I was in Million Year Picnic the other day, just killing time, and I found a copy of this in the indie racks. "ooh," I thought, "another Slave Labour goth magnet." It had been a while since I read any new issues of Squee or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, so I figured why not. While Gloom Cookie bears a certain similarity to label mates like JTHM or Lenore, at its core it is its own creature. Where Jhonen Vasquez and Roman Dirge tend to cover morbid subject matter that appeals to goths, they also try to shun any sort of overt connection with the subculture; and in the few times that Jhonen has included goths in his comics, such as the Anne Gwish one-shots, he does so with burnt-out contempt. By contrast, Gloom Cookie creators, Serena Valentino and Ted Naifeh, unabashedly wallow in the gothic subculture and treats it in an honest manner, like a familiar friend. If Jhonen is the bitter ex-scenester, forever denying his connection with goths while sticking his tongue out at them, Serena and Ted are the old-school gossip hounds, telling you a story with their tongues perpetually in their cheeks.
This isn't to say that their perspective is entirely positive either. They fully acknowledge the shallowness and cruelty that pervades the scene, but instead of focusing on it, they leave it in the background. In the foreground is the bittersweet love story of a girl and a boy, 'Lex and Max. Lex loves Max, and Max wishes she didn't because he loves someone else who doesn't know that he exists. The characters are vulnerable bordering on pathetic, and it brings a nice human tone to the story. The title does get a little too sentimental for its own good, and the Dangerous Liaisions story arc that is kicked off in this debut hardly seems innovative, but I'm still interested in seeing how it plays out.
Overall, this is a good debut for a pair of emerging artists. The art is well-done, and Naifeh should get kudos for dressing his characters up in more than just basic black. Gloom Cookie is a treat just to see the variety of outfits that its characters go through. At first, I was looking to get this title to tide me over until the Devi one-shot is released, but I think that if the quality is kept up or improves, this can give Devi a run for its money. As you might expect, as this title does drench itself in the goth subculture; those who find said subculture tediously shallow best look elsewhere.
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