So, you know the concept of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, right? In case you don’t, here’s a rundown.
There’s a guy. If he’s young, he’s probably from a middle-to-high-income family. He’s disengaged from the world around him because he’s read Blake. Possibly Kerouac. If he’s older, he might be a professor, dragged down by the humdrum banality of dinner with the Franklins and taking the car for an oil change. Also he’s probably a writer.
Suddenly, a girl appears. Regardless of his age, she is young. She’s lively, she’s spirited, she lifts him out of his doldrums whilst having no outside motivations or interests. She’s so fun and alive that she makes it her mission to bring joy to his life even though he’s basically a stranger and often generally unpleasant. It’s a whole thing.
Exquisite Corpse, by Pénélope Bagieu (and available at that Amazon affiliate link), approaches that sort of story from the other side. There’s still the young girl and the ennui-soaked writer, but the girl is the lead. The book centers on Zoe, a 22-year-old promotional model. She hates her job – getting leered at by men at trade shows – but is the only one of her coworkers for whom this isn’t a side gig. Her boyfriend is a jerk, she doesn’t have any plans, she’s just sort of stagnant. Then she (sort of accidentally) meets Thomas, and self-involved author with writer’s block and a SEEEEEEEEEEEECRET. It’s sort of a romance, but really the book is about Zoe figuring herself out. It’s fun, and funny, and I highly recommend it.
This is what you see when you take off the dust jacket.
Zoe is awesome as a character. She’s cheery but a bit ill-tempered, directionless, and unambitious. She’s a mess, and not in a surface-level, charming sort of way. She’s a mess in a way that you can probably relate to if at 22, everyone around you seemed to have it all figured out except you. Bagieu’s design for her is perfect – she has this round face and massive eyes. There are pages and panels where she’s the sweet, doe-eyed, rosy cheeked ingenue that Thomas needs/wants her to be. For the most part, though, her expressions are big and loud and awkward. Thomas is pretty perfectly designed as well. His hair is always artfully rumpled, his face is always lightly stubbly. He goes from being slouched and self-satisfied to anxious and angular. Bagieu manages to put a scoop of self-satisfied condescension in almost all of his expressions. Almost ever time I see him on panel, I kind of want to punch him. It’s awesome.
In a lot of the scenes, Bagieu uses limited color palettes. Sometimes it’s just the background, allowing the characters to stand out really stand out cleanly. In other cases, the figures are a part of the same tone-on-tone palette as the background to help convey a mood. There’s a run of line art on rosy background as Zoe tells her friends about the new man in her life. Later in the book, everything is washed out to greys for a bummer of flashback. Later in the book there’s a really lovely, brightly colored scene that stands out really sharply in contrast to all to that. Zoe goes for a walk on the streets of Paris and visits a bookstore. Bagieu has a really clean illustrative style that makes the whole sequence feel happy and alive.
The book was originally released in France in 2010. First Second released it in the US this May, with a translation by Alexis Siegel. It is Bagieu’s first book to be released in the United States, but she has several other works available in France. One of her comics, Josephine, has even been adapted into a movie. You can see more of her work on her completely gorgeous website. I’ll be over here, regretting not learning French and hoping for more translations.
Books I’m Picking Up This Week:
Black Canary #1
Dr. Fate #1
Giant Days #4
Lumberjanes #15
Ms. Marvel #16
Runaways #1
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