I’m starting to think the Xeric Grant people are omniscient. Seriously, I don’t think they’ve ever made a bad call in giving a grant to somebody. Well, maybe there were people who took the grant money and just bought booze and drugs with it, leaving no comic for me to judge, but their track record on published work is stellar. This one is no exception, as it exceeded my expectations every step of the way, and this is with me going in predisposed to like it with that “Xeric” label and all. This is the story of Beatrice, a girl who leaves Wisconsin and heads to California more or less for the hell of it and because she’s directionless in her own life. She doesn’t know anybody and has no plans for a job, so she calls the only person in town who had been kind to her looking for work. She starts as a receptionist for a lawn care company, then is assigned to work on the lawns and finally gets in deep when her company is contracted to do lawn care for a controversial logging operation. Her boss (Rex, a man with tiny arms that Breena delights in depicting as a T-Rex) thinks that he can do more good working for this company and trying to change things on the inside. They eventually have to move onto the land where they’re working, as protesters on a picket line have been getting more and more violent in their demonstrations. Beatrice gradually comes to wonder if Rex is really doing all he can to stop these trees (which are old growth trees, hundreds of years old in some cases) and reluctantly quits to join the protesters. I’ve already spoiled more than enough, but at that point in the story you could probably pick a few obvious directions that things could go and Breena manages to veer off in rewarding and unexpected directions every time. I’m not even mentioning Rex’s daughter and her troubles with her husband, or Rex and his own problems with his wife (who’s trying to be an actress and apparently cheating on him all over the place), or Beatrice’s own relationship with one of the lawn care workers and how that goes after she quits her job. And did I mention that the entire site was under a volcano? That details roughly the first half of the book, the rest is up to you to discover. The art is fantastic (really, looking at her diary strips on her website it’s tough to even picture them as the same artist, but then again diary strips are practically designed to be rushed) and have I gushed enough yet about the story? This is Breena’s first graphic novel, so it’s your duty (yes, YOU) to buy a copy of this to encourage her to keep it up. Well, if I say it’s your duty you’ll probably get all resentful, as you already know that the only way to encourage young artists like this is buying their books. Still, just buy a copy, OK? Or at least try and convince your local library to carry a copy so that you can read it first. $19.95 (but only $13.95 at Powells!)
