A very engaging, funny and combative collection of the Love Joolz strips. Love Joolz is not a regular autobio strip, it is more of a platform for Jules Rivera to punch things that she does not like in the face as hard as she can with sharp with and super art.
The first thing that Jules Rivera wants to punch in the face is any preconceptions that a reader may have about her as a female and as a Woman of Colour. As the collection makes plain, she has invested a great deal of blood, sweat and tears in herself and she has no interest in conforming to anyone’s stereotype. Which sound worthy and dull, possibly a well-worn path however personally significant to the artist.
Which is dramatically and utterly not the case, Jukes Rivera as Joolz, the fabulous Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl is funny, biting, opinionated and brilliantly engaging. Her response to the stupidly common slur about how women succeeds in any business is worth buying the book for, the rest of the content is a happy bonus.
There is an extended section about her appalling experiences working for Northrop Grummann which is rather dispiriting as I eternally hope that the petty malicious spitefulness that animates sexism and racism is waning rather than replicating itself like a virus. Jules Rivera is not recounting the experiences for pity or sympathy; she is doing so to show the difficulties she has overcome to become the woman she wants to be. It was still a needlessly cruel and hard road that no one should have had to travel.
I have zero interest in surfing, the strips about surfing are the most relaxed and simply enjoyable parts of the collection. Jules Rivera discovered surfing and clearly hugely enjoys it. Her pleasure and enjoyment come through in every strip. The struggles to get good enough to surge properly and the way that her engineering brain is engaged by the movement of the waves are eye of the hurricane in Love Joolz.
I should say that the collection includes a Christmas Sex Goat just because it does.
The pleasure of the book rather than reading the strip online is the commentary alongside the strips and between the sections. They give a context and reaction to the strips which is very welcome and adds greatly to the pleasure of reading this collection.
