3 from Minx - Burnout, Water Baby, Janes in Love
May 15th, 2008 John Posted in Books, Comic Books, Reviews |
I will freely admit that many Minx books are sooooooo not meant for a 42-year-old guy — or a 42-year-old anything, really — and they do present moments akin to peering into a MySpace blog that functions as a personal space for a kid. This is less a criticism than a qualification — I understand I am not the target audience of any of the Minx line. This is also said with the understanding that teen-agers aren’t writing these things, but adults playing to that audience. That brings up a strange line to walk — as adults writing for kids, I imagine you want to speak to the kids of their own lives, though it can get kind of icky when you pander. There is a degree to which — at least I think — adults do owe it to their teen audience to set some sort of example of decorum — not the stiff kind, but just, you know, set an example in some way and maybe even offer some seasoned advice in the entertainment. Maybe it’s because I’m a parent that I think this. More often than not, Minx books walk the tightrope admirably.
The first new release by Minx this year, “Burnout” by Rebecca Donner and drawn by Inaki Miranda, grabs your attention fairly well without being anything special character-wise. Danni is a teenage girl who moves with her mother from the city to the middle of nowhere — bummer, nothing to do, as well all know — after her father bolts on them. Mom ends up in the arms of an abusive lout while Danni ends up starry-eyed for her future step-brother. Meanwhile, her outrageous rock and roll best friend — is there any other type in these books? — feels their friendship is slipping.
Oh, add in there some intrigue involving eco-terrorism.
If the characters are merely placeholders for types, their interactions keep you reading and guessing as to where the story is actually going. The grand theme — the consequences of taking action and following your heart — are good ones for the age the book is aimed towards. It’s a bittersweet little tale that finds the characters not necessarily learning all the lessons they should, and illustrates the concept of closure as a man-made emotional construct. Life rarely hands you that and — without giving anything away — Danni is left grappling with the result of everyone’s wrong choices, refusal to accept responsibility and face up to their demons, and the horrible lack of surety that life doles out.
Unfortunately, like so many teen-oriented books these days, “Burnout” can seem like it employed a laundry list of Important Issues That You Should Discuss With Your Teen in order to fashion its plot and, in that way, a bit annoying. I don’t question Donner’s sincerity, but it seems as though fleshed-out characters should come first, before the issue of the week plotting.
“Water Baby” by Ross Campbell, however, is more troublesome. In this book, Brody, a surfer girl in Florida, loses her leg in a shark attack, causing her not only to push back nightmares about the attack and come to terms with her mutilation, but also reevaluate the relationships around her.
Sort of. All that implies there’s some kind of insight going on in the story.
The main point of plot antagonism is actually Brody’s ex-boyfriend, Jake, a sex-obsessed idiot graced with thought balloons like “Louisa’s got awesome tits” to prove that he’s a sex-obsessed idiot. This isn’t too different from the sort of statement that might come out of Brody’s mouth, but in some sense it’s supposed to be less shallow when she does it. Since it’s directed towards women but in context of bisexuality, perhaps that makes it less coarse, or maybe it’s hot and empowering when teenage girls do it, but horrible when teenage boys do. It’s a muddled work.
Much of the book is concerned with a road trip to take Jake home to Rochester, NY. They start from Florida. It’s a masterwork of ill-pacing in which a fourth party becomes involved and adds some more sexual drama to the already annoying dynamic and then a little chaos that stirs things up about as much as it surprises you — which is to say, hardly at all.
That is a big part of the problem. Having a character whose leg is eaten by a shark seems like a pretty easy way to elicit sympathy regardless of the character’s personality, but Campbell really tests my patience here. Brody is not likable. In the slightest. This is fine — characters don’t have to be likable, but you do have to care what happens to them. Care story-wise. Brody is such a mean-spirited and whiny character that it’s almost like having an annoying roommate you thankfully get to shut off in a little book to get a break from her. She’s a jerk to her mother and she’s a jerk to her friend, Louisa, who has a crush on her, though I don’t really understand why, since Brody spends most of the book griping at her and bossing her around and then demanding to be treated like a little baby. I can’t feel a lot of sympathy for Louisa, though — the most personality she exhibits is as an ineffectual doormat.
By the end, the equation adds up to zilch. Brody’s final kiss-off to Jake seems meant to be a strong moment, but Jake is too weak, too pathetic, for it to come off as anything other than cruel — forget that fact that the means through which Brody drives a stake through Jake’s heart is by way of a self-destructive and less-than-admirable thing Brody did to Jake’s family. Jake is a jerk, but Brody is mean — and her final bit of cruelty is entirely consistent with her behavior throughout the story. There’s been no transformation of any sort and the character seems on the same track as she was before — making a road trip, usually the cinematic ground of self-discovery and evolution, just a way to fill up pages with coarse innuendo and adolescent psychodrama that doesn’t really hold much interest for anyone who doesn’t operate within those parameters. I understand what Campbell is saying here — that the lack of growth IS the point of it, but I just want more from the characters, I guess. They don’t have to have epiphanies a la Scrooge, but, I don’t know, something is missing, something to frame it with a theme beyond the actions as presented on the page.
One of the things that put me off the book is the leering quality of the artwork, which seems out of place in the Minx context. What I would have preferred more was an actual character study, if not a whole story. One legged girls prancing around in nothing might seem pretty provocative, but character exploration of the one-legged girl prancing around in nothing would at least justify it a little bit. I think Campbell is definitely capable of more, though, but probably outside of the Minx context, where he isn’t reigned in and can explore his themes of self-destruction better.
The last half of summer will bring “Janes in Love,” the sequel to “The Plain Janes.” Not only do creators Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg present characters that aren’t merely billboards for exploitation or celebratory dysfunction, but they manage to get across the reality that these are sexual, sensual beings without pandering to the most base expectations of the form. It’s charming and, as with the first volume, still a breath of fresh air.
“Janes in Love” picks up exactly where the previous book left off — so much so that it functions less as a sequel than a second chapter. Focusing on Jane Beckles and her attempts to find a calling in life via her art collective P.L.A.I.N., Castellucci has her main character grapple with the biggest obstruction to teenage creativity — love — and still manage to remain on track with her emotional and creative journey. As in the game of love, some Janes are weak, while other Janes are doormat, some love is perfect, while others are inopportune. The clear message of the book is that there are many passions that can sweep you off your feet — and when it comes to love, it’s the partnerships that fit in with the other passions that truly pack the power.
Just as important as romance is the main Jane’s effort into transforming P.L.A.I.N. from a clandestine art activist group into purveyors of public art. By what wacky scheme does she move to achieve her goals? By seeking arts grants through funding and going before local government. Once again with the Janes, Castellucci is asking the big questions about art and creativity — questions that so many other works just aren’t even to the task of thinking up — by examining the professional versus the maverick routes and laying out for teens the realistic road to becoming an artist. What good is rebellion if it is self-destructive? What good is rebellion if it doesn’t work? Castellucci suggests that rebellion as realized through art is best achieved through cunning and smarts and a curiosity that leads you to understand others — a more progressive and wise rumination on the subject for teens I’ve never encountered.
Castellucci and Rugg allow the story to unfold in a less than linear way, via the confessional, sometimes despairing narration of Jane Beckles, interspersed with various action unfolding through multiple supporting characters. The team understands that while the story centers on one Jane, it is of concern to several others and involves many more people not named Jane at all — in other words, they aren’t fashioning an indulgent teenage drama, but a gentle kaleidoscope that captures bits of a fully realized fictional world. Yet again the team shows itself for the best thing Minx has going and raise the bar for what should be expected of the line.
Comics for teenage girls don’t have to be stupid — nor pretentious — and “Janes in Love” is the best example of how to achieve that balance.
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