Illustrated by Veronica Fish. This was great. It’s the grown-up version of Roller Girl. Two women go through roller derby training, and become good friends. They’re a bit disappointed when they get drafted onto different teams in the league, but still try to maintain their friendship and find time to skate together outside of derby. That becomes harder and harder as life gets complicated- one girl picks up the skills quickly and becomes a jammer on her team, the other learns at a slower pace. One struggles to balance derby practice and game time with her studies, the other gets a new boyfriend and is thrilled when he is supportive of her derby life. When their teams go against each other in a bout, what had been a subtle distance growing between them, becomes outright friction. Until the jammer gets hurt, and the other girl makes a supportive move that might get her kicked off her team.
Intense, fun, and wonderfully drawn. Unlike the previous roller derby graphic novel I read, this artwork felt so accurate- the body postures, the stance on eight wheels, even the gear (especially the gear- in the other book, sometimes it was non-existent, other times just one piece would be worn and super exaggerated -knee pads like boxes for example). The different kind of struggles that women go through to play roller derby, and why it’s all worth it. The team camaraderie and fierceness on the track. Sometimes the storyline kind of jumped ahead and I would be lost for a second what was going on, or things were only alluded to and I had to go back and read a few pages to get it, but I didn’t mind too much. Could be just me. It’s about banked-track derby, which had some differences to what I’d read about before. I’m eager for the next volume already.
Borrowed from the public library.
