I think I first saw an ad for this in Shelf Awareness, a book industry newsletter. The artwork is really eye-catching and appealing, especially combined with the title. How can you not be drawn to something called Zita the Spacegirl?
There aren’t enough spacegirls, if you ask me.
Since the first thing I did when I went to read it was stare at the cover a little while, I’ll start with that. Zita appeals to me because she looks like a kid. It could easily be a boy in that outfit, except that it has a little skirt-like flare to it that most boys probably wouldn’t wear. She doesn’t look older or more feminine than a girl that age should look. Not that I’m entirely sure of her age, but I’m guessing somewhere between 7 and 10.
The art appealed to me throughout. I think it’s the combination of bright colors (the whole book is in color, score!) and fun characters yet within a realistic sort of style. You know how in some manga the character reactions are unrealistic? People facevaulting onto the floor, sweatdropping left and right, and going SD for no reason. Unless and until you’re used to that, it’s kind of annoying and distracting. There’s none of that in here. All of Zita’s expressions convey her emotions, very well I might add, and not in an over-the-top way.
Oh! So the basic story is that Zita and her friend come across a crater left by a ‘meteoroid’, which misnaming I can forgive because it’s in the mouths of the characters and they’re kids. They discover a mysterious red button in there. And naturally Zita pushes it! Her friend, Joseph, disappears through a portal that opens up.
And the next bit is like the best bit of the book, I think. We get several pages of no dialogue. The author/artist, Ben Hatke, also resists the urge for Zita to have an internal (or external) monologue. We have no idea what she’s thinking. Except that we totally do. Just by looking at the panels. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you draw/write a graphic novel.
As you might guess, she goes to rescue Joseph. And she finds herself in this weird place, probably another planet, surrounded by weird creatures, probably aliens. Only there’s a meteor coming. Utoh. So she needs to find Joseph and get home, before the whole planet is destroyed.
Along the way she meets people/creatures/robots and makes friends. Some of them are quite unlikely friends, especially at first. A giant mouse, maybe. A killer robot? Ummm..
For a bonus, one of the characters is reminiscent of, or perhaps meant to be, the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Who I’m rather drawn to.
To not give away the whole story, I’ll go back to talking about what we can see, rather than what we read. There are a lot of different creatures, so that it’s fascinating to look at all of them. Some of them look familiar. Some in a vague way, where you’re not quite sure if you’ve seen them somewhere before or not. Others that you could say ‘That’s Star Wars’ or ‘That’s Fraggle Rock’. But still, never exactly the same as from there. Just that they seem to have been used as inspiration, and that they’re there as inside jokes.
If it still needs to be said, I quite liked Zita the Spacegirl. Even her outfit with the sashlike Z on it. Maybe I’m just a sucker for Zs (for the same reason I like the names Diego and Alejandro). The story rings true as a girl’s story. By that I mean that she gathers friends along the way to help her, rather than bullying through it alone.
You know, I have not a single negative thing to say about this book. Even the 11$ pricetag seems reasonable for a full color graphic novel of this size. I’d be quite happy to recommend this to a kid, of any gender, and I look forward to reading and viewing more adventures of Zita the Spacegirl.
I feel like I should close this with a tagline. But I don’t know that Zita has a tagline. There, there’s my negative thing. She needs a tagline.
I see we had much the same reaction. I really really did like this book a lot. The artwork is exactly the style that appeals to me, and the storytelling was great.
I see the meteoroid jumped out at both of us too. I was going to call him out about Orion, Cassiopeia, and the Big Dipper being able to be seen anywhere on Earth. But it turns out that’s mostly correct. More correct than I thought it was.
Yay, it wasn’t just me with the Fraggle Rock bit! I also loved that nonverbal part of the story you mentioned; actually, I think all three of us singled that out for praise, in one way or another.
Yea, the ‘dozers’ were probably the first thing I noticed as really obviously from somewhere. But then you start looking and find other things.
And yes, Hatke had gone quite far to winning me over already in that section without words. Soooo many comics writers would’ve felt the obsessive need to put words in there.
If you like nonverbal storytelling with smart, likeable little girl protagonists, you should check out Yotsuba&!. It’s a slice-of-life manga wherein this clever, imaginative kid encounters and enthuses over all sorts of things.