Cold Cut Distribution's Feature Spotlight #22 - March 1997


Pervert Club

Publisher:	A.M. Works
Story & Art:	Will Allison
Cover Price:	$2.95
Frequency:	bi-monthly

Storyline:

Malcolm Davis is not just a typical high school student. Tall, gangly, awkward, not very good at sports, he gets good grades and has been labelled a nerd. He deals with the daily pressures of school, and especially deals with the peer pressure to conform, which makes it all the more remarkable when a meeting with an odd girl named Julia leads him to reveal to everyone his secret love: cross-dressing. The school naturally has no idea how to take this - classmates ostracize him, the principal considers transferring him to a school where he can "get some help," and his own sister hates his guts. Not to mention the confusion he's caused to his best friend, April -- she has a crush on him, though he's never really noticed. Meanwhile Julia, the scheming head of the high school's self-proclaimed secret "Pervert Club", makes Malcolm a key member of her formerly all-girl group, dreaming of making her club all-powerful.

Writing Review:

Pervert Club captures the feeling of alienation many teens feel in high school and turns it on its head as it explores: can you imagine feeling alienated and alone because you're a cross-dresser? What if there was a club of other people like you? Now, add in the manga convention of the "nebbishy boy surrounded by cute girls" (Will says he was striving for something in the lines of Tenchi Muyo or Oh My Goddess). Will throws a few relatively "normal" people in as foils for the stars, but basically this is a well-written and funny sex-comedy with wacky characters.

Art Review:

A cool, quirky manga style catches your eye and draws you into Will's odd little world. With stark blacks, streaks of white, and angles, angles everywhere from hair to clothing, Will brings a distinctly unique offbeat American flavor to his based-in-Japanese art style. Making frequent use of manga conventions like anxiety-teardrops, streaming tears, and "ellipsis balloons" (putting "..." inside a balloon alone to indicate speechlessness), Pervert Club should be popular with fans of manga and offbeat art (like Paul Pope's stuff)

Audience:

Pervert Club is not an adult book, despite its title. It's R-rated, but is properly designated as a "Mature Readers" book, not "adults only". That said, Pervert Club reminds me most of Ninja High School: high school angst with bizarre comic plot turns and over-the-top supporting characters, not to mention the manga art style (though Will's style is much more true-to-manga than Ben Dunn's NHS). Readers of Ranma 1/2, No Need For Tenchi and Strangers in Paradise should also check it out.

If you like Pervert Club, take a look at:


Athena

Publisher:	A.M. Works
Story & Art:	Dean Hsieh
Cover Price:	$2.95
Frequency:	monthly starting with issue 7 (March)

Storyline:

In the year 2047, after being forceably "retired" from the pantheon of gods by the brash new modern deities, the Goddess Athena elects to spend her retirement on Earth. Who would have guessed that she finds solace from her pain by playing loud punk thrash music? As new lead singer for "Serpenteena", Athena ends up hooking up with bandmates who may or may not believe her former divinity - but definitely believe that Athena is something else. For that matter, so is Dionysus, who has retired to come down to Earth and run a club; Hermaphrodite, who dances in the club; and poor lovestruck Hephaestus, who's had a crush on Athena literally for centuries. As Athena and her band deal with everything from family intrigue to barroom brawls, her friend Kallie begins to pry into Athena's past, wondering exactly how and why Athena retired, and what is the deal with her cybernetic arm, anyway?

Writing Review:

Sparsely and lightly written, this book is clearly plotted and solidly dialogued - though with a number of characters being drunk bar denizens, some of that dialogue tends towards the "huh?" and "whu?" Dean clearly has fun with the variety of characters he's introduced and the backstory of his world, and just as clearly enjoys the touches of comedic relief he drops in every few pages or so. Often playing on the dramatic interactions between gods and humans, Dean moves the story along through humor and pathos, never going too far one way or the other. He's also willing to take some startling chances in his writing - having a man falling in love with a hermaphrodite, for instance. Athena is full of intriguing situations and neat near-future science fiction (cybernetic arms, robotic - though clumsy - security robots, etc) but it's all just a colorful backdrop against which Dean lets the characters play.

Art Review:

One thing the "A.M." in the company name stands for is "American Manga" - and Dean's art is manga all the way. If you didn't know otherwise, you'd swear this was translated stuff from Japan. From the "anxiety-teardrop" symbolism to the characters suddenly breaking into "super-deformed mode" when they fly into a comical rage, this reads just like a really good manga series with some American sensibilities thrown in. If Dean hasn't tried marketing this to Kodansha, I don't know why...

Audience:

The drama of this series and the colorful interaction of its characters reminds me most of Strangers in Paradise - any readers of Terry Moore's touching melodrama should definitely pick up Athena if they're at all interested in manga. Manga fans of Shirow's work like Appleseed and Black Magic should also check it out, as should readers of Silbuster, Oh My Goddess, and Sandman.

If you like Athena, take a look at:


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