Me and Edith Head
W: Sara Ryan
A: Steve Lieber
16 pages, B/W, $2.00
Family Reunion
W: Sean Stewart
A: Steve Lieber
8 pages, B/W, $1.00
Too often in the world of comics, a “quick read” is quickly forgettable. Not so for Me and Edith Head and Family Reunion, two delightful minicomics illustrated by Whiteout and On the Road to Perdition artist Steve Lieber. Lieber’s combination of classicist chops and an understanding of the inherent whimsy of the art form make for a memorable read.
In Edith, Lieber marries a strong Eisner influence to a relatively subdued tale of teen angst giving way to teen determination. Written by novelist (and Lieber’s wife) Sara Ryan, Edith follows a teenager named Katrina whose hopes of starring in the school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are dashed when she’s put in charge of the costume department instead. Using books written by legendary Hollywood designer Edith Head as inspiration, Katrina surprises herself when she discovers she’s got a knack for both the artistry and the organization necessary to create memorable costumes. Ryan serves up a script memorable for its lack of after-school-special cliches, and Lieber takes the ball and runs with it, producing several sequences that impress with their imaginative presentation yet do not overwhelm with showiness. Particularly strong is the way he plays with the passage of time. Comics’ flexibility in depicting this is one of the medium’s great gifts; in such scenes as Katrina’s first immersion in the chaotic costume room or the ongoing transformation of her own bedroom from pigsty to pristine, Lieber conveys a great deal through the simple manipulation of props and costumes. Katrina’s own transformation is invigorating to watch. “As hard as this may be for you to believe,” she says to her mother, who’s in the midst of a divorce from Katrina’s father, “what’s happening to me has nothing to do with either of you.” Sure enough, we believe her–our protagonist is a teen smart enough and spirited enough not to be dragged down by circumstance. It’s enough to make one hope this minicomic falls into the right (teenaged) hands, where it could very well do a lot of good.
Featuring the lead character from novelist Sean Stewart’s upcoming release Perfect Circle, Family Reunion is an original story by Stewart that goes further afield from the everyday than does Edith. Protagonist William “Dead” Kennedy sees dead people. Yes, ghosts. The problem is that he’s also surrounded by the living–in this case, a family reunion full of distant relations–with whom he seems little more adept at communicating. Stewart does a tight little job of creating a likeable loser, a guy who through no real fault of his own has a life that’s going nowhere, complete with chronic unemployment, an ex-wife, and a daughter he doesn’t get to see often enough. D.K.’s situation is contrasted quite nicely with that of the ghostly relative haunting him during the reunion, a casualty of Vietnam who couldn’t handle the hard luck that transformed him from a baseball phenom to a jungle-bound junkie literally overnight. Lieber’s sympathetic character work–again, the similarities to a toned-down Eisner are striking, and serve the story well–warmly and cleverly links these two individuals and the garrulous, slightly sad aunts and uncles whose expectations of the young men have shaped both their lives, for better and for worse. Water-gun fights and the Texas Longhorns’ “hook ’em horns” hand gesture help give the story a happy-sad summer feeling that lingers well after the final full-page image.
Sixteen and eight pages respectively, Edith and Reunion accomplish a great deal despite, or maybe because of, their low page counts. They showcase an artist whose sensibilities mesh comfortably with those of his collaborators, and tell human stories that wriggle free of convention. They’re well worth the three bucks. When was the last time you said that of a comic (let alone two!) you read inside of five minutes?