Me and Edith Head
Written by Sara Ryan
Drawn by Steve Lieber
Available from Unrewarding.com
Here's a self-published mini-comic that reprints a 15-page black and white story that originally appeared in Cicada magazine (not to be confused with Josue Menjivar's Cicada graphic novel).
Ryan and Lieber's story revolves around a high school girl whose parents are divorcing, who has a relatively unhappy home life, and who discovers self-worth and self-expression after she is assigned to design costumes for a high school play. She makes these revelatory discoveries through her investigation of the designer Edith Head.
Katrina is a fully-formed character (who also appears in Ryan's novel Empress of the World) whose journey to find value in a school assignment is depicted with humanity and compassion. She isn't the prettiest or smartest girl in school, she's just a girl, one of millions, and through the depiction of her individuality and stubbornness and eventual growth, Ryan and Lieber teach a lesson in finding the value of comics, too, in just 15 pages.
It's probably not a deliberate metaphor, but I found Katrina's journey of discovery of Edith Head to parallel the joy that my investigations of some favourite writers and artists in comics have brought me. Ryan and Lieber really touch on something in the way that people can discover themselves through the art (and therefore the discoveries) of others. And of course, it's no real stretch to think that quite a few people who read this story will be inspired by it as well, whether to create comics, design clothing, or whatever their area of inspiration might be.
Lieber's art has been a favourite of mine for some time, especially since his Whiteout work with writer Greg Rucka. He's working in the same expressionist/realist mode here, with every panel so well-designed and constructed that you not only feel you could walk into the story, you wish you could. I really admire how he uses ink and a deft, spare touch to recreate the world on paper, and I applaud the fact that in this case that gift is being used to illuminate this charming, straightforward story.
The book is available for -- get this -- two dollars postpaid -- from the website listed in the credits. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the stretching of comics as an artform, for the pretty pictures, and especially for the terrific story Ryan weaves in just over a dozen pages. Grade: 5/5