Review: Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong

*blows off dust*

Hi guys! It's a been too long since my last update (sorry about that.)

I just read a fantastic independent graphic novel today, and it seemed like a great time to get back into the swing of blogging!

Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong is a stand-alone graphic novel collaboration between Prudence Shen (as her first published work) and Faith Erin Hicks (whose art some of you may recognize from her popular online webcomics.) I couldn't find a good image of the cover online, so I snapped a photo for you at my desk of the paperback edition (complete with it's spot UV coating on the title!)

Nail polish color = China Glaze in Flying Dragon Neon, for anyone who wants to know.

Summary from the official website:

You wouldn’t expect Nate and Charlie to be friends. Charlie’s the laid-back captain of the basketball team, and Nate is the neurotic, scheming president of the robotics club. But they are friends, however unlikely — until Nate declares war on the cheerleaders, and the cheerleaders retaliate by making Charlie their figure-head in the ugliest class election campaign the school as ever seen. At stake? Student group funding that will either cover a robotics competition or new cheerleading uniforms — but not both.
Bad sportsmanship? Sure. Chainsaws? Why not! Nothing can possibly go wrong.

And guess what? The first part of the story is available here to read for free as a webcomic. So you really have no excuse not to check it out if my review intrigues you.


The official website states that this was originally conceived as a novel, and then later adapted for a graphic novel after Faith Erin Hicks' agent brought it to her attention. This was actually not a surprise to me at all, because I spent the entire time I was reading it marveling at how in-depth the constructions of the characters were, as if I had been reading a novel, rather than a comic book. Shen may be a first time published author, but she has such a masterful touch that you'd swear she was an old industry pro. There's a maturity and trustworthiness to her narrative, and she never falls back on crutches like captions or expositions to tell the story inside her character's heads for her. That Nate and Charlie feel so complex and fully realized is due not just to Shen's deep knowledge of her characters, but also her aptitude for showing, not telling, taking full advantage of the visuals available to her in the comic medium.

Many of the reviews I saw on amazon referred to the "manga-like" quality of Hicks' artwork, but I disagree. I don't see Hicks' as striving to imitate the hallmarks of the manga genre beyond the art being in black and white (and come, western comics, it's time we get over the notion that all comics need to be in color.) I found the originality of Hicks' style to be incredibly refreshing! Too many would be comic artists (myself included at one time) rely too heavily on the stylizations across manga genres art to make themselves feel comfortable without taking advantage of the freedoms that comics offers them. Hicks' never strikes me as an artist who falls back on any crutches (and if she does, it doesn't detract from the storytelling.) While her art is minimalist, it's decidedly western, there's a wonderfully clean expressiveness to Hicks' style that complements Shen's no-frills storytelling. In the books acknowledgements, Shen credits Hicks with "breathing laughter" into her characters, and I couldn't agree more.

And speaking again of the expressiveness of the characters: Hicks and Shen together pull of something I've almost never seen in comics:  there are entire panels in which we have nothing but character's facial expressions and posture to use as clues to determine what the characters are thinking, and somehow I feel as though I'm reading into them with as much ambiguity as there would be in a comparable real life scenario. Most artists, if they're telling a good story, are either cartoony enough that the social cues are things that will be familiar to the reader from elsewhere in the medium (for example, a Tex Avery style bug-eye followed by a tongue roll in response to the sight of a beautiful woman) OR they are so grounded in realism and literal narrative that there's no room left for interpretation (see: Salvador Larroca, Brian Bollands.) I'm not sure if Hicks and Shen strove to find this balance consciously or not, but it's damned impressive.

Hicks also does an excellent job of establishing important environmental details and cues. Nothing ever feels labored or formulaic- the tone and texture of the art shifts slightly from moment to moment, yet somehow remains consistent enough throughout that you doubt the tone of the visual narrative.

Almost anything else I could say about this book would spoiler it for you, so instead I'll just say: buy it!!! You won't be disappointed.