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BOYS
Ron Rege (and Joan Reidy)
Highwater Books, 2000
24 pages

Here’s an example, for me, of a perfect comic book. Twenty single page stories, poems really, of shine-y teenage wonderment told from a girl’s POV. Short little narrative voice-overs accompany spare stylized symbols of figures carefully arranged. It all feels so casual, like a private notebook but each page is dense and an architectural marvel of design and sequencing. The stories feel more real because of the playful drawings, and the facial expressions and emotions of the characters ring true because the text is so reserved, powerful. Printed on pink paper with blue ink, it feels like a girl’s diary but there’s an edge to it and thats whats always surprising about Rege for me whenever I really look at him. Maybe it’s all the sex talk but there’s a darkness there, a shadow world that is visible beneath the smiling exterior. The subject matter is in perfect counter-point to the incredibly articulated drawing, and also reveals, tenderly, that those hapless, embarrassing and sometimes dark moments of burning youth are best related with humor.

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I’m sure this will be everywhere on the internet in half an hour or less (if I didn’t already miss the deluge), but this looks like something too good to miss.

[Via the great Dan Z.]

UPDATE: Oh, and this is worth checking out, too. [Via everyone.]