DEJA REVIEW:
BLUE MONDAY
BY CHRISTOPHER SEBELA

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Blue Monday
Chynna Clugston-Major
Oni Press
$10.95 Hard fought dollars

High school is the fulcrum for almost all teenage traumas, the foundation for college mayhem and the genesis of post-scholastic blame games. It's a testing ground for the human spirit, and very few come out clean on the other side. Considering how much emphasis is placed on social standing and personal conception, it's no wonder that for most people, High School was the worst thing about life thus far. We've been inundated with horror stories from the media, movies, music and books... all of which are there to only confirm what everyone thought and convince those who remain upbeat about the world beyond grade school. When the earth stumbles and dies beneath its own ridiculous weight, we'll be left with all these endless documents to point the way to future discoverers, to show them that we were all left with no choice and forced to run an obstacle course of terror and insecurity, and those who did not fit in that slot were obviously the cretins, the jocks, the administration and the mentally malfunctioned.

Not everyone feels that way. I had a relatively benign High School experience and can recall as many fond moments as foul. I ran the same gamut and rarely find myself reflecting back on it with anything resembling hatred or regret. Sure, I had my share of shit to wallow through and as much as I felt I gained, there're a million cracks in the facade I could point out if you've got a few hours. When I see what popular culture has to offer in the way of observation or comment, I either recoil in horror or laugh like a loon. From the latest Columbine-inspired gangbang to any number of John Hughes-derivative high-school as microcosm morality play, nothing reflects my experience in High School. I bet it don't reflect your school either. So let's abandon all notions of feasible logic and resonance and open our arms to welcome Blue Monday into our nostalgic grips.

Blue Monday is, more than anything, the most hyper-idealized High School fantasy running these days. It exists in a strange present-day world where Adam Ant is young as ever, a high school campus is made up of rickety old Japanese buildings, American girls speak British slang and vespa-driving armies of Shriners fill the streets. In short, it's a world of its own creation and one that's out of time, out of place and out of step, while still huddling over a cutting edge unique to itself. Comparisons to Archie run amok, and Clugston-Major makes the comparison herself in one of the full-page ads included in the collection of a 3-issue story, numerous short stories and guest artist splash pages. It's Archie meets Manga meets Quadrophenia, and all of it with such a sense of joy and fun that it does away with rolling eyes and ho-hummery. It's a hyperbolic blast, through and through, and one that makes no apologies for being what it is...fun. C'mon, sing along, you know you've been wanting the fun, but you've been unsure where to find it. Turn around, bright eyes, it's all right here. And there's never too much of the good to be found in Blue Monday.

Following a pair of anglophile teenage girls, Bleu and Clover, it's a slapdash teenage comedy without being simplistic or preachy. There are no Breakfast Club revelations and no angst-ridden confrontations. Instead, there's hijinx and pranksterism galore, pop-star idolatry and image-mongering. It's basically what High School was all about, just taken to an idealistic end. Bleu is the dreamer, walls plastered with posters and cutout pictures, whose dreams come convolutedly true. Clover is the foul-mouthed tough who beats holy fuck out of anyone who irks her and watches everything with vague amusement and derision. Their cohorts/adversaries are Alan and Victor, two mod dropouts who spend their time peeping in windows and implicating long games of give-and-take revengism or obscurant romancing. Draped around the principal characters is a world of cockney bouncers, shuffling rude boys, snarky service, sexist DJs and every high-school stereotype on the pike.

What makes all this work? Mostly, it's Clugston-Major's complete lack of seriousness, her full abandon and true belief in a good time being had. The artwork is probably the strongest hand working here. The manga-heavy lines draw a world of cartoonish glee and render even the few moments of despair and gloom with levity. Me, I'm not a big fan of the big-eyed, perfectly spiked-hair style of manga, so it's doubly a treat to see it work here, to find what could have been a softcore cheesecake funnybook turned on its head and transformed into a fever-dream with a new wave soundtrack. The soundtrack, incidentally, is what makes the book even more fun. Blue Monday is, at times, constructed like a film, with its own montages and mood-settings. Scribbled outside the panels are soundtrack recommendations that run the short gamut from The Kinks to Blur, sometimes given specific pages and specific scenes. The soundtrack lays down not only the mood of the comic but the devotion of the characters and the creator to the anglophile rock that shapes this quasi-world.

In a world of Vertigos, where Frank Miller's awful Dark Knight legacy is still lingering heavy and the brooding gang of Chester Browns, Dan Clowes and Chris Wares instill stoic seriousness over the humor, be glad we have small shiny beacons of pure pop fun that revels in nothing more serious than the pursuit of pop stars and toilet-papering trees. Chynna Clugston-Major throws open the drapes, lets the sun in and rolls around in the warm glow just around the corner from the teenage wasteland.