Super Mutant Magic Academy

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cartoons
title Super Mutant Magic Academy
original title Super Mutant Magic Academy
country Canada
author Jillian Tamaki
publisher Drawn and Quarterly
first publication 2015
expenditure 1

SuperMutant Magic Academy is a Canadian comic book created by Jillian Tamaki . The comic strips, initially published as a webcomic , were first published by Drawn and Quarterly in 2015 and supplemented with exclusive material . The work has received numerous awards and has been translated. The German translation was published by Reprodukt in 2018 . In the magic academy, the boarders should learn to master their supernatural abilities. The focus of the story is Marsha and her best friend Wendy.

contents

In the eponymous academy, the young mutants or students should learn to master their supernatural and magical abilities. In addition to everyday school subjects, her timetable also includes “magic” and “riding a broom”. But despite their superpowers, the students are not spared from everyday problems and the hardships of boarding school life: the characters face personal crises, are paralyzed by listlessness, experiments in class go wrong or the students have to organize a bake sale. The main characters of the story are the reserved, grumpy and tomboyish Marsha and her best friend Wendy, who can transform into a fox. In particular, Marsha's secret love for the beautiful Wendy is the driving force behind the plot. Other regular students include Cheddar, an annoying and clumsy jock, Trixie the dinosaur girl, and the immortal Everlasting Boy. The teachers only play a minor role, among them the scathing and easily irritated Ms. Grimdorff. The parents of the students do not appear.

genesis and style

SuperMutant Magic Academy is based on Tamaki's recently completed contribution to the first book of Strange Tales II . Tamaki contributed the short story The After-Party . Through this short comic, the artist became aware that she was less interested in the concrete superpowers, their use and effects, and more in the normal "dumb" everyday life ("dumb daily life") of her characters with special powers. Building on this thought, the SuperMutant Magic Academy set and characters were created as a satirical nod to series like Harry Potter , Vampire Academy and X-Men , as well as teenage dramas like Here and Next Door . Accordingly, one can imagine Tamaki's parody as a kind of mixture of Hogwarts and Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters . In contrast to the heroic role models, the students never use their abilities to do good or even save the world, they only use them for trivialities and personal sensitivities.

According to Tamaki's intention, the superpowers of the students play a subordinate role, the stories focus on everyday problems such as personal crises, existential fears, mood swings or listlessness. In one strip, Wendy asks a girl named Belinda why she can skate so well. Belinda replies that her parents signed her up for roller skating lessons when she was three years old. For Wendy's praise ("You're incredible. Just beautiful!"), Belinda first thanks her, but then assures her that she's crying inside ("But I assure you, I'm crying inside."). In another story, one of the students is too lazy to get up from the sofa and get his wand. But he needs it to get nachos and guacamole .

An episode usually consists of six panels per page and works towards a final punch line, which is why the stories often end quite suddenly. As the comic progresses, the episodes become progressively longer, giving substance to the characters and content. The finale is a 40-page story that Tamaki wrote exclusively for the book release. The comic artist draws her stories in black and white and in a sketchy style. Tamaki opted for the reduced drawing style ("images that weren't super-pretty, full-color, beautiful things") because she wanted to make comics that weren't graphic novels ("trying to make comics that weren't graphic novels") and to focus on the lyrics and practice writing ("I just wanted to learn how to write, basically.") Some of the characters have physical features of animals, such as Trixie a dinosaur's head or Wendy's cat ears.

SuperMutant Magic Academy is Jillian Tamaki's most personal work to date (as of 2021), including her previously published autobiographical short stories. Numerous episodes were created as a direct result of the living conditions and everyday experiences of the comic artist ("a lot of them were made in direct result of what was going on in my life. It's obviously the most personal work I've done, even more so, probably, than the autobiographical short things").

publication

From 2010 to 2014, Tamaki published SuperMutant Magic Academy , initially in individual strips as a webcomic. In 2015 Drawn and Quarterly published the comics as an anthology (Montreal 2015, 276 pages, paperback, ISBN 978-1-77046-198-7 ), in 2018 the stories were published in the German translation by Jan Dinter at Reprodukt (Berlin 2019, 274 pages, softcover with flaps, ISBN 978-3-95640-167-1 ). The book release not only includes all episodes of the webcomic, but also exclusive strips and a 40-page story, concluding the content of SuperMutant Magic Academy . There are other translations into Danish, French and Russian.

reviews

For Barbara Buchholz in Der Tagesspiegel , Tamaki's SuperMutant Magic Academy , together with Ein Sommer am See and Grenzlos , spans a "wide arc of artistic creativity, both in terms of format and drawing style and themes".

Publishers Weekly describes Tamaki's drawing style as playful and casual . She repeatedly dares experiments and draws the readers into a world in which real feelings are the greatest danger ("playful and loose with her art, unafraid to be experimental as she draws us into a world where true feelings are the greatest danger" ). The book regularly reveals an almost painfully direct look at the insecurities and cruelties of teenagers, from which not even young people who can fly are immune (“the book becomes an often painfully blunt look at the insecurities and cruelties universal to teens – even flying teens ").

For Rachel Rooke at The Guardian , the lush anthology exudes an irresistible esprit thanks to its cheeky and biting humor ("[t]his pleasingly fat anthology [...] about teenagers with paranormal powers exudes an irresistible wit"). Most of the comic strips are funny and authentic, only a few are unconvincing and absolutely flat ("[t]he majority of its strips are sassy, ​​mordantly funny and feel true [...] [b]ut every so often, one will fall completely flat"). Compared to Skim and Ein Sommer am See , Tamaki draws more reduced and sketchily, but compensates for this with humor and esprit (" SuperMutant Magic Academy [...] is more sketchily drawn than either of those two, but what it lacks in visual loveliness it more than makes up for in wit"). Overall, the superpowers played more of a supporting role, with raging hormones at the center of the stories (“[i]n essence, this is a book about raging hormones […] that just happens to come with a little magic on the side”).

awards

In both 2012 and 2013, Jillian Tamaki received an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Online Comic for her webcomic SuperMutant Magic Academy . In the year of publication, the print edition was nominated in three categories - "Favorite Queer Character" for the character Marsha, "Favorite Graphic Novel / Book" and "Favorite Overall Comic" - at the Autostraddle Comic and Sequential Art Awards , but did not receive an award. The following year, the book publication was honored with an Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens.

In addition, the work received notable reading recommendations in the year of publication of the print edition, for example third place in the "10 Best Graphic Novels of 2015" on vulture.com , as the fourth of five titles in "Publishers Weekly Best Books" or the list "2015: Books of the Year” by Quill & Quire . According to Abraham Riesman at vulture.com , despite the entertaining format, Tamaki's "brilliant mind and pen of Jillian Tamaki" tells a richer and entertaining story about the tangles of adolescence, which unfolds through a mix of charming situations and surreal punch lines ("rhythm of charming setups and surreal punch lines aggregates into a lengthy, funny work about growth and confusion"). In Quill & Quire , Sue Carter describes the comic artist as a master of her craft: With minimalist strokes and sly humor ("sly humour"), she delivers her punchlines and at the same time addresses the emotions of the readers, while never sacrificing empathy for laughs ("master at evoking both emotions and punch lines with minimal pen strokes, never sacrificing empathy for laughs").

web links

itemizations

  1. ↑ Strange Tales II #1. In: comics.org . Retrieved November 14, 2021 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c Chris Randle: Interview - Jillian Tamaki: 'I need to spend less time in the minds of straight men'. In: theguardian.com . 24 April 2015, accessed 14 November 2021 (English).
  3. ↑ a b c SuperMutant Magic Academy. In: publishersweekly.com . 2015, accessed November 14, 2021 (English).
  4. ↑ a b c Abraham Riesman: The 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2015. In: vulture.com . December 16, 2015, accessed November 14, 2021 (English).
  5. ↑ a b Rachel Cooke: SuperMutant Magic Academy review – sassy and mordantly funny. In: theguardian.com . 26 April 2015, accessed 4 December 2021 (English).
  6. ↑ a b c d e Barbara Buchholz: Limitless - the world of Jillian Tamaki. In: tagesspiegel.de . September 29, 2018, retrieved March 28, 2021 .
  7. ↑ a b SuperMutant Magic Academy. In: publishersweekly.com . 6 April 2015, accessed 14 November 2021 (English).
  8. ↑ a b SuperMutant Magic Academy. In: drawnandquarterly.com . Retrieved November 13, 2021 (English).
  9. ↑ a b Jillian Tamaki: SuperMutant Magic Academy. In: mutantmagic.com. Retrieved March 13, 2021 (English).
  10. ↑ SuperMutant Magic Academy. In: reprodukt.com . Retrieved March 13, 2021 .
  11. ↑ SuperMutant Magic Academy > Editions. In: goodreads.com. Retrieved November 13, 2021 (English).
  12. ↑ SuperMutant Magic Academy (2010). In: queercomicsdatabase.com. Retrieved November 14, 2021 (English).
  13. ↑ a b Sue Carter, Steven W. Beatle: 2015: Books of the Year. In: quillandquire.com . 1 December 2015, retrieved 14 November 2021 .