Sunday Comics: Pepper Penwell

Pepper Penwell and the Land Creature of Monster Lake, by Steph Cherrywell

Format: Graphic Novel

Content Rating: PG, mostly for the bits of inneuendo native to Cherrywell's work.

Plot: A brilliant teen detective, Pepper Penwell has been cracking cases both mundane and extraordinary since she was but a child. But when what seems like a fairly routine missing-person case leads her to the town of Monster Lake, she finds far more than she bargained for. Between the legend of the namesake monster being more than it seems, the mysterious tribe in the nearby woods, a mad scientist, and an all-too-shifty head of the chamber of commerce, Monster Lake is about to become a very messed-up place...and Pepper, along with the missing person she seeks, is about to find herself at the center of it all.

Thoughts: Though Widgey Q. Butterfluff was her first published comics work, it was a series of vignettes rather than a single continuous story, and thus Pepper Penwell represents her first "graphic novel" work, in a purer sense of the term. And while Widgey was by no means bad, improvement is definitely evident in Pepper. It feels like an evolution of Cherrywell's art, writing, and style. It feels tighter than Widgey, with a bit better pacing to the writing and the comedy hitting a more consistent stride (though it is also slightly less of an overtly comedic work than Widgey). Also like its predecessor, it's a parody work--this time of young-adult detective novel series (such as Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, et al) and like what came before it, does this excellently, with a well-honed sense of snark that still has lingering tinges of affection. Pepper's various deductions strike a good line between crazy Adam West Batman-logic and actual logic and evidence, and the answer to the mystery is thankfully still a bit complicated--there wasn't a single perpetrator, I'll say that much. And will say no more. I don't want to spoil anything. The story has definite structure, too--characters that are introduced once continue to stay in the loop, places are revisited, and I never felt lost. It's exciting to see Cherrywell's skills grow as she continues to shimmy deeper into the published world, and I look forward to further work. At present, Pepper Penwell would probably serve as my introduction to Cherrywell if I wanted to get someone into her larger body of work.

[Holden Out.]