SUPERPUNK- Advanced Review
- Ben Crane
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Title: Superpunk
Written by: Mirtes Santana
Illustrated by: Guilherme Petreca
Publisher: Oni Press
Where to Buy: Simon and Schuster or your local comic shop and where books are sold.
Price: $14.99
Reviewed by Ben Crane
Superpunk explodes out of the gate with a series of full-page splashes dripping with bright chunky design of irregular starburst spraypainted on cracked cement that introduce Violeta—thirteen years old, superhero, and punk. After finding her grandfather’s cassette tape on her 13th birthday Violeta got superpowers to fight the strange events and monsters that plague her city of Hollow Hill along with her sidekick Alan the Great.
Superpunk isn’t interested in boring things like origin stories, though. It dispatches with this background nearly as quickly as I have here, using Alan’s podcast as an in-world device to get readers immediately up to speed before launching into a fight between Violeta and a tornado-earthquake-flood-sinkhole-monster wreaking order in the city: folding laundry, sorting parked cars by color, and replacing peoples’ clothes with gender-normative outfits from the “good old days.”
Superpunk isn’t interested in boring things like origin stories, though. It dispatches with this background nearly as quickly as I have here, using Alan’s podcast as an in-world device to get readers immediately up to speed
Set-piece opening out of the way, the main drama of the book begins, as Violeta and Alan’s school is invaded by a discipline demon who turns everyone into perfectly identical little straight-laced conformists. Their struggle for individuality is complicated by the appearance in school of a new girl, Gigi, who Violeta suspects of being a vampire and with whom she might have some history.
Any kid who has ever felt like adults just don’t understand what they’re going through and like they’re being trapped and crushed in a world that doesn’t care for them at all (which is to say, any kid at all) will see themselves in these pages. And the punk on offer here is the affirming philosophy of the most recent Superman film. This is a punk rock that finds beauty in the things that make us each unique and encourages a kind, thoughtful open-mindedness.
Like the best punk rock albums, Superpunk is a frenetic, relentlessly paced book, driven by effortless style and the vibrating anger of youthful expression that refuses to be bound up. It drives ceaselessly forward, from one vibrantly designed page to the next. Guilherme Petreca’s art and layout deserve special attention and praise for maintaining this exciting, playful energy without ever growing tired.
Like the best punk rock albums, Superpunk is a frenetic, relentlessly paced book, driven by effortless style and the vibrating anger of youthful expression that refuses to be bound up.
However, the frantic pacing can grow confusing at times. The narrative uses momentum to carry it past some major leaps that don’t quite hang together. The in media res framing and rushed delivery of backstory led me more than once to think that this was a later book in a series and I was only reading recaps of previous volumes. Alan at one point criticizes punk music for having no tune and incomprehensible lyrics, and that applies to Superpunk as well more often than not. There’s a lot of noise and flash and sound happening, but the book can frequently be more vibes than substance. I’m sympathetic to the argument that that is punk rock, but that also feels a bit too easy and self-forgiving.
I don’t want that criticism to be taken as disqualifying. I enjoyed Superpunk immensely. This is a delight of a book with an energy and an attitude that will immediately endear it to the kids it’s speaking to. It is a brilliantly stylish and affirming reminder that the counter-culture is a home for anyone and everyone willing to fight for the idea that people should be free to like the things they like, that the imperfection of art made by human hands is what makes it beautiful, and that we are stronger when we support and uplift people to be their best and truest selves. We need punk rock skateboarders. We need overenthusiastic podcasters. And we even need whose idea of a good time is cleaning up a messy school.
