Snotgirl #1

Written by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Art by Leslie Hung
Published by Image Comics

Do you remember middle school, when even the most popular among us were neurotic, paranoid and desperate for attention? By high school we got the hang of hormones and most of us grew out of our awkwardness. We learned how to hold normal conversations. The main character of Snotgirl, Lottie Person, is twice the age of a middle schooler, but never grew out of those familiar 13-year-old insecurities.

She suffers from arrested development that is probably brought upon by living two mutually exclusive lives that are both substantially reclusive. In one life, she’s an uber-famous fashion blogger (she got 75,000 messages in one day), and in the other, she’s an extremely allergenic shut-in whose snot drips down her face any time a stiff breeze wafts pollen in front of her nose. Neither life provides much opportunity for normal human interaction, leading her to be shallow, neurotic, and overly dramatic. She views people as supporting cast members in her heavily edited life.

Lottie hates her friends and loves her online followers. Her friends seem to hate her too, so it’s only fair. Even with a crippling fear of social interaction, she decides to make new friends and agrees to hang out with a beautiful and outgoing woman that Lottie dubs “Coolgirl.” You see, Lottie is too awesome to refer to humans by their given names. She renames everyone to fit her narrative.

It may sound like Lottie is awful, and she is, but she’s also wickedly entertaining to follow around. Even though she has the most shallow reason for living a dual life, it’s still fun to read about someone dedicated to upholding the barrier between those lives.

Writer Bryan Lee O’Malley achieved a sterling reputation for developing socially uncomfortably characters with the Eisner Award-winning comedy masterpiece Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Snotgirl shares some of the same humor, but establishes a darker tone early on.

At first it might be surprising to see an O’Malley comic book that he didn’t illustrate, but Leslie Hung is just too perfect for this material. She draws with a cartoony confidence that Warner Brothers and Disney usually monopolize.  She flips seamlessly between Lottie the beautiful social butterfly and Lottie the miserable, rumpled, snot-faced recluse.

There isn’t much of a plot, so to speak. Thus far, we’re just following around a blogger. With stakes so low, it’s hard to get invested in the outcome. However, mundane events are energized by Lottie’s bizarre narration and other sequences are far from dull, even for fashion celebrities. Snotgirl is the kind of fun off-kilter comedy that too many writers try to bullseye, but miss the mark. This first issue achieves more entertainment than most opening acts and has the potential to get better.