Created by Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Noelle Stevenson & Brooke Allen
271 pages
Comics originally published 2014
Read February 17
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
One of my holiday presents from my partner R, this lovely hardback omnibus collects the first eight chapters of the Lumberjanes series, which I’ve wanted to read for years, plus an additional short: “A Girl and Her Raptor.” What could be more up my alley? It’s the perfect way to get out of this reading slump I’ve found myself in the last week or so.
Surprising no one, I love Lumberjanes. The characters (and their designs) are vibrant and endearing. The writing is quick-moving, the story unexpectedly moving, the setting instantly iconic. It’s as close in spirit to Gravity Falls as you can get while still being its own wholly distinct thing, with the added bonus of its scout camp vibe. Summer camp and eldritch adventures are two flavors that should get combined far more often.
I never got to experience anything like summer camp. I get the sense that the reality falls far short of its portrayal in pop culture, even without all the added dungeon crawls and strange mystical creatures you find here. But I’ve been jonesing to write summer camp stories — and really, anything that falls under the broader “kids on bikes” umbrella — for a while now. No doubt it’s an escapism thing, given how shit our actual timeline is. It’s also about reclaiming the childhood I never got to have. So it’s no wonder I love this book.
Plus: dinosaurs! Raptors and summer camp also pair exceptionally well. While the raptor interlude is brief, and certainly not a match for Lost Time, it packs in a lot of fun (and friendship bracelets). And honestly, having such a prominent comic book do a “dinosaurs in the summer camp” arc only encourages me to work on my own “summer camp among the dinosaurs” story (which is fully distinct from Camp Cretaceous, thank you very much).
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