A classic coming of age story told in a new perspective, but does it lose its vision along the way?

Here is the synopsis:

Four disparate high school seniors come together to compete in their school’s battle of the bands. Sharing a love for playing rock and roll, the members name the band “The Stereotypical Freaks” because they feel stereotyped by their classmates – smart kid, geek, star athlete and quiet weirdo… when in fact they know they are much more than those labels that have been placed on them. When one member reveals life altering news, winning the competition takes on more of a meaning to each member. Scared and angry, upset and yet still with a lot of resolve they set out to win one for the good guys… will they?

Stereotypical Freaks is a nice little coming of age tale about 4 Pittsburgh area high school seniors trying to make their last year memorable by entering their school’s battle of the bands contest. What makes these boys unique is each of them belongs to opposite ends of the social spectrum. Tom smart reserved musician bearing a torch for the girl he’s loved since 7^th grade, Dan a Canadian social anarchist with father issues, Marc, Toms former best friend and a star football player with confidence and identity issues, and Jacoby the loner foreign exchange student. They deal with the typical high school problems, friends, girls, grades, and life in general. Their love of music brought them together, but it was Jacoby’s heart and secret that bonded the foursome for life.

Well known author Howard Shapiro creates a nice story about these characters and how they interact with one another. Their dialogue is very natural, it feels like an actual conversation between teenagers, their parents, and others they communicate with. Each character introduced is given a nice helping of development throughout the story, and you can identify with at least one or more of the main characters of the story, and if the writer is able to make these connections between character and reader, then the writer has done their job.

The art in this one of the stand out features of the comic. Joe Pekar does a pretty good job on the book, the visuals are drawn really well, each character being detailed well with their own unique looks and features from the main characters to the minor ones, also the environment and backgrounds are drawn well.  Everything is really nice to look at and adds to the overall calm atmosphere of the book which is how art should be.

All in all, the book is pretty good coming of age story. It’s a welcome break from the usual superhero and violent books. Something you can introduce to your children if you ever wanted to get them into comics. Despite some holes in the plot heading towards the end, I recommend this book for any wanting to take a break from the usual comic formula or just getting into comic in general. A pretty good read, read it.

3.5/5