As this series has gone along, it has slowly begun to grow on me, and though I don't love it as much as I did the first Hopeless Savages, I find myself eagerly awaiting the conclusion. Van Meter has built up a very interesting relationship with Zero and the equally quirky Ginger, pairing off two oddballs in a "first romance" that is sweet, difficult and entertaining to watch from the outside. In addition, while I still wish Norrie could have been roped in to doing the full-time art chores again, O'Malley's work looks stronger with each issue, helped considerably with inks by the Norries in this issue, and I found this to be the strongest issue of the series so far.
Zero has always been probably the most interesting character of the bunch, and that's saying something given the unusual characteristics that make up the cast of Hopeless Savages. But her unique approach to vocabulary, her love for music and her individualistic streak, enough to seem rebellious even in the face of her parents and siblings, make her a terrific protagonist. Pairing her up with some boy would have been impossible if her would-be paramour wasn't just as iconoclastic and talented in his own way, and Van Meter builds up Ginger as someone with smarts and a rebellious streak of his own who seems like an ideal match for Zero when you think about it a bit. High school crushes are a dime a dozen, but a good writer can make them seem like a true love story, and Van Meter has definitely done that with the Zero/Ginger romance.
The short interviews with the characters this issue by sleazy TV personality Lance are a great way to develop the other characters without taking away from the focus on Zero. They also provide great comic relief, as we see just how much smarter the Hopeless-Savage family really is than Lance. And the flashback sequences in this story, while helping to move Zero's story forward, are often more about her brothers and sisters, giving them their chance in the spotlight and keeping the story more balanced as an ensemble story than it first appeared to be.
That's certainly the case with this issue's flashback, illustrated by Chynna Clugston-Major. We get a little insight into Twitch, who has been something of an invisible man for the most part, and see a heart-break in his past that was very well illustrated. Through clashing tastes and fights picked over fairly insignificant things, Van Meter and Clugston-Major show Twitch and Claude growing apart, and they convey the subtle heartbreak that is very different from the outrageous and loud heartbreak that Zero has been facing.
That contrast is helped by having a different artist for the rest of the story, and I have to admit that it's hard to imagine anyone other than O'Malley carrying off the concert sequence at the end of the book as well as he did. I wasn't entirely clear on what was happening, but I suspect that the confusion and clamor was intentional, bringing the reader into the auditorium with the audience so they could get the sense of the chaos that Zero caused and why she was in trouble.
