A girl turning sixteen is a big deal in many cultures. Usually, there’s a huge party involved. One thing that almost never happens is somebody breaking you out of jail when you turn sixteen. That’s the setting for Gilbert Hernandez’s “Girl Crazy†comic. Sadly, it’s not one of his best.
Three best friends, Kitten, Maribel and Gaby, reunite on their 16th birthday. They also decide to head over to Tijuana to break their childhood friend, Una, out of prison even if it means destroying an entire city.
The plot is as basic as it gets. However, the comic does up the crazy by eleven in so many ways. One of the obvious ways was to make each character as crazy as possible. Kitten is an IRS agent, Gaby is a lawyer who lives in the 1950s and Maribel is basically Tarzan. Oh, and the IRS controls the US and has special agents like that of the FBI and CIA.
Not to mention Tijuana looks like a sci-fi b-movie where everyone wears leather and capes. Oh and Kitten says that she has small breasts because she has a “particular gland deficiency.†Yes, that line is in the comic. This is manga territory.
Add in the ending and you get a comic that makes very little sense. Of course, something that makes little sense can be entertaining. This comic, though, swings along the mediocre side. The characters are crazy, but they really don’t do much that we haven’t seen before and the big reveal just doesn’t quite mesh well.
The art is some of the worst Hernandez has ever done. His style of women with cartoonishly large breasts and what he can do with said women is still here, it’s just that there are some places where the art looks terrible. These instances mostly happen when there’s a lot action n the panel or when the actors are far away. This is especially true with some of the facial expressions which look terrifying. Hernandez is capable of a lot better than this.
“Girl Crazy†is a mediocre effort by a great comic writer. The story may be crazy and out there, but the execution is flawed and the art is woefully lacking.
Leave a Reply