And that feels so appropriate.
This story of a young woman recklessly tossed about on the sea of fate, cut loose by a series of coincidences and plot points well beyond her control, used and abused by crazed ex-boyfriends, sisters, and editors belongs in a book that, like its lead character, is just nearly holding it together.
Baker's fashionably hip end-of-the-80s sensibility seemed mildly outrageous a the time (remember the bazooka-wielding finale?) but after the intervening decade it's beginning to look a lot like reportage. What hasn't changed is the fact the rapid-fire dialogue still crackles with life while Baker's hyper-expressive visuals still make this one of the most approachable graphic novels of the past decade.
My copy's in such bad shape because I've yet to meet someone who won't finish the book once they've started it. It's simply too fast, too funny and too difficult to put down. So it gets read and read and read again.
It may not look so pretty up on the shelf, but I'd trade a dozen of those pristine graphic novels that I've read once and then put away for just one more of these books that looks like it's been read by a small army. Because it has been.
REVIEW BY HO CHE ANDERSON:
(from an Instagram post, 2021)
Kyle Baker! This man’s work was like a depth charge going off in my brain. The Shadow was my intro to his stuff; it was only later I discovered his more personal work like Cowboy Wally. Then came this bad boy and Kyle ascended to the levels of Los Bros, and (cough, cough) Woody Allen (this book feels a lot like an Allen-style New York comedy). Hilarious, beautiful, highly recommended.
Kyle Baker's Patreon Page
