Examining Privilege: Little Fish

Ramsey Beyer's account of her first year of college, Little Fish, is a sort of Bizzaro version of Phoebe Gloeckner's Diary Of A Teenage Girl. The latter book is a blend of text and comics that detail all of the horrible things that happen to Gloeckner's stand-in character, thanks to the presence of all sorts of predators in her life. Beyer's book starts off by talking about her comfortable, safe life in a Michigan small town and then proceeds to discuss her first year in a Baltimore art school. For the most part, she's able to find friends, do well in school and have fun with very little trauma. She's the little fish in the big pond in any number of ways as someone who's far more innocent than her peers, but she gets along well with pretty much everyone. The most traumatic thing that happens in the book occurs when a friend gets hit by a guitar at a punk show, and even that just winds up with him getting some stitches in an ER. Readers looking for drama, conflict or seismic character changes will be disappointed. Readers looking for tales of wild parties and young people making bad choices will also be disappointed, since Ramsey didn't drink or do drugs, and most of her friends didn't party much either. So, without any sort of conventional story hook, what makes Little Fish worth reading?

Unquestionably, the strength of the book likes in Beyer's authorial voice and the authenticity of her observations. Beyer was a compulsive list-maker and LiveJournal addict who documented her life thoroughly, and much of the book consists of her type-written lists detailing every imaginable thought and whim. Things she liked, sounds she hated, feelings she had, plus/minus lists, etc. The fact that she wrote them on an actual typewriter is a charming quirk that greatly adds to the handcrafted, zine quality of this book. Indeed, about half the book consists of those lists and hand-lettered transcriptions from her LiveJournal at the time, and the other half consists of comics riffing off those items that she drew especially for the book. In the galley that I read, this mix works nicely, but there was some repetitiveness. For example, she introduced what would turn out to be her initial batch of college friends and their interests, and then did it again a few pages later in comics form. At 267 pages, there is certainly a bit of flabbiness that's a result of repeating the same kind of thoughts several times, and I thought the book in general needed a nice, tight edit that chopped out about 15 pages. That said, her comics themselves were impeccably designed with her warm clear-line style. We'll see what the final result looks like when it's published this fall.

What I like best about the book is Beyer herself. She is an interesting study in contrasts. She's still very much a girl (as opposed to an adult) in some ways, down to her pigtail braids and glasses. At the same time, she thrived in her weed-out year at art school and found she did a much better job at time management and taking care of herself than many of her peers. She was comfortable in her tiny home town but was growing bored because she was never challenged, and consciously went to an art school in a city with a good punk scene. Even growing up, she constantly marveled at how good she had it. She wanted for nothing, traveled a lot and generally never had to worry about anything. Rather than feeling entitled as a result, Beyer felt grateful and even a little guilty if she ever felt unhappy or complained about anything. That's an attitude I found refreshing and unusual. In her diary, Beyer felt she was too trusting but also noted that she had trouble letting people in. She wanted a tight-knit group of friends but was still too scared to commit to anyone in terms of dating. Her painting teachers excoriated her for a lack of passion in her work. Her LiveJournal detailed her life and made her, in her words, "an open book", but it was obvious that she kept large portions of herself bottled up. What's interesting is that her self-awareness regarding this found her putting herself in situations where she would be challenged. Most people go through life reeling from life's challenges, but Beyer lived such a charmed existence that she had to seek them out for herself, pushing past her comfort zone time and again.

That even extended to her discomfort regarding dating, as she slowly fell into a relationship with a guy at her school and found her life enriched as a result. He introduced her to alt-comics, which she took on as her new challenge by the end of the book. Her friends challenged her politically and got her to think about things in a new way, especially regarding feminism. Beyer didn't so much radically transform as much as she simply had her consciousness raised a bit with regard to a lot of issues, simply needing the nudge that she received and wanted. Beyond her relentless self-examination, Little Fish is simply a wonderful document about the joys of being in a new place as a college freshman. It's about new starts, simple pleasures, rapid friendships created by being in a similar set of circumstances and the mix of stress and exhilaration that a challenging environment creates. Beyer captures all of those feelings in a unique, attractive format that will resonate with its young adult target audience.

The Quest: Year One

The format Ramsey Beyer chose for her diary comic, Year One, will be familiar to any fan of these sorts of comics. She lists Jeffrey Brown, Liz Prince, Ben Snakepit and others as influences, and one can see her mixing and matching their storytelling styles while in the process of developing her own. Her line is spare and cute, but not as cute as Prince's line. Indeed, the way Beyer draws teeth and open mouths adds a touch of the grotesque to the proceedings, echoing Joey Sayers a bit. What makes her a bit different from some of her autobio/diary comics-making peers is her thoughtfulness and self-reflection. Indeed, the entire project was a deliberate experiment not just to do a weekly autobio comic for a year, but to document her move to a new city (from Chicago to Philadelphia) and examine her feelings regarding the move. Beyer's ability to shift between whimsy, romance, art and the search for connections made this a unique snapshot for a person of a certain age running in certain cultural circles.

Romantic relationships are unsurprisingly a key aspect of this comic, but Beyer's approach is an interesting one. Like the best autobiographical cartoonists, Beyer gives the reader little in the way of background detail regarding her romances and friendships, providing the reader only with information in the moment. Diary comics are about life as it's lived, not one's winding backstory. In the course of the story, we learn that Beyer is seriously dating a couple of different guys long-distance in an open and straightforward fashion. This takes the "drama" out of her romantic life in narrative terms but adds a layer of something that's far more interesting, given the hurdles one must leap when trying to negotiate emotional terms with more than one lover. Beyer admits to being unsure about the concept of marriage but is refreshingly open to any and all ideas and freely admits to being uncertain about her future beyond her twenties.

Most of the comic is about the perilous balance between the naturally antisocial life of a cartoonist and a woman who left Chicago because of her inability to create many meaningful connections. Moving to Philly in part was a way of testing herself to find a way to reach out to others. Those connections are important not just because of her desire to reach out to others, but to actively participate in punk/DIY culture. One can really see the Ben Snakepit influence at work here, because his comics are as much a chronicle of his life in the punk community as it is about his own unusual living situation. For Beyer, going to zine & punk shows is part of her total ethos and aesthetics as a human being, both as participant (for the former) and spectator (for the latter). Beyer balances these weightier matters with "dialogues" she holds with her dog, which serve the purpose of adding a little comic relief while allowing her to put her own thought process in the spotlight.

Beyer is working more in the mold of Brown in the sense that she's not looking to be funny or add punchlines to each of her weekly vignettes. She mercifully dials down the cutesy factor when talking about the men in her life. She's matter-of-fact about her beliefs in interests without being dogmatic about any of them. Working in real time meant that she got noticeably better as the book goes on, making her line thinner but more confident and her figurework more convincing. I often speak of artists needing to get better in public; Year One was Ramsey Beyer's way of trying to get better both as an artist and as an individual. I hope she continues to explore form and formats as she continues her cartooning career.