Comic review: Wynter #1- The Girl with the Punky Haircut

Writer: Guy Hasson
Artist: Aron Elekes
Publisher: New Worlds Comics
Released: 26th February 2014
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Wynter #1 immediately reminded me of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, but in place of a disaffected male protagonist there is a pierced, leather jacket wearing punky young girl. The girl (Wynter) feels very familiar to me. She’s one of those girls that you want to meet, but outside of fiction they seem to be a bit thin on the ground, at least in my own personal experience.

Our protagonist, Liz Wynter.

Physically, at least, Wynter is pretty much identical to the Lisbeth Salander character in Stieg Larrson’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.’ She’s young, has a crazy haircut, is full of attitude, pierced, leathered up, and a bit of a male fantasy figure. She’s basically Lara Croft with face piercings.

It would be great if these rebellious girls actually existed, but in 41 years of life I’ve yet to meet one of them. I have however met lots of girls who are interested in money, status, television and empty consumerism. I guess that’s the appeal of these fantasy girls? Men want girls with a sense of rebellion about them, but as they don’t appear to exist in any great numbers in the real world then they have to find them in their fictional material instead? What do you think? Do I have a point here, or perhaps I just need to get out more?

I also get the feeling that these rebellious (fictional) girls do a disservice to real life rebels, as they make rebellion appear to be about a youthful longing for individuality and identity, when rebellion isn’t really about that at all. Rebellion is not about youth, it’s about pointing out what is wrong with the world and then doing something to change it. It’s not about looking ‘cool,’ it’s not about fashion, it’s not about nose piercings. It’s about understanding that the current neo-liberal political consensus in the west is completely corrupt and that if we care at all about the human race then we better do something to change it.

Having said all of that, there are a few things in this book that DO resonate strongly with what is going on in the world today. It deals with the horrifying consequences of collectivism merged with technology, and presents a future where the entire human race is imprisoned within a hive mind high tech Police surveillance system. Protest is not possible, because individualism is not possible. The book is essentially looking at a communist collective and asking how protest within the collective is even possible if everybody is the same.

The book has some good gimmick ideas as well, especially when it comes to the futures of apps, and how they will inevitably be used to control, rather than free the human race. I like their story-line idea that corporate/state surveillance technology can be used by hackers as well, as that is exactly what is happening now, with groups like Anonymous fighting back against the government/corporate slave masters. The book also mentions forced pharmaceutical drugging of populations in order to pacify rebellion, and it has a moment of law breaking activity where the cops are using DNA behavioural models to correctly identify how to arrest anybody daring to break from the societal norms. That is good sci-fi, dystopic material. It’s well thought out, and very well used within the narrative structure of this comic book.

I know I said a lot of negative things about the main character, but she is very well written. The book develops her naturally as a flesh and blood human being, exploring her sense of wanting to become an individual in a society of clones. The narrative, as I envision it, is going to follow her as she develops spiritually and morally as a person, eventually culminating in a crystallising moment where she will stop being driven by selfish egoism and begin to care about what is happening around her, not just what is happening to her. The girl is on a journey, and that is exactly how you should be writing fully formed characters in any work of fiction.

One thing I didn’t like about the book, and I have to mention this because it’s very important, was how the rebellious protagonist’s father was portrayed within the narrative. He was a cowardly, grovelling useless lump who wanted his daughter to comply with authority, and that’s not the role that a good father should be taken in a contemporary narrative that is in touch with what is happening in the world today. There is a political agenda at work right now with the neo-liberal controllers trying to get rid of father’s in the lives of their children. This is because a strong father is a threat to the state. A strong father figure in a child’s life is essential, as without one they are easy prey to the state and all of their control systems. The vital role of father’s in the lives of their children needs to be reinforced in contemporary anti new-world order narratives, and that was not the case here in this comic book.

I liked the artwork, even though at times it felt a bit too dark, a bit too confusing and not as easy to follow as I would have liked. It was stylised, made to look ‘cool,’ and it looked and felt like a comic book that I would have read in the late 1990’s. Together with the look of the main protagonist that did give the book a somewhat dated feel that was a bit odd, especially when the characters were talking about apps and other things that have only existed in the past few years. That’s not a big criticism though. It’s just the feeling I had when reading the book, that it has a LOT of things in it, that it’s taking ideas from the past, but putting in apps, italk and hacker references to make it seem more original than it actually is.

So, was it a fun read? It was okay. I get a bit fed up of the ubiquitous punky female protagonists, so that wasn’t doing it for me, but the story was clever, it reminded me of Brave New World and even though I wasn’t a fan of the protagonist she was very well written, and future issues of the comic should offer a lot of scope for her character to mature and develop into a fully rounded adult, rather than just another teen who wants to be special.

It could be my age that’s holding me back from really enjoying the book, because if you take away all of the background dystopic future stuff the heart of the story is about a teenager trying to find her individual identity in a conformist world. I can empathise with that, but as a forty-one year old man I don’t really want to read about teenagers anymore. I’d recommend the book for teens and young adults, as it’s a much better version of the irrelevant stuff they get in Marvel and DC, and it might just get them to think about bigger issues like state surveillance, and the dangers of collectivism as well.

Wynter #1 is a good book, it looks very cool, and it has a bucket load of good ideas in it, but for me personally it’s another one of those teens finding themselves books. I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if it had a boring middle-aged protagonist, somebody like the Bernard Marx character in Brave New World, or Neo in The Matrix would have worked better for me. I can see how the book would appeal to a young comic book reading male, but I’m not that bloke any more. The twenty year old version of myself would have loved it, but the older me, whilst recognising the book’s qualities, has to admit that it’s probably just a bit too young for him.

Rating: 7/10 (I would have loved it in the 90’s)