What Made Me Cry This Week – A Graphic Novel, Another Graphic Novel, and a Chick-Flick

Let’s be honest: What Made Me Cry this Week can be anything, cause that’s the way I like it. So I compiled three different cultural products below from this week.

So here we go.

I’m currently reading a graphic novel that is a collection of Native American tales about 

Trickster. For each tale, a different artist and writer collaborate, coming up with unique styles. But to be honest? It’s tiresome, or repetitive. Some of the art styles are mediocre, others I’d consider them bad; but I guess that’s my taste. There are some of the tales that do seem to shine. Their style is deep, and layered, the stuff I like, and work well with a tale.

But the whole “short-tales” tires me out. It might be fun to read with a small kid every night a new story, but I’m bored of it. I’ll still finish it — I feel it’s good enough it deserves finishing, — but yeah. Not highest on my list.

Another graphic 

Friends With Boys, by Faith Erin Hicks. And it was good. It reminded me a bit of Anya’s Ghost, by Vera Brosgol. But different. While Anya’s Ghost leans towards the creepy, Friends With Boys leans more towards that sad reality of life: most things go unresolved. While there’s some resolution to Maggie’s journey, the protagonist in “Friends…,” it still happens that a lot of it is left open. I don’t think it’s for no reason; there’s one conversation between Maggie and her brother that I thought caught the nugget of truth and beauty from this graphic novel:

“I thought it was something I could fix — But I can’t fix anything.” “Maybe that’s okay.”

The art style was nice, it’s one that I’d enjoy emulating myself if I ever got the chance.

With simple blacks, whites, and a layer of gray, Hicks conveys a lot through her image. With this graphic novel, I also just enjoyed the paper itself. The texture is nice,but mainly the pages have tiny variation on size, so on the edge of it you can run your finger along it and feel the ups and downs as pages randomly get bigger and smaller.

Enough of that. what I really want to talk about is Mean Girls.

I know. You’ve probably seen it. Or you think that it’s a movie for, well, girls — a “chick-flick.” But I just watched it., and I feel like the child inside of me cried watching it. So that counts right? I can write on it?

Mean Girls. I feel it deserves something, an award? A recognition? A shout-out? It deserves something for the screenplay. I mean seriously. The writing for that? I just thought it was incredible. It was ridiculously over the top, but in the good way. The same way Tarantino makes all the gory stuff be over the top. Ha. I’m comparing Mean Girls to Tarantino’s work. Someone will hurt me. But I’m fine with it. I’ll say it up front. I don’t like Tarantino that much.

Honestly, I just had to put in a word for Mean Girls, in case you haven’t watched it yet, if only for the great plot, screenwriting, and acting.

#netflixshow #BookReview #graphicnovelrecommendation #graphicnovel #MovieReview #Cry