Scumburbia: Mega-Sized Mall Issue
This right here is one behemoth of a comic book. If you’ve seen past issues of this series, Sam has a helpful intro to start things off detailing that he now has a full plan for the series, meaning the first issue is basically not “canon” (and it clearly hurt him to use that word in all seriousness, which I have to respect). Also the issues are self-contained, so if this is your introduction, don’t worry too much about it, OK? One thing I’d suggest for Sam in future issues: if you keep this up, you’re going to need more than those few headshots on the cover to keep people updated on this gigantic cast of characters. This one is set mostly in a mall (with some time in high school and traveling thrown in), so if you break into a cold sweat whenever you see a mall setting, look out! He does mention that this is the most personal comic that he’s ever made, so clearly chunks of this are taken from (or at least inspired by) his past. Malls are just about extinct as far as I can tell, but in this comic, they are exactly as they always were back in the day on a Friday night: overrun with teenagers who are just a step away from being completely out of control at all times. So hey, what’s actually happening in this book? Things start off Claire and Zoey being reluctant participants in a gym class game of volleyball, and we spend a bit of time getting to know them. I thought the comic might be all about them (as they’re also prominently displayed on the cover), but then we take a detour into private conversation with a couple of other characters, and during both of these sections we learn more about a few more people. If you don’t have a good head for names and/or faces, stick with it; I feel like I got to know most of them pretty well by the time it was all said and done. Next up we get an extended story about Spike and Spunk trying to get tickets to an Acquiring Satellites show (which is also the main motivation for Claire and Zoey throughout the book, and you’d better believe that this all comes together with everybody involved), and the lengths they go to to even have a chance to get tickets. We then finally get to the mall, and I just have to point out that every single image in that mall is absolutely alive with detail. You can see about a dozen unique happenings going on with various people that we don’t even meet. Sam says that this book took him three years to complete, and clearly he spent a large chunk of that time on backgrounds. Neither of the two pairs in the lead stories are able to get tickets easily, and they both have to come up with some creative methods to get their tickets. Along the way there’s all kinds of drama, bullying, more character introductions, a break-up, observed and implied cheating, whether or not to tell the other affected party about the cheating, running from the law (or at least the mall law), and those spectacularly creepy twins. You can see the care and attention to detail throughout this thing, so if you’re looking for a new book to try out, why not try one where the creator has just settled on a master plan for the whole series? It’s always fun to get in on the ground floor! $15
