The Plain Janes [Paperback]

I'm a 25-year-old female comics fan, and I've been impressed with the "Minx" line [I've read "Re-Gifters", "Kimmie66", "Confessions of a Blabbermouth", "Good as Lily", and "Clubbing"]. I was really looking forward to "The Plain Janes", given my previous enjoyment of the rest of the line. I was sadly mistaken.

The biggest issue with "The Plain Janes" is that every character who is not the central character is completely one-dimensional. All of the adults are cardboard cut-outs who scream, freak out, and are otherwise completely unreasonable. The other students each have one particular trait [sporty, nerdy, theater geek, gay, good-looking, popular] and that's about it. Even the main character isn't terribly well-rounded, as all she seems to do is freak out, not freak out, and talk about how awesome it is that she's brought art to the obviously lacking suburb which she lives.

The pseudo-9/11 plot does nothing for this book except drag it down. It's overused to the point of being boring, and all it does is set up a couple of ridiculous scenes where Jane's mother yells at her, and then Jane acts surprised when she's grounded for sneaking out of the house and hitchhiking nine hours to check on a John Doe she writes to at the hospital.

This book needed a better writer. Mike Carey, who wrote "Confessions of a Blabbermouth" and "Re-Gifters" should have been given this book. He writes teenagers much more realistically than Cecil Castellucci and does so in a way that doesn't make the adults come off as horrible, useless things that are just out to stop the teenagers from having a good time.

Read the rest of the "Minx" line, or buy it for the teenage girl in your life, but let this one rot on the shelf.

First off, I'll give you a little disclaimer. I'm a 21 year old male, so this book really wasn't written for me at all, but as a writer and fan of comics, I decided to give it a try.

The story is interesting, but Castellucci has a bit of a problem with dialog. The characters really sound like they were written, not how they would talk. It all just has a bit of an exposition feel to it the entire way through.

Rugg's art is effective here, but not all that impressive. It doesn't detract from the story being told, but I also thought it didn't really enhance it

Now, onto the characters. This is where I had the biggest problem with things. The main character of Jane is pretty well nuanced and rounded, but every other character in the book is just a stereotypical cardboard cutout of a cliched character type. The police officer is always screaming, the gay male character is always being so incredibly effeminate it's off-putting, the drama crazed Jane is constantly speaking as if here words were pulled directly from Shakespeare. This is an OK template to build a character off of, but absolutely nobody acts like this in real life. I could understand the use of character types like this in a book designed for children, but I would think that teenagers would desire something a little more dynamic

One other criticism here, and this just really smacks of a first time comic book writer. How in the world does Jane get a phone that automatically picks up and broadcasts in speakerphone without any input from the user? This is absolutely ridiculous, and I really think that it's a very visible crutch that Castellucci uses more than once in the story

All in all though, despite all of my critiques, I mildly enjoyed the book...it's not nearly the worst thing I've ever read, but it just didn't resonate for me. I would like to see what Castellucci can do in the future, but she's going to have to improve over her debut.

I just got--and read--Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's graphic novel THE PLAIN JANES yesterday afternoon. What a wonderful book. I loved the characters and the ideas. I loved the art. I liked how clean the pages felt, and how so much of the story seemed to be told in the pictures. I kept flipping back in the pictures to gather more information.

Art is important. I think sometimes about how millenia ago, when survival was far more difficult and people spent most of every day trying to get food and shelter, but still, they created art. It is a need, to do more than survive, to leave a mark in the world, to do something that is just for the beauty of it. Sometimes we forget that, but it seems the most extreme experiences help us remember.