Wet Moon Book 2: Unseen Feet

by Ross Campbell

I'm a little surprised by just how absorbed I found myself in the second volume of Campbell's bizarre punk college girl series.  I liked the first volume, and love Campbell's art, but found, with this volume, that I didn't want to put the book down, and stayed up way too late to finish it off (I only wish I had the next three volumes handy).

This book picks up right where the last one left off.  Cleo and her friends are working their way through their various minor dramas, and just generally getting by and living their college life.  Cleo becomes close to Myrtle, the girl she literally ran in to in the last book, although some questions are being raised as to the nature of their friendship.  Trilby gets closer to her boyfriend, roommates eat peoples' food, and so on.  In a lot of ways, this is New York Four set in the south, populated with chunky girls with ambivalent sexuality (except that it came first).

What makes this book so charming and beguiling is the strength of Campbell's characterizations and artwork.  He does such a good job of conveying Cleo and the others through their physicality and facial expressions, that it is obvious what they are thinking at different moments.  There are some truly bizarre choices made in this book, like when a random cat plays with its food in its bowl, for no apparent reason, but scenes like this only add to my enjoyment of the series.

I don't see this as the type of book to have a wide readership, but at the same time, I think it deserves a lot more attention than it has received.