J&K by John Pham
John Pham‘s new graphic novel, J&K, could be seen to be a celebration of medium and process and form as much as a narrative; but Pham’s storytelling prowess makes it both. We follow central characters Jay and Kay (perhaps a reference to archetypal slacker movie names) as they sort of doss about, yet the quotidian is always gloriously surreal.
When Jay gets a large, bulbous spot on her back, for instance, it pops and becomes a new pal in the form of a gloomily grotesque little creature that she names Bacne. Little Bacne joins them at a party that night, thrown by their mate Eggy (naturally), and helps the pair to smuggle out a couple of taco rolls.
J&K by John Pham
The book is packed with sweet and hilarious references to pop culture—who else can the quiffed pop-star miserablist named Pomp à Dour (“the most dramatically miserable pop singer in all of France”), beloved by Eggy, be but Morrissey? This interaction with Eggy, just after he’s been pied off by the girl at the orange juice stall, tells us a hell of a lot: “His songs give comfort to the tragically sensitive, like me!” he says. “Why do hot chicks always reject me? I know we’re perfect for each other! We’re both the same kind of sad.”
Our protagonists’ meaningless meanderings make the whole book feel very much like the sort of teen-aimed 1980s films of sleepovers and hangover duvet days: no one really does a lot, other than interact with certain archetypes and subcultures. Here, there’s the pervy, mean dudes in the park who always seem to have some sort of dumb “say what you see” remark; and the cooler older kid “Glumpires”, who terrify Jay and Kay. In a typically John Hughes-like twist, we soon see the Glumpires sitting with their ghetto blaster, deflated that the pair “ran through us like we had the plague”. Turns out they don’t want to bully them at all—they just really “admire their style”.
Things continue along this sweetly mundane, teen melodrama route most of the way along the novel until the final third or so, when thing take a rather more abstract turn. We’re tugged out of the world in which we’ve become immersed, where things like Jay and Kay’s strange appearance and prediction for weird milkshake flavours and ability to create new life from pus-packed pimples seem totally normal.
