by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Leslie Hung, and Mickey Quinn
collects Snotgirl #1-5
volume reviews one | two | three
There are some creators whose names alone will convince me to try a comic book. Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of Scott Pilgrim, is one of those creators. I am an admirer of his anime-like style and sharp, clever tone from the Scott Pilgrim series, even though the title made me wonder if this is a female superhero with really, really gross powers–and with O’Malley I wouldn’t have put it past him.
Instead, Snotgirl follows Lottie Person, a green-haired fashion blogger in downtown Los Angeles (who living in DTLA isn’t a fashion blogger?) whose greatest secret is her terrible allergies. Lottie seems quite successful in her career having amassed millions of followers and her own fashion line. But while her photo shoots and fashion sense might be on point, she struggles with her personal relationships – her friends seem shallow and dismissive, her boyfriend ghosted her and has been spotted with someone else, and there was an…accident?…at a bar with Lottie’s new friend, the mysterious “Coolgirl.” Lottie’s life is full of emojis, texts and notifications, which infiltrate the comic book page in a way that feels modern (and keeping with Lottie’s social media obsession) but not too forced.
One may wonder how one feels invested in Lottie at all, whether it be her particular lifestyle, crippling insecurity, and basically every stereotype of Los Angeles rolled into one. Lottie is constantly focused on her phone and her status, coffee in hand or waiting for brunch; she whittles down friends and acquaintances to nicknames; she decides that if she has forgiven someone in thought, that’s the same as apologizing in person. She is almost like Lindsey Bluth in Arrested Development, though we haven’t yet seen Lottie’s family or upbringing (we do know she’s from Fountain Valley); perhaps, like Lindsey, she is just as much a product of her upbringing and her own parents. Regardless, Lottie is a character one might both like and dislike, perhaps because she embodies an insecurity within all of us – to simply be liked and accepted, while hiding what we most despise about ourselves. It is telling that in the opening pages when she opens her phone, she sees no texts from actual friends, but thousands of notifications from strangers.
This is essentially the attitude of Los Angeles in a nutshell–one is able to completely mask themselves in a false image, in exchange for authenticity and genuine relationships. Lottie is desperate for connection, as her friends bail on her for brunch, and practically falls head over heels for “Coolgirl” (to the point that I wondered if this was a queer story – and it still could be). She tries, and fails, to put her acquaintances in small boxes with their nicknames, but we soon find out they are more different–and complicated–than she makes them out to be. And when one of them acts outside Lottie’s supposed box, she often dismisses them rather than act with compassion, aside from the final pages.
Lottie and her compatriots are clearly a mirror for many of us today who are image obsessed, quick to judge, and addicted to technology. Along with her insecurities – heightened by this culture – it’s clear why Lottie isn’t so likeable to us. She’s an exaggeration of us and that’s uncomfortable.
Leslie Hung’s artwork bursts off the page, and like Scott Pilgrim, has a very strong manga and anime feel. The bright, vivid palette from Lottie’s particular shade of green hair to her outfits is not only beautiful aesthetically, but also adds to the feeling of falseness and insecurity. Everything feels slightly over the top, including the thick, bright green mucus as it drains from Lottie’s face. Also interesting is that each character’s face and style are markedly different from each other – Misty in particular, also a blogger who dresses in cutesy anime-like clothing, has a distinctly more classical manga face. This could perhaps be part of seeing Lottie’s world through her perspective.
Much like skipping from one app to another, the story jumps along from Lottie’s different relationships. We get small doses of Lottie’s “friends,” with whom Lottie mostly communicates through texts, failed plans, and shallow conversations; her estranged boyfriend Sunny, who might be dating someone younger than Lottie, to the mystery of Coolgirl. From here we get a sense of Lottie’s exaggerated, shallow world – and it’s full of funny one-liners, dramatic acts of aggression (because that insecurity has to go somewhere!), and of course, over the top outfits.
The story feels slightly rushed and disconnected; everyone gets some screen time, but not enough to feel completely invested. Moreover, O’Malley hints at some darkness in the corners, which Lottie seemingly dismisses until she is unable to at the cliffhanger ending. What happened that night at the bar, when Coolgirl suffered a seemingly fatal accident in the bathroom? Are Lottie’s new allergy medications creating some side effects? And how does Detective John Cho (no relation to the actor) fit into all of this?
[mild spoilers] I enjoyed meeting Cho – and yet his scene was extremely baffling. Cho is clearly infatuated with Lottie (having fully bought into Lottie as the perfect person from her social media), and breaks protocol to meet with her and talk about the case. (He also somehow gets Lottie’s address from her doctor, a huge breach in privacy that Lottie somehow overlooks.) But when he shows her the bloody pills from the bathroom, the scene immediately ends. Lottie wonders in a thought bubble how Cho got his hands on the pills and what happened that night – but wouldn’t she have asked him right in that moment? This scene felt cheapened by the fact that Lottie – still being vapid and shallow – absolutely would have asked these questions. Cho couldn’t have just left after brandishing that kind of evidence.
Finally, I was disappointed that, while Hung’s character work is wonderful, most of the backdrops are crude and undefined. Los Angeles is a city with a huge amount of character–from ritzy Beverly Hills to hippie Silverlake and breezy Santa Monica, it also has its own areas that play into their own stereotypes. But LA is also rich in its culture, with so many different populations nestled right next to each other, and its constant obsession with new, happening fusion bars, food trucks and restaurants. Unlike LA-centric comic books such as Runaways, Kate Bishop (Hawkeye) and Manhunter, I was surprised to not see much of iconic Los Angeles locations, areas or street names throughout Snotgirl. (I could understand not using restaurants or businesses themselves, but there’s plenty copyright free to choose from!) Wouldn’t Lottie want to have her photoshoot in an area like Rodeo Drive, Pacific Coast Highway or Venice Beach? Wouldn’t the fateful bar be in an exploding nightlife area downtown, or maybe a classic Sunset Boulevard or Melrose Ave? Even the landscape as Lottie and Coolgirl leave the coffee place didn’t have much in the way of palm trees or other markers of Los Angeles-looking streets. In fact, I was shocked that none of the storyline took place in traffic, or showed LA’s famous congestion at all – it would have been a great pun on Lottie’s allergies. Admittedly, as an ex-Angelino this might be the nostalgia talking, but the heightened character of Los Angeles itself creates huge potential to enrich Lottie’s story, even if it’s used ironically.
A page from Kate Bishop volume 1, Anchor Points by Kelly Thompson and Leonardo Romero. Note how she’s clearly at Venice Beach in this scene.
While I can’t claim to be one of Lotties’ fans or followers, I am intrigued by O’Malley and Hung’s bright, self deprecating world of Snotgirl. Looking forward to digging into volume two, and I hope we get some new reasons to invest in our shallow but funny characters, as well as a firmer sense of place in Los Angeles.
Reading Art 