Chewing Gum in Church
Text and Illustrations by Steven Weissman
Assignment: #3 of graphic novel annotations
Publication info.: Fantagraphics Books 2006. 94 p.
Genre & Format: Comedy Horror; Graphic Novel
Awards: Review in Booklist
Grades: 6 and up
Summary: This is not a cohesive narrative, rather a collection of Sunday funnies. The characters are mostly children of horror film characters: Li’l Bloody, the vampire kid; Pullapart Boy, a stitched up Frankenstein child; Kid Medusa, a girl with serpent hair and a penchants for stomping on anthills; X-Ray Spence, the nerdy kid with x-ray vision; and a fat kid named Chubby. There are the usual childhood issues of ganging up on the nerdy kid and talking about barf, but then there are issues specific to the undead such as smelling “worse than the Holocaust”, and Li’l Bloody enjoying the smell. Color illustrations are childlike and vibrant.
Comments: It is twisted and rather bizarre, but it made me laugh, so once again, perhaps I am twisted and bizarre (although no dark and twisty like Grey’s Anatomy, to clarify). The little monster characters are new, and sometimes the funnies show them doing almost nothing, which I think some weeks of the Sunday funnies are like that. My favorite part is when Kid Medusa opens her mailbox to find a black widow spider, and since she thinks perhaps her father sent it to her, she takes it out. After it bites her, she is so sick she hallucinates that Pegasus is her brother, calling her “Cute Boots”, and takes her to see their dad. The Cute Boots things made me laugh so hard, plus her serpent hair turned into unicorns. This was such a new idea, I love it. It could stand to leave out some of the “what the heck?” panels, but maybe somebody gets them besides me.
Booktalking ideas: Maybe a vampire cape. Oh, I know, bring in the comics section of the paper and talk about which ones the kids like and why, then move into the style being the same.
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