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May 05, 2006
My Funny Valenshtein: Girl Stories by Lauren Weinstein
Dear Pickytarian readers, this is Mrs. Pickytarian writing... I hope you won't mind too much that I have snuck on to the Pickytarian blog to post my own quick entry this week. I just felt a jones. Some might say you can really only have a jones for something like pizza, but shockingly I felt a hankering to write on the blog. But don't worry, your beloved Pickytarian will be back before you can say "I Love Sour Cream!"
This explosively funny, awkward and honest new comics collection by Lauren Weinstein functions like a pair of high-powered binoculars into the brightly colored, tangled mind of a teen girl (her first grittier collection of comics, Inside Vineyland was also excellent, but had more of an older audience in mind). The heroine in these combined strips is none other than our own Lauren Weinstein (aka "Vineshtein"), who begins these tales as a pre-teen girl (moving through high school) who struggles to hide and then justify her passion for Barbies and will do almost anything for a chance to eke her way further up the long social ladder of coolness. Casualties along the climb include a childhood best friend Genine, hilariously and heartbreaking painted by Weinstein as a true-blue, purple tracksuit-clad chubby with glasses. Sweet and loyal as she may be, there's no room in the fast-lane-to-cool for Genine's sidecar. Genine's very essence seems to cast a dork-like pall upon anyone she befriends, and therefore Lauren cuts her loose quite abruptly and cruelly.
Cruelty laced with humor is a prominent theme in Weinstein's book. As Lauren shows us occasional moments of meanness, scorning her less popular peers, so she too is verbally tortured by the shockingly nasty and tousled-haired school bully, Glenn. Later, after a particularly bad Glenn day, Lauren mentally retreats into a soothing dream state with her fantasy man and sensitive 80's superstar, Morrissey. In a hilarious plot to achieve the ultimate Glenn revenge, Morrissey offers to write and perform an angst-ridden 80's song about the bully, sending his humiliation straight to the top of the charts.
In comics today and past, there is an unfortunate tendency by some cartoonists (often of the male persuasion) to depict young women as hyper-stylized, one dimensional fashion plates. These beautiful cardboard phantoms exist in the pages only to illustrate the outsider role of the author/artist, and how happiness and the best things in the world are unattainable to him. In contrast, Weinstein's Lauren is anything but a one-note. Shifting, deeply complex female identities abound in Girl Stories. The heroine herself never really appears physically the same from page to page. Her portraits are more like emotional studies, illustrating complicated states of mind that morph continuously from moment to moment.
Weinstein gives us an intimate tour of an extremely complex and multi-dimensional person. And yes, Vineshtein is sometimes beautiful and styled, but she is also gawky, straggly, grotesque, tearful, enraged, bitter, wistful, sharp-witted and imaginative. She paints herself as a wiggly-lined mass of psychological play dough, displaying herself literally inside-out: twisted up in a pretzel with nerves waiting for her crush to call, bloated like a human toad at Thanksgiving dinner, dripping with ooze after a shoddy belly button piercing, a pair of eyes hiding in a dark tub of liquid mortification during a class experiment, a disgruntled lump refusing to be cheered up at Chanukah by "Latke Boy," or a scantily dressed toffee-limbed performer in her tongue-in-cheek "How to Really Get a Boyfriend" strip.
Lauren is the sum of all these experiences, and she emerges from these pages as a real bona fide "girl" - fully flawed, fully brilliant... and truly amazing.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 12:05 PM | Comments (5)
Shameless Plugs
That's right, the Pickytarian is back and so are his shameless plugs! I'll make this quick and painless. First and foremost, later today there will be a special guest blogger here on the site, with a review of a recent graphic novel! And it's not the Suckytarian! Who will it be? Check back soon to find out!
Secondly, I am selling the following comics on eBay. Everybody loves the Pickytarian's acutions! Recent comics for pennies on the dollar, how can you go wrong? Here is the list:
X-FACTOR (2006) #1-6 : Peter David, Ryan Sook
PUNISHER VS. BULLSEYE #1-5 complete LS: Steve Dillon
DEFENDERS (2005) #1-5 cmplt: Giffen, DeMatteis, Maguire
MARVEL ZOMBIES #1-5 cmplt: Rob Kirkman, Sean Phillips
EX MACHINA #11-16: Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris
DESOLATION JONES #1-6: Warren Ellis, JH Williams III
That's all for now. Remember to check back around mid-day for the special guest review. See, that wasn't so painful, was it?
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 08:31 AM
May 02, 2006
Subway Reading: Sardine in Outer Space
Sardine in Outer Space is part of the initial wave of releases from the high-profile graphic novel imprint First Second. It's a kid's graphic novel, written by Emmanuel Guibert and drawn by Joann Sfar. Brightly colored, whimsically devised, and stuffed with slapstick and goofy ideas, the book promises to have a ton of appeal for any young reader. Whether the actual execution follows through on that promise, however, is a tricky question for this childless, crusty codger to answer.
The visuals in this book are striking. Walter Pezzali's coloring combines with a bravura job by the First Second production department to bless this volume with the most brilliant color I have ever seen in a comic book. If this is the production quality can be expected from the rest of First Second's line of books, readers are definitely in for a treat.
I wish I could lavish the same love upon Sfar's drawing, but unfortunately it left me a little cold. His scratchy-lined naive style should lend warmth and intimacy to the book, but uninspired layout decisions and a tendency towards tiny figures in under-developed surroundings negate that effect. On the other hand, the character designs are attractive and imaginative: the one-eyed, afro-haired giant Paul made me laugh, and the dastardly little moustache on Supermuscleman cast him as the heavy more effectively than any of the character's actions or words.
Emmanuel Guibert's story was also long on promise, but ultimately a little short on delivery. The book is broken up into a series of 10-page, largely stand-alone chapters. The first chapter sets up the conflict: Supermuscleman and his crony, Doc Krok, have frightened children throughout the universe into dreary obedience. But their enemy, the space pirate Yellow Shoulder, has been taking children to his orphanage and teaching them to be disobedient and to have fun. The most disobedient child is the protagonist, a little girl named Sardine. That's a solid set-up, but unfortunately the first chapter is the last time the reader hears anything about the premise. Each subsequent chapter strings together a series of slapsticky gags where Sardine and Yellow Shoulder humiliate and defeat Supermuscleman. Don't get me wrong: I love slapstick as much as the next guy. The gags themselves are sometimes imaginative and clever; the idea that Sardine and her cousin Louie would play a virtual reality video game wherein they travel through a relatively boring Earth-child's life (going to the park, school, etc.) was a funny one. But without any sort of plot momentum, character arcs, or further attention to the conflict that is supposedly driving the action, the reader's attention starts to wander and each episode blends into the next.
It should be noted that the problem of no discernible motivation is not unique to Sardine in Outer Space. More than once I was reminded of Gail Simone's dreary, lifeless Villains United series, which expected the reader to accept the idea that people in their long underwear sit around and plan out ways to beat up other people in their long underwear because... well, because they're all wearing long underwear so that's what they do. That doesn't cut it in stories for adults and it shouldn't cut it in stories for kids either.
Another barrier to reader engagement in Sardine is the dialogue. Sasha Watson does a capable job of translation, but the resulting text is often stilted and devoid of character. "Omar, that nasty Paul won't be bothering you anymore. Would you like to stay here or come travel through space with me and my crew?" Would a space pirate talk like that? Maybe something was lost in the translation, or maybe the original dialogue is this flat. Either way, it adds up to a series of lost opportunities for characterization and fun.
There's a warning on the inside flap that warns: "No Grownups Allowed!" I acknowledge that it's possible, maybe even likely, that my old age and cynical Pickytarianism make me exactly the opposite of the target audience for this book. I have to wonder, though, who the audience is. It seems a little too precious and cutesy for boys, which cuts out 50% of the market. The story and jokes are a bit too simple for older kids, but I have to wonder if the obscure art and the comic format would appeal to younger readers. The naive art, the scattershot plot, and the stilted dialogue remind me of comics that were actually created by children. Does that mean it would appeal to children? I honestly don't have the answer. I know that the worst kind of children's book is one that talks down to them. My suspicion is that kids are ultimately a little more sophisticated than this book gives them credit for. But I would be the first to admit that your mileage, and, more importantly, that of your kids, may vary.
Posted by jdonelson_nyc at 07:25 PM | Comments (1)