Review: Fungirl (2022)
30 Comics in 30 Days
[Because I’m dumb and set unrealistic goals, I’m trying to review a new comic every day in November. This isn’t quite as ridiculous as it sounds; I’ve got a backlog of reading from October and September that I haven’t posted about yet. But it’ll still be a lot! So your unconditional love, praise and validation will be much appreciated.]
Day 1: Fungirl by Elizabeth Pich
Sometimes I feel the word "unhinged" is thrown around a bit too lightly. (Be honest: Is your favorite unhinged fictional girlie truly and completely deranged or just mildly anti-social?)
But if Fungirl is anything, she is completely, one-hundred percent off the rails.
Consider: Our protagonist works as an incompetent but enthusiastic mortician’s assistant. Which… fine, that isn’t itself a mark of derangement. But on her own initiative, Fungirl roofies her boss’s main competitor, stuffs him into a hotel bed with a teenager’s corpse, and frames him as a necrophiliac.
You go girl!
This is probably the book’s peak moment of unhingement, and it unfolds with a perfect cartoon logic that is genuinely funny. It’s the kind of grotesque humor that can only really work in comics and, in particular, it only lands because of Elizabeth Pich’s exaggerated slapstick style. (I honestly can’t picture this scene with more realistic drawings or — god forbid — in prose.)
Fungirl, the book, is crammed with nonstop jokes and physical comedy, often focused on sex. (Fungirl herself embodies an intensely chaotic bisexual energy.) But what takes the book beyond a series of gags is its genuine interest in character development and relationships. Fungirl rooms with her friend and former romantic partner Becky, while Becky’s overwhelmingly sweet and sexually insecure boyfriend Peter serves as their not-quite third roommate. While Fungirl’s antics might be funny (at least for the reader), she steadily becomes a source of friction in Peter and Becky’s relationship and comes close to ruining everything.
Fungirl isn’t a psychopath; she genuinely cares about her friends. Even her decision to destroy her boss’s business rival stems from a misguided sense of loyalty and affection for him. And it’s her empathy and her desire to be a good person that makes for small touching moments that are slipped in between child endangerment, mutilated corpses and dildo jokes.
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