Karine is a stretched-out rubber band of a girl with low self-esteem. How else to explain why she hangs out with the curvy “Bratz”-like girls, Jenny and Vicky, who do everything they can to make their “friend” miserable? Throw in Dan, the one boy in school who prefers Karine to any other girl, along with the always-helmeted John John and you have a recipe for mayhem and laughs that will appeal to tween and teen-age girls.

I don’t usually classify books as “Boy Books” and “Girl Books,” but, this one is definitely for the girls. Sorry guys. The Bellybuttons reads like a cross between Betty and Veronica and the manga Peach Girl--which features one of the meanest supporting characters ever.

Karine is sweet, gawky, gullible, and unsure of herself. In other words, a character most girls can relate to. Jenny and Vicky, however, are the girls we hate but secretly want to be like--confident, cute, and able to get away with being witchy.

The book’s format is very similar to that of collected comic strips like For Better or Worse. Each page or two pages is an individual story/gag, but each gag builds upon the previous one to create a continuing storyline within the volume.

Mostly, the characters just hang out--at the pool, the mall, the movies, Karine’s house--and try to catch a guy’s attention. Parents and siblings appear only once in a blue moon. And, as far as school goes, the girls are never actually in class. Writer Maryse Dubuc taps into the tween fantasy of what high school life is like to give readers a story that will resonate with them.

In general, Karine is a very put-upon character. Jenny and Vicky continually make her look like a fool and get her in trouble. However, Dubuc gives Karine a bit of a temper and every once in a while, she hits back--which allows readers to feel good about the ordinary girl and, in turn, have a bit of sympathy for Jenny and Vicky.

Marc Delafontaine’s drawing style is deceptively simple looking. It’s similar to Jeff Smith’s Bone style, but that’s not surprising since both artists have an animation background. The character design is all built on the flowing line of curves, unrestricted by realistic proportions. The fluidity of the drawings allows for a wide range of expression despite the simplified design.

Backgrounds aren’t overly rendered, but they are distinctive. Two pages in particular stand out as gorgeous.

The first shows the girls at the aquarium. In a series of five panels, the viewpoint follows Karine back and forth across the panels as she’s being followed by the fish she’s watching. The fish aren’t anatomically correct, but they are definitely a specific fish giving the panel a sense of reality. The final panel, which takes up the bottom third of the page, opens up to reveal the punch line in a beautifully rendered scene.

The second page of note is the last one. It’s just a picture of a neighborhood at night, but it’s lovely.

The Bellybuttons is the perfect book for girls who want something with more bite than Archie Comics, but who aren’t yet ready to take on the wonderful world of manga.

---

What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!

---