Friendship to the Max.

I read this yesterday when I was in a truly abysmal mood (all of my stress is currently camping out on my right shoulder, like, roasting marshmallows and felling trees and shit) and it made me laugh so hard. I was immediately charmed by the girls, the style of the art, and the can-do weirdness it has on display. With as much as I enjoyed it as an adult, I’m sure this thing will kill with its target audience.

(I’m going to start saying “What the junk?” all the time now.)

Lumberjanes are sort of like Girl Scouts, except way more awesome (I was a Girl Scout for twelve years, so I feel like you should trust me on that one). Jo, April, Mal, Molly and Ripley are Lumberjanes staying at Miss Qiunzilla Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp For Girls Hard-core Lady-types. But this isn’t your regulation summer camp. We open on the girls, having snuck out of their cabin in the middle of the night to follow a “bear woman,” fighting a pack of three-eyed foxes who then tell them to “beware the kitten holy,” and what does THAT mean?? The girls are more concerned with getting in trouble for breaking seven, no eight, camp rules on their midnight trek. All the weird stuff that happens is just something else to be explored.

Weird stuff keeps happening to them, and they meet it all with superb humor and bravery and if not fearlessness, then definitely with style.

I don’t want to say this comic has girl power. It’s more like it exists post-girl power, where it’s just a given that young ladies of all types and persuasions live and get along together, solving mysteries and encountering scary creatures and giving each other CPR when one of them almost drowns after their canoeing expedition is ruined by a sea monster living in the river. You know, stuff like that.

So while this comic is all about “Friendship to the max!” I believe I am also detecting a hint of romance between two adorable characters, and I already love everybody. Can’t wait to read volumes two and three, which I already have waiting for me at home.