"Spooky Camp Mystery? Crazy Children? Falling For A Fellow Counselor? A Wild Summer!"
Title: Camp Spirit
Author/Artist: Axelle Lenoir
Publisher: IDW – TopShelf Productions
Category: LGBTQ+, Young Adult
Review by Brayden (they/them)
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Originally published in French, Canadian creator Axelle Lenoir absolutely nails the feeling of those awkward teenage years through her cartoon style. Set in the 90’s we follow the story of Elodie after her mum has forced her to pick up a summer break job as a camp counselor. She is super not on board with this, but that one girl from school who always seems so perfectly put together is actually super into the camp and actually seems super down to earth and is really cute and wait the head counselor is seeming super weird something mysterious is going on here and OH MY GOD THESE KIDS ARE CRAZY!?
If you are looking for a hilarious book with some serious girl power, this graphic novel is definitely for you.
The evolution from distant acquaintances to supportive friend to super crushing is fun! The rambunctious red-headed girls Elodie has to look after go from me saying “oh dear god these kids are going to be insufferable if this is the whole book” to “these girls are fantastic and so funny I would die for them” within pages. The chaos that ensues across the various stereotypical summer camp activities is great, especially when the girls really go on a complete war wagon whilst screaming obscenities and mispronounced battle cries. This is definitely the majority of the book, but there is however another element to this story that may push the needle from ‘interested’ to ‘must read’.
That element is CRYPTID SPOOKY MYSTERY! If you love The Mothman, Bigfoot, Slenderman and the rest of the Cryptid crew then you will LOVE the moments of genuinely scary designs in which Lenoir manages to break through her cartoony art with either monstrous grotesque horror or haunting and eerie set pieces. There is even scary writing and text which is an instant win in my opinion, I love when they do gibberish scary lettering since it lets your imagination create the scary sounds they must be making!
If you can manage to stomach a couple moments on a dead forest animal (sorry Bambi), this book is totally for you. You’ll have a laugh and your heart will be full by the final pages.