To be honest, I feel like I shouldn't have enjoyed this as much as I did. After two issues, it looks like Scooter Girl is going to be all about a couple of characters doing all they can to make each other absolutely miserable, and there's a mean-spirited side to the characters that should make them unlikable. Only it doesn't, and I blame Clugston-Major for being so good with characterization and with slapstick comedy. Thanks to first-person narration, we see that Ashton Archer is at least a human being behind that shallow facade, and can relate to his pain even if he deserves every minute of it. And thanks to Clugston-Major's ability to depict hipster cool, it's impossible not to want to root for his nemesis Margaret Sheldon either. Plus there's sex jokes, scooters and musical references. Bitchin'.
In the previous issue, I expressed concern that we were meant to believe Drake deserved everything he got from Margaret, and that I just couldn't get behind that. With this issue, it's clear that Drake is meant to be at least somewhat sympathetic. I mean, Margaret won, she ruined his perfect life and drove him out of his home, and that wasn't good enough, she showed up to do the same thing again. It's clear from the way this whole conflict is presented this issue that neither of these characters is meant to be completely in the right, and we're meant to root for Ashton as much as Margaret. Of course, the misfortunes that befall Ashton are made funny thanks to his shallow nature in the first place. It wouldn't be out of line to say at this point that all of this is his own fault, because he knows what happens when Margaret is around him.
Scooter Girl, like Blue Monday, is a departure into a world I don't live in, but I do find it fascinating. Mod clothes and culture, dance parties, scooter races... nothing at all even remotely relevant to my life, but Clugston-Major makes it feel inviting even though it's so completely foreign. Her love of the fashion shines through, particularly with the gorgeous designs for Margaret but also with the lovingly-drawn scooters and club locales, and it's infectious.
It's Clugston-Major's comic timing that really makes the book sing for me, though. Super-deformed or exaggerated looks when Ashton spots Margaret, or when he goes through a series of accidents that infuriates Sheila and lands him in an ambulance, make for hilarious moments. And for all that it would be annoying in real life, there's something charming and fun in Ashton's overconfidence or Margaret's cool disdain.
While Scooter Girl is funny, it also has an interesting central story and some more serious character stories as well. The Kitty-Drake moment in the club is sort of heartbreaking, and for all that Ashton and Margaret are the stars of the show, it's Drake who really seems to have more depth. When we see more of him in the closing of the issue, and see him drawn into the Ashton-Margaret conflict, I confess that I'm more interested in how this will affect his character arc than where it's going to take the Ashton-Margaret story. Although I'm certain that the latter part of the story will provide plenty of entertainment as well.
