Tomboy (sample chapter)
Is it kosher for me to admit that my only problem with this comic is that it’s only a sample chapter of a much larger graphic novel, when the entire purpose of said comic is to serve as a teaser for the larger book (that is coming out in September)? No? Eh, I didn’t think so either. Still, when my only complaint about a comic is that I very much wanted to see more of it, it should be pretty clear that I had no real complaints at all. This whole thing is going to be a memoir of the early years of Liz Prince, as she tries to figure out how to navigate the world as something other than the typical girly-girl but still not quite a tomboy. This comic in particular starts off with her time on the baseball team when she was 10 and how her image of where she thought she should fit in did not coincide at all with where her coach thought she should play. In her mind she was a skilled pitcher, striking out everyone she faced, while her coach was perfectly content to stick her in right field and hope that no balls were hit in her direction. The rest of the comic deals with her time at a Girl Scout camp and the horrible things it taught her about how girls interacted with and talked about each other. She learned that girls could be made fun of regarding their bodies, even though it’s not like she chose her body. She also learned the horrors of swimming in a tee shirt, although she tells that lesson much better than I ever could, so maybe you should read all about that for yourself. I’d advise you to wait until the entire book comes out (she says September 2nd, so it should be somewhere around there), and you can use the link for her website to find out exactly how to do that. I think this means that the sample comic works as well as it could, as I can’t wait to see the whole thing and strongly advise the rest of you to check it out when it’s released. If you’re already a fan of her work you don’t need any reminding of that fact, but if you haven’t read any of her other comics this looks like a good introduction to her work. After all, what’s a better introduction to the work of an artist than the story of their childhood?
