Skim by Mariko Tamaki & Jillian Tamaki
Kiss Machine: 2006
Kim Takota, or "Skim" as she's known at school is a teen-goth with an interest in wicca. She's angry, she's depressed, she thinks she's fat. This is no run of the mill teen "issues" story, however.
Skim was put out by Kiss Machine, a magazine of arts, culture and politics edited by Emily Pohl-Weary. The art is dreamy and wind
swept, not overly stylised but suggesting rather that Skim's world is happening around her, but she is not quite engaged in it.
Skim is cynical. She goes along to a meeting of witches with her best friend's older sister hoping to find some like minded people, only to
be weirded out by the burned out hippie-esque nature of what turns out to be more of an AA meeting than a black mass. She knows she's
different, and like all teen girls in coming of age comix, she's growing apart from her best friend. It's at this confused and dark
point in her life that her unconventional female English teacher surfaces in her conciousness. The teacher is interested in Skim and the
two start hanging out at lunch time. While the jocks and the cool girls are having their crises, her parents have their passive aggressive
arguments, and her best friend grumpily puts her down for being weird, Kim and the English teacher start exploring their unconventional
relationship...
MS 15/09/06