The Copybook Tales

J. TORRES/TIM LEVINS/JEFF WASSON/SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS

       This comic is a sheer delight, especially if you’re an ‘80s baby like myself.  Twentysomething Jamie yearns to be a comic book creator in the 90s, and he has an idea to base a book around his teen experiences in the ‘80s.  Every imaginable ‘80s in-joke you can imagine in comics, dress, music, fads, you name it, are all given their just desserts (lovingly so) in THE COPYBOOK TALES.  But that’s only the surface fun of this indie gem.

     Torres and Levins, through Jamie’s reminiscing via his teen journals, tell a sweet and charming, funny (often hilarious actually), and poignant story of a young man struggling to pursue a dream in a world that often cuts such pursuits short with a “desk job” and a “mortgage, minivan, and 2.5 kids who need braces.” 

     What’s especially a treat when reading THE COPYBOOK TALES (especially if you grew up in the ‘80s) is that you get two stories in one.  We can feel all the nostalgia and confusion, carefree fun and pain of the teenage years with Jamie as he relives the past in order to try to understand where he’s going in the present.  Coming of age in the ‘90s, he comes to that fork in the road we all face:  take the “safe route” that entails minimal risk but little challenge and exhilaration, or risk all and follow the path to a dream that may or may not be realized.

     THE COPYBOOK TALES reminds us that we take high school with us, and that many of the most valuable lessons it teaches are those we realize years later, when we re (hopefully) older and wiser.  This is no better emphasized than in the classic issue 5, in which Jamie is reintroduced to the ugly duckling he spurned from his teen years who has blossomed into a mature beauty.  If you want to give this series a try, this is the issue to read.

     THE COPYBOOK TALES is on hiatus, perhaps permanently so.  The six issues from Slave Labor Graphics have been collected, and the tradepaperback can be ordered from WildPig.