A review by 600bars
Brat by Michael DeForge

4.0

My house is like a michael deforge fan club and my roommate andy brought this home from the library. It's about a famous juvenile delinquent in a world where juvenile delinquents are revered as celebrity performance artists. She is no longer a juvenile and has to work at being a delinquent, because all her actions are praised so it's pretty difficult to stay subversive without getting stale. I thought about peaking young and how you transition out of being revered for your youth. Child stars have this problem, and I've also been thinking about this while watching Olympic gymnastics. It's so wild how they are achieving their "life goals" at age 18 and that Simone Biles is basically geriatric for being 24. That must really mess with your head.

If your whole schtick as a public figure is being rebellious and subversive and out there you either must die tragically young or transition into something else, which some people have done successfully but many end up with the interpersonal and substance abuse problems of our protagonist. As always I love Michael Deforges drawings so much