eBook White Like She ePub

I bought this little slice of experimental comics with few expectations. I'd heard about it, and I have had good experiences with independent comics before, so I thought I would give it a look. I cannot recommend wasting time or money on this book.

Fingerman's art is at least consistent, and at times even evocative, but it isn't enough to salvage the project, which is dragged down by writing so preachy, so self-conscious and self-referential that I found myself wondering what kind of audience Fingerman had in mind when he put this together. Let me see if I can be more specific...

The basic premise is simple. In a surreal world, an African-American man is the victim of an industrial accident that might have been prevented if not for the greed and stupidity of corporate villains. His body all but destroyed, he seeks help from a lunatic doctor, only to find himself arriving at the doctor's lab at the same time as a young white woman -- a political radical bent on killing the same doctor. A heavily-contrived set of circumstances results in the black man's brain being transplanted into the young white woman's body.

Now, if you're someone who believes it's tough to get along in America as an African-American man, and that it's also tough to get along in America as a young white woman, then GOSH, wait until you see how tough it is to get along in America as an African-American man in the body of a young white woman. Or...not. See, the book doesn't really want to explore anything outside of the timeworn cliches of identity politics. In fact, I've seen Mel Brooks movies with more subtle satire than this.

Reading this book, I got the strong feeling that Fingerman set out to write the kind of rantish political piece that might issue forth from a particularly naive sixteen-year-old who had just been introduced to politics for the first time. But somewhere along the line, he just gave up.

The book seems to engage not in a satire of society so much as a parody of the very possibility of addressing social concerns in a comic -- or at all. Cliche corruption is everywhere, and the only characters who seem to care are also in love with their own shallow, narcissistic voices. In short, any message this book might offer is quickly swallowed up in the same old art-school postmodern self-reflection.

This is most evident in the agonizing dialogue (though in most instances, "monologue" would be a better word). Everyone makes speeches in this book, even people who have no audience but themselves. The book begins with the main character (Luther) telling himself his own life story in the worst tradition of hack exposition. We then get a glimpse into the mind and life of Louella, our other protagonist, whose thinking-out-loud establishes her quickly and cheaply as a rather violent radical from a seriously (and ludicrously) dysfunctional middle-class family.

But even when the characters aren't climbing up on a mental soapbox to testify, the dialogue is terrible. Perhaps Fingerman thought it would be clever or ironic to adorn the book with writing too godawful for a Golden-Age crime comic, but I just found it insulting and juvenile. I'll just cite a few quick examples from a single scene, and you can judge for yourself.

During the scene in Dr. Flounder's brain-transplant lab, an exchange of gunfire takes place that sets the real story (such as it is) in motion. Louella tries to kill Dr. Flounder, shouting, "Eat leaden death, capitalist gore-monger." She misses, hitting Luther. Flounder returns fire, wounding Louella, who then returns fire, saying, "I didn't come here to die... I came here to kill you! So, here...have some death!" This is bad enough, but as Luther realizes he is dying, he regales us with "I can't believe it. What did I do to deserve this? Not pay enough taxes? That warrants this? I wish I believed in god, so I could blame him." Yeah, that's about what you can expect throughout the whole book.

If your response to social problems is to reduce everything to a cliche and then turn it into the stalest, most obvious joke you can think of, then this book is for you. But if that doesn't sound like your style, I suggest you give this one a miss.

This review is of the 20th Anniversary edition of Bob Fingerman's White Like She, published by Image Comics. After a mishap at a nuclear plant, the body of a black janitor, Luther Joyce, is flushed away to cover up his death. He survives, of course, but he's seriously messed up. Like, his reproductive organ is fused to his thigh. That's bad. Whether his life will be any better when his brain is transplanted into the body of a teenage girl is the burning question that Bob Fingerman explores in White Like She.

In addition to an older black man's brain occupying a young white girl's body, Fingerman sticks the girl's brain into a man's body. The girl immediately masturbates with her new penis (welcome to the world of men, one of the characters remarks). That's just priceless. The girl looks forward to becoming part of the white male power structure. The man-turned-woman, on the other hand, hooks up with a teenage lesbian. Well, what else would an older hetereosexual male do in that situation?

The story is whacky, yes, but Fingerman addresses serious issues amidst the craziness. The separation of people by race, gender, sexual identity, age, and social class is the story's primary theme. The importance of family structure is another theme. The story asks the same famous question posed by Rodney King after the LAPD bashed his head, slightly misquoted as: "Can't we all just get along?"

Fingerman's writing is strong, as are his characterizations. The ending blazes with irony. The black-and-white art showcases Fingerman's trademark ability to draw the ugliest people in America with astonishing realism and sensitivity.

A "bonus section" tells a story from 1989 that was the genesis of "White Like She." Also included are some sketched pages that rough out the story.