As they are so fond of screaming “This Land is Our Land!!”…

Opportunistic trouble seekers apparently have particular problems with the local native American and Hispanic peoples whose cultures predate the coming of the white colonisers, rather than the immigrants they purportedly protest against…

Distracted from his true passion – following a fascinating asteroid that behaves in ways no stellar object should – Jaime is increasingly burdened by the difficulties the border closure causes his father’s auto repair business and rise of hate-speak, vandalism and intolerance all around him. When an old pal from elementary school returns to the area and joins his high school class Jaime’s initial joy gradually sours once he learns former BFF Riley is being radicalised by online hate groups. Brenda and Paco are all for confrontation and direct action, but Reyes just can’t believe his old friend is truly beyond redemption…

Just when everything seems utterly unbearable Jaime’s situation overloads after a strange bug fossil he finds in an alley is revealed as alien and intelligent when it attaches itself to his spine and starts talking to him. The scarab is a means for the mighty Reach and their unctuous Ambassador to prepare Earth for first contact and what comes after, but every conversation with Jaime feels more dubious and untrustworthy to the troubled teen…

However, Reyes and the power-bestowing bug itself – which calls itself Khaji Da – quickly form a close bond. The scarab is meant to make Jaime an intermediary and agent of the extraterrestrials rapidly approaching Earth: the face of their promise to fix all humanity’s problems. Only, Jaime’s suspicions cannot equate all the facts. After all, if their intentions are honourable, beneficial and peaceful why are all their gifts deadly weapons?

As the interstellar voyagers draw closer and steer Reyes through early attempts to master his new abilities, the bug in his back switches sides. Unaware – and probably uncaring – of the potential doom from the skies, human-on-human tensions escalate and erupt into more violence. Concerned citizens Brenda, Paco and Jaime lead a street protest where locals hope to confront the race hate instigators, who have converged from all over America to make their own “statement”. As a bloodbath seems inevitable in the streets, disaster is abruptly forestalled by the appearance of a mighty bug-winged figure seeking to separate the rioting parties, but can even he be enough when that struggle is interrupted by the spectacular arrival of the Reach…?

Cherry picking the very best elements of traditional continuity to reinforce a timely tale affecting All Americans right now, This Land is Our Land is a powerful, sensitive, brave remarkably even-handed and desperately needed exploration of big issues aimed at readers of 13 and up that could teach most adults a better way to deal with hostility, aggression and intolerance. Blending important issues with compelling characters and a surprising degree of fun, author Julio Anta (Frontera, Si, Se Puede) and illustrator Jacoby Salcedo (Frontera, It’s Only Teenage Wasteland, Legion of Bloom, Young Men in Love) – along with colourist Francesco Segala, and letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have crafted a must-read modern classic.

This glorious celebration of youthful passion and growing agency is supplemented by an extract from edgy sister release, The Strange Case of Harleen & Harley by Melissa Marr & Jenn St-Onge.
© 2024 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future – The Venus Campaign (Complete Collection volume 1)


By Frank Hampton, George Beardmore, Eric Eden, Don Harley, Harold Johns, Greta Tomlinson, & various (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1-78586-292-2 (Album HB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

There are quite a few comics anniversaries this year. Some of the most significant will be rightly celebrated, but a few are going to be unjustly ignored. As a feverish fanboy wedged firmly in the past, I’m again abusing my privileges here to carp about another brilliant vintage book, criminally out of print and not slated for revival either physically or in digital formats…

Launching on April 14th 1950 and running until April 26th 1969, Eagle was the most influential comic of post-war Britain, and possibly in our nation’s history. It was the brainchild of a Southport vicar, the Reverend Marcus Morris, who was increasingly concerned about the detrimental effects of American comic-books on British children and wanted a good, solid, middle-class Christian antidote.

Seeking out like-minded creators he peddled a dummy edition around British publishers for over a year with little success until he found an unlikely home at Hulton Press, a company that produced general interest magazines such as Lilliput and Picture Post. The result was a huge hit which soon spawned age and gender-specific clones Swift, Robin and Girl which targeted the other key demographic sectors of the children’s market.

A huge number of soon-to-be prominent creative figures worked on the weekly, and although Dan Dare is deservedly revered as the star, many strips were almost as popular at the time, with many rivalling the lead in quality and entertainment value according to the mores and developing tastes of that hope-filled, luxury-rationed, fresh-faced generation. Eagle’s mighty recurring pantheon included radio and film star attraction PC 49, soon-to-be TV sensation Captain Pugwash, radio cowboy Jeff Arnold/Riders of the Range and the inimitable Harris Tweed – who swiftly became stars other media and promotional tie-in like books, puzzles, toys, games, apparel and comestibles as well as and all other sorts of ancillary merchandising.

At its peak, the original Eagle sold close to a million copies a week, but inevitably, changing tastes and a game of “musical owners” killed the title. In 1960, Hulton sold out to Odhams, who became Longacre Press. A year later they were bought by The Daily Mirror Group who evolved into IPC. In cost cutting exercises many later issues carried cheap(er) Marvel Comics reprints rather than British-originated material. It took time, but those Yankee Cultural Incursionists won out in the end. In 1969, with the April 26th issue Eagle was subsumed into cheap ‘n’ cheerful iron clad anthology Lion, eventually disappearing altogether. Successive generations have revived the title, but not the success. Never as popular, a revived second iteration ran from 27th March 1982 to January 1994 (having switched from weekly to monthly release in May 1991).

However as we celebrate 75 years of post-empire wonderment, let’s just be clear on one thing. It’s Dan & Digby we all recall most fondly…

There is precious little that I can say about Dan Dare that hasn’t been said before and better. What I will say is that everything you’ve heard is true. Vintage strips by Frank Hampson and his team of dedicated artists are a high point in world, let alone British comics, ranking beside Tintin, Asterix, Tetsuwan Atomu, Lone Wolf & Cub and the best of Kirby, Adams, Toth, Noel Sickles, Milt Caniff, Roy Crane, Carl Barks and Elzie Segar. If you don’t like this stuff, there’s probably nothing any of us can do to change your mind, and all we can do is hope you never breed…

Breakneck pace, truly astonishing high concepts underpinned by hard science balanced with nonstop action leavened with wholesome music hall larks and some of the most beautiful and powerful art ever to grace a comic page makes the introductory exploit of Hampson’s Dan Dare as much a magical experience now as it was in 1950. Many companies have kept the legend alive in curated collections over the decades, and this 2018 Titan edition combines material from three of their 2004-2009 hardback collections.

Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future – The Venus Campaign merges and re-presents – on paper and digitally – the first two adventures of the strip that headlined groundbreaking, legendary Eagle. Spanning 14th April 1950 to September 28th 1951 for riotous rocket romp Voyage to Venus and followed by sequel saga The Red Moon Mystery as it appeared between October 5th 1951 and June 20th 1952, this tome introduces Colonel Daniel MacGregor Dare of the Interplanet Space Fleet and his batman Albert Fitzwilliam Digby – the truest of Brits who ever spacewalked – and an ever-expanding captivating cast to a eagerly anticipating nation.

The comics glories are preceded by an exuberant reminiscent Introduction by the artist’s son Peter Hampson, picture-packed background essay ‘The Genesis of Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future’ by Nick Jones, and bullet point biography of the series’ “Special Science Consultant” Arthur C. Clarke, all accompanied by a visual aid revealing ‘Who’s Who in Dan Dare’.

… And then it’s blast off as we learn in vibrant, vividly colourful 2-page chapters that Earth is slowly starving and must find new resources to feed its hungry billions. Space Fleet, despite three tragic losses, readies another exploratory mission to mystery planet Venus, where it is believed such agrarian resources may lie hidden beneath all-enveloping cloud cover. Earth’s last hope might be a strong-jawed, taciturn pilot and his podgy Lancastrian manservant…

Thus begins a fantastic, frenetic rollercoaster of action and wonderment, replete with all the elements of classic adventure: determined heroes, outlandish but deadly villains, fantastic locales and a liberal dose of tongue-in-cheek fun. Weeks pass and perils pop up and are dealt with in turn – everything from malfunctions, monsters, deadly new environments and hostile foes – but the clock is still counting down…

After a year of constant revelation, exploration and confrontation, Earth is still starving! Dan Dare and his team have not been heard from in weeks but humanity’s only hope is that the expeditionary force lost on Venus finds food and some way home!

The Colonel has his own problems. Surviving a deadly radiation barrier, ship explosion and crash, hostile terrain, drowning, enemy action and total separation from the rest of his team, he has learned that Venus is inhabited by two advanced races locked in a Cold War lasting for millennia. The situation is further complicated by the fact that one super-scientific side keeps slaves: partially and divergently evolved humans abducted from Atlantis on Earth millennia previously!

The ancient impasse on Venus ended the moment modern Earthmen penetrated the radiation screen bottling up the mysterious planet and got involved. Aiding apparently benevolent Therons against the ruthless reptilian Treens – malevolent emotionless myrmidons led by a genetically-created super brain dubbed the Mekon – leads to the vile mastermind advancing his long nurtured plans and launching an invasion of Earth!

Thankfully Dan and his crew are on hand, reunited and ready to stop him…

The victory segues straight into The Red Moon Mystery as Dan and his team – having broached the mysteries of Venus – move on to greater deeds. Attempting to top all that for sheer spectacle the creative cohort of Hampson and his associates (co-scripter George Beardmore and fellow artists Eric Eden, Don Harley, Harold Johns, Greta Tomlinson and others) delivered a splendid blend of suspense, tension and action as – thanks to an archaeological dig on Mars led by Dan’s uncle Ivor Dare – humanity is forewarned (barely) of impending supernal doom….

The ancient Martians were seemingly destroyed 200,000 years ago by an astral event involving a “red moon”, and as Dan & Digby ponder the fanciful story, their chief Sir Hubert Guest urgently despatches them into the deeper space to investigate a wandering object threatening to shatter the Earth colony on modern Mars. They press are calling the hurtling projectile the red moon…

Soon, all of Space Fleet is mustered to evacuate Mars but face an escalating crisis as the super-magnetic anomaly changes course and imperils the entire solar system before locking trajectories with Earth. When Dan leads a mission to survey the mystery asteroid prior to blowing it up, he uncovers a shocking secret beneath its surface, one that derails Space Fleet’s plan to save the world and humanity…

Gripping, trenchantly exploring humankind under pressure of global annihilation, beautifully illustrated and progressing at a breathless pace, this is a superb piece of End of the World drama, easily matching the best of post-war doom-smiths like John Wyndham or J. G. Ballard. It’s also got a happy, if portentous, ending…

Dan Dare, his faithful crew and the Eagle were a key part of British life from the outset and the secret is the sheer quality of the artwork and accessibility of the stories. Hampson & Co brought joy and glamour into the lives of a weary nation and this tome compellingly recaptures it all. The volume concludes with more picture-draped documentary material beginning with ‘An Interview with Frank Hampson’ as conducted by Alan Vince, biography ‘Tomorrow Man – Frank Hampson 1918-1985’ and the ‘Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future Checklist’…

Solid, cleanly wholesome entertainment, timeless and produced to the highest standards, this is a glorious tribute to unforgettable heroes of a forgotten future, deserving of and demanding your attention. If you’re into comics, you should own this volume. If you love a good read, you should seek out this book and its sequels. Simply put, if you’re just Decent and British, Dammit, you should love these stories! It almost makes one proud to be an Earthling…
Dan Dare and all related characters and elements depicted herein are © 2018 Dan Dare Corporation Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The Wendy Project


By Melissa Jane Osborne & Veronica Fish (Super Genius/Papercutz)
ISBN:978-1-62991-769-6 (TPB)

When does a favourite story or plot become an actual artefact of culture accessible to all? What separates last year’s fictional trope (dystopian future oppresses valiant outsider teen; alienated kid courted by supernatural lover; magic exists but the authorities have been covering it up; there are gangs of likable criminals in big cities and such like) from fundamental narrative memes that underpin all aspects of societal development (underprivileged hero overcomes great odds to win a birthright; loss of loved ones leads to path of vengeance; clever child becomes powerful adult by overcoming adversity; somewhere there exists someone who GETS me; if you just keep pushing you can possess a perfect ornamental helpmeet and you get the picture, no?)?

When you read a fantastic and gripping saga of mortal heroes valiantly slaying a marauding dragon, has the author accessed a rich and ancient cultural heritage or just swiped a scene from a currently in-vogue Tolkien tale?

In today’s likes-driven mass entertainment-monopolised world, certain classic stories – such as Romeo and Juliet, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, The Wizard of Oz – have been continually referenced, either overtly or surreptitiously, for numerous commercially sound reasons: assured consumer familiarity, brand awareness or simply that the originals were so masterful that we just don’t want them to end.

In 2015 Emet Comics released a beguilingly fresh riff on J. M. Barrie’s immortal paean to childhood Peter Pan, contrived by actress/writer Melissa Jane Osborne (Oma, Campus Crush) and illustrator Veronica Fish (Spider-Woman, Archie, Slam), marrying inescapably recognisable fantasy landmarks with elements of authentic family tragedy in an often distressing coming-of-age story. In 2017, rereleased via All-Ages and Young Adults graphic novel publisher Papercutz in the US with many foreign editions, The Wendy Project became one of the most beautiful and evocative releases of the year, A year later the book was added to the Yalsa Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.

The entire enchanting emotional rollercoaster ride was available in a sturdy hardcover and compact paperback edition but somehow failed to become a household name in its own right.

Let’s be straight here: this story is the flip side of the coin. The issue at hand is not a fantastic journey to a place of wonders but what happens to the family if children are lost…

One night in New England, 16-year old Wendy Davies is driving her younger brothers home when the car crashes into a lake. As she loses consciousness, the aghast older sister thinks she sees little Michael being carried off into the sky by a flying boy…

An investigation proceeds, but even after leaving hospital Wendy clings to her conviction that her brother is still alive. After all, the police still haven’t found his body. Middle sibling John is no help. He hasn’t spoken since the crash and Wendy just knows he shares her secret…

Deeply traumatised, Wendy’s parents move her to a new school where a therapist cajoles her into starting a journal of words and pictures to help process her grief. Wendy knows what she knows, however. The flying boy is real and has taken Michael, so she must find them and bring her brother home again. As days pass Wendy starts seeing many of the kids at her school in new yet familiar lights. Are they part of the plot to keep Michael from her?

And then, slowly but with escalating frequency and power, the two worlds of New England and Neverland begin to blend and merge…

Mimicking the style of Wendy’s own pencil, pen and crayon recollections and interpretations, Osborne’s “awfully big adventure” is rendered by Veronica Fish in mostly monochrome tones with emphatic, explosive bursts of radiant colour as the fantasy – or is that a greater reality? – intersects with her process of recuperation or acceptance. The conclusion is one no participant is ready for…

So, when is it acceptable and even necessary to stand on the shoulders of narrative giants and play with their magnificent toys? When you can burnish the legend by looking with fresh eyes, add lustre to the original canon and make new wonders for new and old readers. The Wendy Project does just that and is a book you must read.
© 2017 Emet Entertainment LLC. & Melissa Jane Osborne. All Rights Reserved.

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Young, Talented… Exploited!


By Yatuu, translated by FNIC (Sloth Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-908830-02-9 (TPB)

Much as we’d like to think otherwise, the world of work is pretty similar everywhere now and no longer possessed of purely national characteristics. These days we all slave under a universal system that sidesteps borders in the name of global corporate philosophy; it might even be ideology now! Thus, this stunning and still so very germane glimpse of one French woman’s frustrated struggle against modern employment practise is one that’s being repeated all over the planet every day. In this case however, Capitalism picked on the wrong person. Yatuu (Sasha, Génération mal logée!, Pas mon genre) has enough spark, gumption and talent to fight back and eventually turned a strident cartoon objection into a sparkling comics career…

When Cyndi Barbero graduated from college and began looking for a job, all she was offered were unpaid internships. Eventually, she took one, still believing the mantra everyone with a job repeated: “if you work hard enough they may offer a permanent position”…

The work-placement role ran its legally-mandated course and she was promptly replaced by another sucker. After the third time it happened she began to blog (www.yatuu.fr/en) about and sharing her experiences, venting her opinions on such a manifestly unfair system and derive a soupçon of justifiable payback…

Just in case you’re unaware: An Intern takes a position in a company to learn the ropes, develop good working habits and establish contacts that will make them more employable. The system used to work even though most kids ended up doing scut-work and never really learned anything useful. Such positions are unpaid and eventually most employers realised that they could get free low-grade temporary labourers and thereby cut their own running costs. Using, abusing and discarding the seemingly endless supply of optimistic hopefuls has become an accepted expense-control measure at most large businesses. Even employers who originally played fair had to change at some stage, because the exploitative tactics gave business rivals an unfair financial advantage…

In almost 45 years of fairly successful freelancing I met lots of interns – good, bad, indifferent and uncommitted – but after 1990 encountered only one large company where interns were paid – and that’s only because the old-fashioned, old-school CEO put his foot down and insisted. When he retired and the company was sold, the intern program quickly shifted to the new normal…

This subtly understated, over-the-top manga-styled, savagely comedic exposé tracks one exhilarated graduate’s progress from college to the world of no work through ‘At the End of the First Internship’ via ‘At the End of the Second Internship’ to ‘At the End of the Third Internship’ when even she began to smell a rat. Even that didn’t daunt her (much) and, after much soul-searching, she took her dream job at a major Ad Agency. At least it would have been, were she not the latest addition to a small army of interns expending their creative energies for insane zero hours, zero thanks, or acknowledgement and at their own financial expense.

From ‘Some Words Get Instant Reactions at Interviews’ through her ‘First Day’ – via vivid and memorable digressions on expected behaviour and hilariously familiar vignettes of types (I was an advertising freelancer and have actually gone drinking with many of these guys’ British cousins…) – to the accepted 7-days-a-week grind of ‘This Place is Great Because You Learn to Laugh on Cue’ and ‘Nothing Out of the Ordinary’, Yatuu grew accustomed to her voluntary slavery… although her barely-suppressed sense of rebellion was unquenchable.

Amongst so many short, pithy lessons compiled here we see and sympathise with ‘Intensive Training’, observe ‘The Pleasure of Feeling Useful’ and realise there’s ‘Nothing to Lose’, before an intriguing game of office ‘Dilemma’ explores whether to have lunch with the Employees or Interns and what to do if asked to do ‘Overtime’...

As much diary as educational alarm call, this beguiling collection reveals how the hapless ever-hopeful victim developed survival strategies – like finding a long-suffering workmate prepared to lend a floor, couch or bed for those frequent nights when the last train leaves before you do…

Mostly however, this addictive collection deals with the author’s personal responses to an untenable but inescapable situation for far too many young people: revealing insane episodes of exhaustion, despondency and work (but, tellingly not Job)-related stress, such as too many scary midnight cab rides home, constant nightmares and grinding daily insecurity.

What’s amazing is that it’s done with style, bravery and an astonishing degree of good-natured humour – especially when dealing with ‘The Idea Thief’, planning ‘Retaliation’ or perfecting ‘The Ultimate Revenge Technique!!!’…

Originally collected as Moi, 20 ans, diplômée, motivée… exploitée!, Yatuu’s trenchant cartoon retaliations were published in English some years ago (so we’re long overdue for a new edition) and makes for fascinating reading. Although it really should be, you probably won’t find Young, Talented, Exploited! discussed in any school Careers lessons or part of any college Job seminar and it’s almost certainly banned from every employers’ Orientation and Training package, but that’s just a sign of how good it is.

Best get your own copy and be ready for the worst scams, indignities and excesses that the Exploiters and Bosses will try to spring on you. At least once you’ve paid for it you can be assured that it will deliver on its promise…
© 2013 Yatuu & 12bis. English translation and layout © 2013 Sloth Publishing, Ltd.

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Dolltopia


By Abby Denson (Green Candy Press)
ISBN: 978-1-931160-70-4 (TPB/Digital edition)

Not everybody is comfortable with whom they are and most of us don’t like to be assumed one thing when we’re another. Lulu/IPPY Award winner Abby Denson is a magically subversive cartoonist and journalist with such disparate notches in her belt as graphic novel Tough Love: High School Confidential (relating the Coming Out story of two suburban teens), lifestyle bibles Cool Tokyo Guide, Cool Japan Guide and The City Sweet Tooth: a culinary cartoon column about the New York desserts scene for L Magazine.

An educator (teaching at Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, Eugene Lang College at The New School, Sophia University, Tokyo), her script credits run from Scooby Doo and Power Puff Girls to Spider-Man via Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Josie and the Pussycats, Disney Adventures and The Simpsons.

This entrancing shocking pink parable is an edgy, deceptively naivist fairy tale about gender, place and identity: making telling points in a clandestinely gentle manner via a swingeing attack and dissection of conformity…

Kitty Ballerina is a doll who escapes from The Factory, refusing to be what her makers tell her to be. During her escape she meets Army Jim, another maverick toy who refuses to conform. Together they make their way to the Promised Land of Dolltopia, where you can wear and look like and be whatever you want. With the comradeship and assistance of the cat Mr. M, fashion Divas Candy X and Candy O and slightly off-kilter, self-taught “plastic surgeon” the Doctor, the renegades make themselves at home and truly free…

However, freedom demands effort, vigilance and sacrifice. Some such recently emancipated individuals seem to crave their previous cultural indenture, and raids to liberate more dolls suffer when the apathetic conformists refuse to cast off their social shackles. However, the real threat comes when humans threaten to take away and destroy the hard-won oasis of security these disappointed rebels have strived so long and hard to win…

Charming and cleverly controversial, if perhaps a little heavy-handed at times (sometimes you need fireworks and two-by-fours just to get a mule’s attention!), this eclectic black, pink & white tome – complete with cut-out-&-dress paper dolls – is a winning and culturally crucial addition to the world of adult cartooning and the bigger one you can read it in. You’d be an idiot not to take a good long look – but of course you don’t have to be what I say you are…
© Abby Denson. All right reserved.

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Limit Book 1


By Keiko Suenobu, translated by Mari Morimoto (Vertical)
ISBN: 978-1-93565-456-8 (TPB Tank?bon edition)

Travelling a little off the traditional Shōjo (“girl’s comic”) path, Limit is a marvellous thriller by Keiko Suenobu, brought to English-speakers by New York publisher Vertical. In Japan it ran from October 13th 2009 to September 13th 2011, ultimately filling six collected volumes.

Born in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka in March 1979, Suenobu graduated from the University of Tsukuba before beginning her creative career with the school romance Happy Tomorrow. She gravitated towards darker themes of conformity, social pressure and bullying in Vitamin and the moving, controversial and multi award-winning Raifu – translated as Life by TokyoPop in 2006 and later assumed by Kodansha for a20 volume run. This was followed by 2019’s ongoing It’s Over If You Fall.

In 2009 the author took her interest in social issues and the nastier side of school life to imaginative extremes when Limit began serialisation in Kodansha’s Bessatsu Friend. Dark and exceptionally grim, it’s another minor classic inexplicably out of print and hard to find but which will definitely appeal to a readership far beyond the general Shōjo target-market if it ever gets re-issued…

Mizuki Konno is lucky – and savvy – enough to fit with the “In-Crowd” at her all-girls school. Acceptably cute and suitably smart, she’s learned to make no waves and accept that the ways things work is the way things should be. The popular girls – like undisputed teen goddess Sakura Himezawa – make the rules, and the rest conform. It’s a simple matter of survival…

If you’re physically different or interested in odd things, like dumpy manga-fan/tarot reader Arisa Morishige, life can be hell. Only the strongest personalities, like bookish, decent and determinedly wound-tight non-conformist Chieko Kamiya have any chance of standing up to the constant pressure to comply, accept and keep your place in the hierarchy of ‘A Perfect World’…

However, everything changes when Sakura’s class drive off for an extended visit to an Exchange Camp in the wilderness. Each class spends a week roughing it with nothing more than a communal scythe and their ever-present cell phones to hold back the horrors of nature, but with this last trip of the semester things go tragically wrong. High in the mountains the coach driver has a heart attack at the wheel and the vehicle, packed with excited girls and their harried teacher, plunges catastrophically into a wooded hidden valley.

Only five girls survive, and undisputed queen of the modern world Sakura isn’t one of them…

As Konno drags shell-shocked Haru Ichinose – Sakura’s subordinate and deeply devoted deputy, and utterly unable to function without her – out of the wreckage sometime later, she sees smoke from a fire. Tracking the signal they find middle-ranking Chikage Usui with her leg splinted and bandaged outside a cave. The wounded survivor has been saved and succoured by coldly efficient Kamiya, who has also scavenged everything potentially useful from the crash site.

At the back of the cave, Morishige sits inside a pentagram, casting the cards. Kamiya has brusquely taken charge, organising resources and outlining options until they can be found and rescued, but introspective Konno can barely grasp the strange situation and new rules of survival. Events take an even nastier turn when the Tarot reader suddenly explodes in jubilation, claiming her prayers have been answered and her tormentors all punished…

Indifferent, ambiguous pragmatist Konno is forced to confront a new world order in ‘The Strong vs. the Weak’, wherein increasingly unstable Morishige takes control. After panicking and unsuccessfully failing to climb out of the box valley, Konno returns to find bereft Haru attacking the former class pariah, but Morishige’s big and burly frame – which brought her such cruel treatment in school – is now the most valuable asset in this new hostile environment. Moreover, she has found that wickedly lethal scythe…

The new queen easily defeats her attacker and then regales the horrified girls with a litany of all the cruel acts she saw their perfect princesses constantly inflict upon each other during their wonderful school days. Haru is unable to accept the change of status and even refuses Konno’s overtures to become allies, just as ascendant Morishige casts the cards again and sees a future where only the strong will survive…

With food already running out, events spiral towards deadly conflict as Konno recalls better days that weren’t actually all that great, only to be dragged back to reality when Morishige decides to split the remaining rations four ways. The clearly unstable would-be witch has established her own social hierarchy with pragmatically compliant Kamiya as Royalty, Usui a Commoner and the roles of Servant and Slave still to be determined by her under ‘The Empress’ Rules’…

Haru is provisionally Slave but since they don’t get food she must fight Konno to determine who gets the final privileged – and elevated – role of Servant… To the death, naturally…

To Be Continued…

Rather inaccurately likened to Michael Lehmann’s 1988 cult black comedy Heathers (although perhaps influenced by Koushun Takami’s novel Batoru Rowaiaru or Kinji Fukasaku’s filmic adaptation Battle Royale) Limit certainly derives much of its energising concepts from William Golding’s landmark Lord of the Flies. This bleak, viciously introspective and absolutely chilling tale marries lavish illustration to fearsome examination of what civilised folk consider acceptable behaviour and asks many entertainingly challenging questions.

This lost book – which also includes a charming glance at the author’s methodology in the mini-feature My Workroom – is printed in traditional Japanese right to left, back to front format, but surely we’re all used to that by now?
© 2012 Keiko Suenobu. All rights reserved.

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Mimi and the Wolves volume 1


By Albaster Pizzo (Avery Hill Publishing)
ISBN: 978-1-91039-548-6 (HB/Digital edition)

Alabaster Pizzo is an animator and cartoonist who hails from New York, but makes her living in Los Angeles. A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, she’s been intermittently releasing episodes of an epic anthropomorphic post-modern fantasy since 2013. When not animating or storyboarding for major companies you or your kids are quite familiar with, she crafts her own comics such as Ralphie and Jeanie, Hellbound Lifestyle and more of the one under consideration here…

A trio of those early Mimi minicomics were lavishly compiled into a sturdy hardback monochrome tome by the astute powers-that-be of British publisher Avery Hill and comprise the opening salvo in a potent and hopefully long-running allegory for personal empowerment – as all the best fairy tales are…

Preceded by a handy and informative map of the bucolic Hilly City region and a roll call of the major characters, Mimi and The Wolves Act I ‘The Dream’ opens with enigmatic, voyeuristic magician Severine chiding her attendant spirits in snow-draped forests before herbalist Mimi goes gathering plants and herbs for the constructions, concoctions and confections she makes. Times are tough for her and partner Bobo, but they have each other, and good friends in the same boat, so the treehouse they live in is all they really need…

The couple spend a lot of time helping out old farmers Cato and Ceres. Shady Island Farm is getting to be too much for them, so trading toil for food is always a welcome standby option.

Thankfully, Saffron at the general store is always keen to trade for Mimi’s creations and the farm’s dwindling produce output, but the sensitive artisan is painfully aware that the unrelenting strain is getting the better of her fellow workers. Tough but happily idyllic, life would be perfect for Mimi… if only she wasn’t plagued by horrific dreams and terrifying nightmares…

Determined to get to the bottom of her traumas, Mimi distils a brew to provoke a lucid dream and is “rewarded” with an audience: a face-to-face confrontation with an apparent goddess calling herself the Holy Venus. This ethereal visitor tells her to seek out likeminded others and reveals to her a strange symbol by which she will know them. As spring turns to summer, the image obsesses Mimi, even becoming part of her artistic output, much to the growing discomfort and increasing resentment of Bobo. Ever-more distracted, Mimi forages deeper into the woods surrounding the village and one day comes face to face with a huge wolf…

For small woodland creatures like her and Bobo, these giant predators are a constant terror, but this one is different. His name is Ergot and he is a dedicated follower of Holy Venus. In Mimi he sees not lunch, but a fellow congregant. Before long she is invited to join his pack and share knowledge. Hungry for answers – and new experiences – the little artisan slowly falls under Ergot’s sway, and her life changes forever…

Act II ‘The Den’ was included in Best American Comics 2015 and reveals how life has treated Mimi since Bobo turned into an abusive controlling dick before she moved in with the wolves. Ergot and his mate Ivy have been sharing history and doctrine with her, but other than her former lover, Mimi still maintains contact with her other friends in Hilly City. That circle expands when Ceres and Cato take in wandering musician Kiko, and all but implodes when Mimi finally introduces them all to Ergot. Some prejudices are hardwired and cannot be placated or ameliorated…

Life becomes even more bewildering after meeting other wolfpacks. Cobalt, Copper and Opal are friendly enough – although they have unspoken problems with Ergot – but night-dark Nero and Galena live up to every scary stereotype city folk hold dear… and they seem to have an unsettling, unspecified interest in Mimi.

Events take a dark turn in Act III ‘The Howl’ after the revelation that constantly-observing Severine has a foreboding connection to the Holy Venus and is gradually enacting a complex plan. Mimi, however, has been fully inducted into the pack, but is blithely unaware that she is a highly desirable pawn in plans between rival groups who act more like cult families than simple kin. When Nero approaches her, Mimi is so terrified that she flees back to her city friends, but quickly returns to the lupine lair and agrees to attend a large gathering of packs.

… And in the unnoticed background, Kiko quietly observes all…

Joining the Howl is a huge mistake. Nero attacks Mimi and gives her to the Holy Venus as an offering and – although it’s possibly an induced hallucination – in the aftermath allegiances amongst the smaller packs are now twisted and shifted. When Ergot reverts to his true nature, the Goddess makes her move and Mimi comes into her true power…

One common notion of Paradises, Edens and Utopias is that they are always under imminent threat of ending. Life in the allegorical Hilly City and evergreen woods is a rural/small town ideal, but it’s never portrayed as immutable and stable. Amidst the cunning social echoes of Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons – as plain and simple rustic folk eke out a hard but generally rewarding life – comes an implicit awareness that things beyond the group are always disrupting and potentially harmful. Dissent is bad, change is bad, and we trust only ourselves are proven truisms, but they don’t mean a thing if the society harbours – and hinders – a rebel who needs to find their true self…

Bewitching and enticing, this magical mystery tour of self-discovery will charm and reward readers, so why not start your own quest for knowledge by joining this pack?
© Alabaster Pizzo. All rights reserved.

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Jinx volume 1


By J. Torres, Rick Burchett & Terry Austin (Archie Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-93697-500-6 (HC/Digital edition) 978-1-87979-491-7 (PB)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced during less enlightened times.

Despite tremendous advances in the last couple of decades, for most people, when we say comic books, thoughts STILL either turn to outrageously buff men and women in garish tights or leather hitting each other and lobbing cars about, or stark, nihilistic crime, horror or science fiction sagas aimed at an extremely mature and sophisticated readership of already-confirmed fans. For mainstream American comics that remains the norm. Over the years though (and throughout the rest of the world long ago), other forms and genres continue to wax and wane.

One US company steadfastly that held its ground against the tide for decades – supported by a thriving spin-off TV and movie franchise – was a teen-comedy powerhouse which created a genre through the exploits of carrot-topped Archie Andrews and the two girls he could never choose between – Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge. For so many years, other companies largely ignored the fact that girls read comics too and, in their slavish pursuit of the spandex dollar, lost half their potential audience. Girls simply found other ways to amuse themselves until, in the 1990s, the rise of manga painfully proved to comics publishers what Archie Comics had always known.

Ever since that pivotal moment Editors have attempted to recapture that vast missing market: creating many worthy titles and even entire imprints dedicated to material for teen/young adult audiences (since not all boys thrive on a steady diet of cosmic punch-ups and vengeful vigilantes) which had embraced European classics like Tintin and Asterix, manga material, momentous comics epics like Maus and Persepolis or abundant and prolific prose serials which produced a never-ending wave of passionate fans for everything from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to Twilight to The Hunger Games.

Archie thrived by never abandoning its female readership and by constant reinvention of its core characters, seamlessly adapting to the changing world outside its bright, flimsy (or digitally unbreakable) pages: shamelessly co-opting pop music, youth culture and fashion trends into its infallible mix of slapstick and romance. Each and every social revolution has been painlessly assimilated into the mix (the company has managed to confront a number of major issues affecting the young in a manner both even-handed and tasteful over the years), and the constant addition of timely characters such as African-American Chuck and his girlfriend Nancy, fashion-diva Ginger, Hispanic couple Frankie & Maria and a host of others – like over-privileged home-wrecker-in-waiting Cheryl Blossom – all contributed to a broad and refreshingly broad-minded scenario. They also lead in non-sensationalised interracial romances, and in 2010 Archie jumped the final hurdle for a family-entertainment medium with the rapturously well-received introduction of Kevin Keller; an openly gay and proud young man who was a clear-headed advocate capably tackling and dismantling the last major taboo in mainstream kids’ comics.

Where once cheap, prolific and ubiquitous, comics magazines in the 21st century are extremely cost-intensive and manufactured for a highly specific – but dwindling – niche market. Moreover the improbably beguiling and bombastic genres that originally fed and nurtured comic books were increasingly being supplanted by TV, movies and assorted interactive games media.

Happily, old-school prose publishers and the graphic novel industry have different business models and more sustainable long-term goals, so the magazine makers’ surrender has been turned into a burgeoning victory, as solid and reassuringly sturdy Comics-as-Books still buck the slowly perishing pamphlet/papers trend. Publishers like Archie…

Back then Jinx was another barely-noticed landmark which saw one of the company’s venerable and long-lived child-stars given a stunning makeover and refit courtesy of a multi award-winning creative team. Writer J. Torres (Teen Titans Go!, Alison Dare, Degrassi: the Next Generation, Days Like This, Lola – a Ghost Story and others) in conjunction with celebrated artists Rick Burchett (Batman Adventures, American Flagg!, Blackhawk, Black Hood) & Terry Austin (X-Men, Superman, Batman, Cloak and Dagger) are responsible for turning adorable but venerable 1950’s 6-year old tomboy Li’l Jinx into a genuine icon of, if not role-model for, modern teenaged girls in a style and manner at once astonishingly accessible and classically captivating.

If you qualify as an Ancient One like me, you might be familiar with precocious, feisty Li’l Jinx who debuted in Pep Comics #62 (cover-dated July 1947). Created by Joe Edwards, she debuted as the publisher began dropping superheroes such as The Shield and Black Hood to specialise in kid-friendly humour features. Over the coming decades she appeared in her own title, as well as Li’l Jinx Giant Laugh-Out and assorted anthologies including Pep and Archie Giant Series Magazine. Like auteur Edwards’ own son, her birthday was on Halloween and the writer/artist put much of himself into the strip. A boisterous, basically decent, sports-loving, mischievous tyke (in the manner of our Minnie the Minx), when not romping, cavorting and tussling with other kid pals Gigi, Greg, Charley Hawse, Russ, Roz and Mort the Worry Wart, Jinx almost exclusively interacted with her long-suffering dad Hap Holliday.

Mother was seldom seen. The kid’s Christian name is lost to history: apparently so screamingly embarrassing in-world that to utter it was to invite battered ear drums and mangled limbs…

Li’l Jinx faded away gradually during the 1980s as fashionista-teenagers and Mutant Turtles supplanted pesky kid characters in Archie’s increasingly “young adult” oriented stable. However, Jinx Holliday was revived and given a thorough 21st century upgrade for a new serial in Life With Archie (#7-11, March-June 2011): a growing girl just starting big school. The former tomboy hadn’t lost all her rough edges though…

This initial volume collects the serialised story of her beginning the inescapable if deplorable process of becoming responsible – with all the scary changes that entails. After a handy ‘Cast of Jinx’ page, the dramatic comedy opens with 4-part tale ‘Little Jinx Grows up’ – as serialised in anthology title Life With Archie, with the nervous 14-year old Californian kid starting over at Rose Valley High School where she immediately falls foul of draconian martinet Principal Mr. Vernon. At least many of her oldest friends are starting too, but they all seem so changed and grown up since summer vacation…

As all attendees settle in, Jinx is oblivious to the fact that more than one of the boys she used to wrestle and play football with now considers – and treats – her very differently. She’s just starting to hate the place and its stupid rules when Greg points out the final straw: Freshman Baseball – in fact all her favourite sports – are for boys only. Former child model Gigi is typically smug about it, hinting again that it’s time Jinx began acting like a girl, but that only provokes the incensed and outraged tomboy to break another rule…

Everybody is talking about Jinx after she most publicly signs up for Football Tryouts, and neither a barracking from Mr. Vernon or some heavy-handed bullying of Greg by the senior Football squad can change her mind.

The Principal thinks he has the final word after making Jinx take a permission slip home to her dad, but after Hap Holliday absolutely refuses to let his little girl get crippled by teenaged Neanderthals, Jinx simple forges his signature…

Tryouts are a disaster, but at least Greg is honestly trying to help her. Surly Charley, however, delivers a tackle that results in her being stretchered off, and when dad is called to school all hell breaks loose. While she’s grounded and recovering, BFF Roz starts dropping hints about Greg and romance, promptly going into snoopy overdrive when a mystery caller leaves a large bouquet of flowers…

For the first time Jinx realises High School is just one big stew of frustrated hormones which only add to her worries. So preoccupied is she that, when Greg timidly asks her to a dance, she doesn’t realise what he’s saying and shoots him down without even noticing. The mystery flower-sender – covertly watching – does, however, and seethes…

Flustered, confused and determined to end the turmoil in her head, Jinx ambushes and pre-emptively kisses Greg, but the result is something neither of them nor their secret stalker expected…

The grand gesture completely destabilises Jinx who goes into a spiral of angry depression and tetchy acting-up. Baffled Hap is hopeless to cope, and – with Halloween approaching – throws himself into organising her birthday costume party: a tradition they’ve enjoyed since she was a toddler. He has no idea how much his little girl has changed and that the prospect of a party sounds like torture to her. And thus the scene is set for a showdown nobody will ever forget…

All dramatic foreboding aside, this clever, warm tale ends well and promises much more for the future. Smart, witty and intoxicatingly engaging, Jinx is a superb example of what can be accomplished in comics if you’re prepared to portray modern kids on their terms and address their issues and concerns.

Without ever resorting to overblown soap melodrama or angst-ridden teen clichés, Torres delivers a believable cast of young friends who aren’t stupid or selfish, but simply seeking to find their own tentative ways to maturity. The art by Burchett & Austin is semi-realistic and astoundingly effective.

This terrific turbulent tome includes bonus features such as a ‘Football Pinup’, J. Torres’ thoughts and commentary on the story as described in ‘The Voice of Jinx’ plus a fascinating, picture-packed peek behind the scenes in ‘The Concept Art of Jinx’. More production secrets are revealed by Editor Suzannah Rowntree, describing the project’s conception and creation in ‘The Story of Teen Jinx’, and there’s even a smart selection of one-page Short Comics treats to wrap up the fun.

‘Fitting In’, ‘It’s Complicated’, ‘Frenemy of the State’, ‘The Dating Game’ and ‘Chat Fight’ combine to prove that although they might be growing up, the cast are still kids at heart…

Compellingly funny, gently heart-warming and totally absorbingly, this book will resonate with kids and parents, offering genuine human interactions rather than repetitively manufactured atom-powered fistfights to hold your attention. It especially gives women a solid reason to give comics another try.

Sheer exuberant fun; perfectly crafted and still utterly irresistible nearly a generation later…
© 2012 Archie Comics Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.