Burnout

It is said that a book should not be judged by its cover. Such is the case of Burnout ($9.99), the latest entry from Minx, DC Comics’ imprint geared towards teenage girls. True, young Danni is on the cover with a finger above a lit match, and there’s a matchbook on fire above the title, but the book isn’t exclusively about fire . . . at least not that which burns outside.

Danni and mother Wynona move to the logging town of Elkridge, OR, moving in with Wynona’s boyfriend, Hank, and his sullen son, Haskell. Danni isn’t overly impressed with her soon-to-be-stepbrother until he starts to sneak out at night. Soon, she joins him in spiking trees in order to save the forests . . . but as her relationship with Haskell moves from revulsion to infatuation to romance, how far will Danni go with him?

Making her graphic novel debut, Rebecca Donner achieves well-portrayed characterization of Danni and Haskell, though she could have fleshed out Wynona and Hank a little more. Anybody who read This Boy’s Life or watched the film adaptation can recognize the dynamic. While there’s no physical abuse (Wynona does get a black eye, but it comes from an on-panel freak accident) and only one punch thrown (a miss at Haskell), the adults still come off as one-dimensional; particularly Hank, who endlessly bellyaches about the future of his lodge. On the other hand, Danni’s best friend Vivian gets too many character traits. In addition to being a would-be rock star, her skills in math allow her to chart probabilities of Danni’s chances with Haskell, whether the history teacher – whose lectures on revolutionary warfare neatly parallels the story – will gawk at her breasts, and how Haskell’s actions hurt the local logging industry. While only taking place for two pages, Vivian’s argument manages to give the unseen loggers a little more sympathy. However, with her friendship with Danni taking sharp turns, it feels like Vivian is a far more interesting character than the actual protagonist.

The artwork from Inaki Miranda is pretty good, with assistance from Eva de la Cruz on grey tones. The black-and-white format does work against the artists at the climatic scene, which would have been more vivid in color. However, the duo manages to create a convincing double-page spread, assisted by Donner writing in the colors, thus leaving the color of the scene to the reader’s imagination.

Burnout doesn’t preach, letting the reader determine whether Danni and Haskell are eco-activists or eco-terrorists. But with uneven characterization and a melancholy ending, Burnout doesn’t burn bright, yet it doesn’t burn out too quickly.

-Jason Borelli