Wet Moon Volume 1: Feeble Wanderings

cleo walks through a world filled with garbage. (is it really a college campus?) sometimes she's even barefoot. she feels inadequate, overwhelmed, alone, but she seldom says so, except in her journal where she's talking to herself. everyone she knows seems so self-absorbed they never notice she's drowning. yet she feels a connection to everyone around her, has a fear of losing them, because in some inarticulate way with magical thinking she's tied their fates together, tuned to a bogus fortune cookie meant for another, knowing they're drowning too. nobody helps her negotiate this small nightmare world; from her perspective it's almost like she's invisible in it. and she never notices that some of the people she meets do see her, and in show more fact want to know her better. but i'm thinking, in time she will get better at reading the threatening world she lives in, get better at acting on all these so mysterious cues and miscues. and there are stories she passes and fails to point to, in every frame: which shows she's gonna be a good writer, but up till now she's mostly recording, when she's not worrying about what she's being labelled. as all the characters (nerdy and punk and grunge and goth kids, all taking some form of art) express in their body language character that's still forming, recording lovingly all the rough edges they work so hard at and life will soon enough wear away. i especially like the way her contemporary world of neglect and anomie is drawn, how she sees it clearly but fatalistically seems to accept it as all she's got, and maybe all she's due. only in the few cottage scenes at Wet Moon is there a sense of a better world, but in that world cleo is all alone. the Palomar stories of Gilbert Hernandez must be an influence here, i think, though it's a very different setting and kind of narrative, and all that same kind of detail work - the fake-naive point of view, the characterization even of characters unnamed, and the larger stories in progress - all that is there to read already in Wet Moon's every frame. show less

I think I understand why people might like this book, but personally I hated it. I like the art and the characters seem to be very lifelike, but that's the problem. The series follows the social misadventures of a bunch of messed up teenagers, and well, I don't want to know who thinks who has a fat ass or is a slut, in real life or in comic books. This kind of situation just makes me cringe. I skimmed to the end of the book, and I do think it's a good book, if you are not put off by the subject. But I am, very much, so I'm going give it two stars: one for my personal taste, and one more because well, I feel I'm being unfair.

Really enjoyed this surreal gothic slice of life. Always impressed with Sophie's grasp of style and character design. One of the most visceral and immediate representations of menstrual cramps I've ever seen in any medium.

and that, my friends, is why i love graphic novels! oh, the teen angst! the cute girls who don't think they're cute. the turmoil of the teen years. the drama, the beauty, the intensity. it almost makes me want to go back and do it again. (but not really.) now excuse me while i ILL volumes 2 and 3.

I think the only thing that holds this comic above water for me is the artwork. I love Ross Campbell's art style and his goth/punk character designs. However, the story is rather dry and so far contains nothing but teenage angst.

Im going to see about tracking down the next one as I am told it gets a little more interesting but we will see. In any case, if you just want to see some pretty gothy art, pick it up; if you want a strong story line, don't.

I bought this because the art style was immediately appealing - the characters look gothy, indie, and with body shapes that look like real people. Unfortunately, the pacing is glacial: after 170 pages, nothing's really happened. Debating on whether to pick up the next.

If you are interested in watching youths griping about roommates taking stuff without asking, unplugging a toilet or walking to and fro in front of a window, OK. Unfortunately for me, I like to have some kind of plot or story going on.
There are a few hints that there might be something along those lines in later volumes, but since my reactions to the characters range from indifference to annoyance, I won't spend the money to find out.

Kind of a saving grace is the art. There's much effort put in making the characters NOT cookie-cutter-duplicates of each other, and the inks and tones are very clean.