It’s almost always a reason to take notice whenever a new book from Nobrow Press’s 17×23 line comes out. A “graphic short story project” made to help younger cartoonists “tell their stories in a manageable and economic format,” these books have been marvels of design and have produced some sublime pieces of work, like Jen Lee’s “Vacancy”, Bianca Bagnarelli’s “Fish”, and Robert Hunter’s “The New Ghost”. Now, “Mean Girls Club” by Ryan Heshka joins the line, and it’s expressive presence and strong design aesthetic totally fit well within the Nobrow world.
Written and Illustrated by Ryan Heshka
Introducing: Pinky, Sweets, Blackie, McQualude, Wendy, and Wanda. Together they form the Mean Girl Girls Club, a menacing powerhouse of ruthless rebels. Like a cruel pink and black plague, these subversive sirens seek out the innocent and the weak, feeding on pure fear. Intoxication… vice… adrenaline… Witness a meeting of the Mean Girls Club, but don’t make any plans afterward. You won’t be alive to tell about it!
We are gathered here today to the witness the events of the 113th Secret Meeting of the Mean Girls Club! Pinky presides as Wendy, Blackie, McQualude, and Wanda pay tribute to the spirits of their founders, who “paved the road to the Mean Girls Club with human wreckage.” Our guide, Ryan Heshka sez, “Few eyes have ever witnessed a secret Mean Girls Club gathering…and fewer have lived to see another day.” And it’s obvious to see why! What with all the snake worship, pill buffets, fish slap fights, and ceremonial insect venom transfusions, these women are not fucking around.
Their retro design is offset by their punk attitude. The 50s vibe and style clashes with the brutal violence and mayhem the Mean Girls Club inflict on their small town. You think you know how women are supposed to behave? You think they’re all about meeting up together and taking a trip to the movies, picking up some sultry lingerie, with maybe a detour to the hospital if one of them gets ill? Yeah, okay, the Mean Girls Club does all that, but they wreak havoc, leaving nothing but chaos behind them. Survivors might be taken prisoner, put on display, where their tears make the ice for the Mean Girls Club’s drinks.
All the members of the Mean Girls Club stay hella classy even as they’re destroying everything.
Ryan Heshka presents us with this pounding and pulsating world. He doesn’t offer a plot because that presumes the Mean Girls Club have some sort of plan in place. That they’re not just winging it. That they’re not just adjusting to the situation as they see fit. His story, his view into the 113th Secret Meeting of the Mean Girls Club, plays more like he’s documenting a hurricane rather than trying to fit these characters into a traditional narrative. The Mean Girls Club thumb their noses at tradition anyway.
The pinks and blacks? They explode! The compositions and blocking? They’re engrossing! The clean lines betray the pandemonium they frame. We might be off-put by what Ryan Heshka is showing us, but it’s so goddamned cool we don’t want to look away. We want to immerse ourselves in it even more. He even manages to find a moment of great empathy, toward the end with McQualude and a wounded bunny rabbit. Did you think there was anything empathetic about the Mean Girls Club? Well, Heshka found it anyway.
No one was sure what we were getting in for with “Mean Girls Club”, and after it’s said and done, no one’s certain they know what they got. Ryan Heshka’s world is cool, marvelous to behold; completely immersive and engrossing. The design is on point. Despite all the ruckus and the rumpus, the unsettling and somewhat gratuitous actions we witness, we still want to come back for the 114th Secret Meeting of the Mean Girls Club.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – an unforgettable meeting for sure.
