Not much there there. No opening quip. It is a slim graphic novel.
Kim, called "Skim" because she is not, is an Asian-Canadian (do they use those hyphenated terms in Canada?) high school girl and aspiring Wiccan. School is various shades of horrible and awkward with classes, classmates, and attempted romance. Why do the counselors start worrying about the outcasts when one of the popular kids commits suicide?
As a sketch of high school life, it is spot-on. Awkwardness abounds, in the things you cannot say and in the paralysis of transition. The fringes are a great place for perspective, even if everyone looks at you funny. Not that posturing at Wicca is less vapid than popular conformism, but that weakness of the unexamined life is sufficiently visible.
Skim is at its best in crossed-out and half-finished lines. They show the things that Kim is desperate to say or unwilling to admit to herself. It makes good use of the book's format.
The artwork is a weakness. Maybe we are all that ugly in high school, or maybe it is meant to be symbolic of how everything looks that way, but the faces are poorly drawn. They have strange shapes and knobs. It keeps the art from carrying much of the weight. The style for Kim's face settles about one-third of the way in (and looks good), and others are better towards the end. The backgrounds and non-human objects are good.
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