Comic Review: Snotgirl (2016)

Publisher:Image Comics

Writer: Bryan Lee O'Malley

Artist: Leslie Hung

Issues: 15

Status: Ongoing

Review

I must admit, I was skeptical at first when I looked at the cover of Snotgirl, I had no idea which direction a comic could go with a protagonist sporting green hair and green boogers coming out of her nose. But it took only two to three pages for me to feel like I owed creator, Bryan Lee O'Malley, a huge apology for doubting his creative chops.

An ongoing series, Snotgirl is a hilariously relatable comic that focuses on social networking and the technology that it relies on. It points to the relevance of it in our lives, and its implications with regards to personal identity and our current reality and the means in which we live and interpret it. The series' protagonist is Lottie Person (yes, that's her name), an influential fashion blogger who's looks, lifestyle and fashion sense is the envy of all her followers and/or admirers. While flawless on all her social media platforms and out in the public eye, Lottie lives in fear that her terrible allergies will expose a less than aesthetically pleasing truth about her, and that's that she looks horrible when her condition causes her to tear up and leak snot from her nose like a faucet, hence the name, Snotgirl.

Lottie does what she can to prevent this ugly truth from ever seeing the light of day, relying on strong medication and simple avoidance of all things that could trigger a reaction, thereby posing an existential threat that shatters her very conception of what her reality is composed of, and that is the necessity to come across as flawless. When she isn't "working", Lottie spends time with her other fashion blogger "friends" each as fake and shallow as the last, forging ahead with their careers and ideas on what constitutes beauty, almost seeming to covertly compete with one another, while enjoying any failure, strategically hidden under a disguise of concern and empathy.

Lottie seems to know and understand these as well as they do, and yet, in their world, it seems like this is the only kind of friendship that is possible for them. This does change to a degree when Lottie meets a mysteriously cool fashion blogger at a coffee shop that accidentally mistook Lotties' coffee order for her own. This interaction leads to the two exchanging details, and Lottie becoming greatly captivated by this incredibly cool and confident new friend. Caroline is different from Lotties' friends in every conceivable way, her carefree attitude towards her looks and dress sense makes her all the more attractive to Lottie, her confidence and charm irresistibly magnetic. Our protagonist feels like a typical girl with a crush, almost paralyzed by the effect that Caroline has on her, and heightened sense of self-consciousness as she works hard to impress and ultimately gain favor with her.

One night out for drinks together, and Lottie turns into a leaky mess once she spots her ex-boyfriend, and what appears to be his new girlfriend. Taking off to the bathroom in an attempt to take her medication, Caroline enters to see what the matter is, only to slip on Lotties' round white pills, and crack her head on the tiled floor. Traumatized to a degree, Lottie takes off, feeling like she was responsible for the death of the coolest girl she knew, and yet a mere few days later, Caroline resurfaces, looking good as new and having very little recollection of what happened on that faithful night. From here, Caroline continues to act somewhat strangely, casting a bigger shroud of mystery around herself that Lottie finds difficult to navigate through. What's more, Caroline has a brother who seems to take to the shadows well, stalking various individuals and gathering intel for reasons that are not altogether clear. Aside from this, Lottie tries hard to juggle complex relationships with her career and allergies that stalk her like a cat waiting to pounce upon unexpecting prey, while other movements are made by characters connected to her in some way or another.

This is a small taste of what readers can expect in this thrilling series that feels very different from previous works that I've read of Bryan Lee O'Malley, and yet, the common emphasis is on relationships, how they develop and the effort put in to sustain them. O'Malley shows these effectively in a new paradigm where photo filters and the perceived self is the new reality that we tacitly consent to in one form or the other, discarding the imperfections that truly gives us our individuality and uniqueness, our quirks and flaws representing the new illusion, the likes, shares, and comments giving legitimacy to our existence.

Genuine friendship and romantic relationship take on a complex nature within this context, the posh people of the fashion blogging world seeing and treating each other as means to various ends, having no clue as to what would constitute a healthy, reciprocal relationship where concern is genuine, motives are pure and trust is sacred. And yet it seems that lifestyle is all that these individuals know, as the only things worth doing are flashy and expensive, all our activities and thoughts requiring public approval and/or praise. It's this that makes Snotgirl an embarrassingly relatable read that makes one reflect on how we are all guilty of this desire for attention and synthetic connection. It shows the world for the bizarre place that we have made out to be, with hashtags and emojis acting as the new forms of communication, to the rules that inform the playing field of our complex human interactions.

All of this is what makes Snotgirl an interesting and hilarious series that is dramatic, thrilling and easy to pick up and become engrossed in, introducing a world we are all too familiar with, and characters that are hard to forget. O'Malley crafts his storylines expertly while developing rapport between characters seamlessly and striking readers with his trademark honesty and sharp wit. With the great layering of the panels and wonderful artwork to boost, If you've never read work by Bryan Lee O'Malley, then now is a good time, the same applies to fans. I wish you all happy reading.