Wednesday Comics – July 1, 2015

I love talking about great all-ages comics.

But that’s not what I’m doing today. Really want to stress that.

We Can Fix It! (available via that affiliate link) is a memoir comic by Jess Fink. If you’re familiar with Fink’s other work, it’s possible that you already know that a lot of her stuff is aimed at adults. That’s definitely the case for We Can Fix It, the first third of which is shaped by a funny/saucy premise.* Fink, armed with a time machine, is on a mission. A mission to witness the hookups of her bygone days.

But it turns out those are super-awkward.

So she makes it her mission to fix the hookups of her bygone days. She’ll spare herself embarrassment, awkward attempts at flirting, and other romantic missteps. But that doesn’t work out either. Young Jess doesn’t really have an abundance of interest in what Older Jess has to say, Older Jess doesn’t take Young Jess very seriously, they butt heads. So mostly, she just ends up making out with herself (gently reiterates that this book is for grown-ups, k thx bye).

Not to be dissuaded, Jess decides to move beyond the romance stuff and find some mistake of hers that she can fix. The whole thing snowballs, and Jess ends up trying to fix every single bad moment or questionable decision in her entire life. All of them. From tackling some genuinely scary family situations to having insufficiently cool taste in anime.

Fink’s line work is clean, she’s great at exaggerated facial expressions, and she also makes good use of sound effects. It keeps the book’s energy high and helps funny moments to play well, even as more emotionally intense moments are mixed into story. For this book, the pages are all pencil shaded and toned which I think is a great choice. It doesn’t weigh down the panels, but the texture adds depth and warmth. Without it, the style might feel distancing during the more human moments of the story. With it, Fink can bridge the tonal gap between Time Travel Hijinks and tense emotional beats. Everything flows together, everything serves the narrative.

The structure of Fink’s approach means that the reader is always looking at events though the lens of her adult perception them. Well, okay, that’s technically the case with memoir in general. But for We Can Fix It, it’s openly acknowledged. We’re following adult Jess as she tries to take control of her life by controlling her past. It makes things extremely relatable from the outset because adulthood is punctuated by moments of realizing how dumb you used to be.

I mean, remember when you were 15? And you were SO MATURE, and knew everything, and wanted to be treated accordingly? Because really, 15 was basically grown-up?

And then you hit 20-something, and your perspective on that got a LOT different? And you maybe you could kind of understand why your parents wouldn’t let you go to Jersey (basically by yourself) for a con?

Maybe that last bit is just me. Maybe all of it is. Maybe no one else even thought of themselves as “basically grown up” when they were in high school (I doubt it is, but I’ll let y’all pretend to have been Sweet Angel Teenz**), but you have something. You have some moment that you think about and cringe. Watching Fink revisit hers, what rings so true is the spectrum of significance. There are big, terrible moments, there are choices that will impact her for years, but there are also moments that have no consequence beyond the gnawing feeling that it could have been handled better. Older Jess flings herself at all of these issues, seemingly hoping that by fixing her past she can give her present a sense of certainty and control.

I’m assuming I’m not spoiling anything by saying that she can’t fix it. Jess Fink does not actually have the power of time travel. Or if she does, she’s masterfully chosen to hide in plain site. So she doesn’t change the way she handled life choices at 12 years old.  Instead, she uses this book to look at how she relates to her past. As a person the ability to suddenly become mortified by things I did during my 8th Grade Field Day, this appeals to me. It also provides a break from the sort of memoir where the author’s past is being reshaped to tidily, chronologically, adhere to a narrative arc that ends in the author as they currently view themselves. The arc is derived from Fink’s view of her past and the way she presents the events creates a book that feels honest and engaging.

 

 

Books I’m Picking Up This Week:
A-Force #2
Fresh Romance #2 (Digital only, technically out on Tuesday)
Help Us! Great Warrior #5
No Mercy #4
Secret Wars #4
Ultimate End #3
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl  #7
Wicked + The Divine #12

Go buy some comics.

 

*Yes, saucy. I stand by that word choice because I’m secretly 93, and will be using this space to bemoan these young whipper-snappers and their refusal to wear sock garters from next week on.

**This fall on Disney XD.