Shake Girl

May 9, 2008 11:41 AM

Shake Girl, a collaborative project by students in the Stanford Graphic Novel Project.

Based on the true story of Tat Marina [caution: disturbing photo], the victim of a December 1999 acid attack in Cambodia. More background.

posted by kirkaracha (11 comments total)

Unfortunately, I can't view any pages. Maybe their servers aren't up for a MeFi-grade viewing onslaught of readers?
posted by Shepherd at 12:06 PM on May 9, 2008

I've read two chapters so far (safari is my browser) and it's good enough to keep going. The art is not so good but the story is compelling. thanks for the post.
posted by sineater at 12:40 PM on May 9, 2008

I clicked on the link without going to the comments, so I didn't read the extra information about acid attacks, though the comic foreshadows what is to come by commenting on the smell of the acid vendors.

I thought the story was very powerful. Is there anything we won't do to ourselves? Do the wives really think that the husband just won't find some other poor girl to victimize?
posted by Palquito at 12:59 PM on May 9, 2008

Very variable art-work, but it's a moving story. Thanks.
posted by Drexen at 4:37 PM on May 9, 2008

Wow, great story indeed. I almost didn't click through because I've just about given up on graphic novels as an art form. Too little signal to noise ratio.
posted by BrotherCaine at 6:17 PM on May 9, 2008

Damn. I got started and couldn't stop, wish I would have. One helluva graphic novel nonetheless, especially considering it was done in six weeks.
posted by waxboy at 6:48 PM on May 9, 2008

I was a bit reluctant to click through because I've had very bad experiences with Westerners projecting their own ethnocentric ideas onto Southeast Asian narratives with astonishingly racist results, but this is great, even taking into account the "student" effect (e.g. bad art).

Page 132 is particularly striking. "By 1979, you could count the number of doctors in Cambodia on your hands." And the pair of hands shown have missing and bandaged fingers...

The ending weirds me out a little, since it's a bit more optimistic than the most recent article/interview with Tat Marina that they make available. I felt they were doing really well up to that point, and then I guess they couldn't really handle leaving it on a down note? I thought it was disappointing, because grappling with the way someone embedded in the system who actually went through all this suffering chose to deal with it (read the interview I linked) is, to me, a lot more thoughtful than the one-note, "And she looked forward to a brave new world! (But we're not sure how becausethatdidn'treallyhappentheend."
posted by bettafish at 6:51 PM on May 9, 2008

And I know how to close a paranthesis! ) There.
posted by bettafish at 6:51 PM on May 9, 2008

It was interesting, but: Fifteen students and two instructors and that's how the story gets drawn?
posted by hjo3 at 8:30 PM on May 9, 2008

Uglier than shit with a moronic interface. Thumbs down, you Stanford idiots.
posted by autodidact at 6:54 PM on May 10, 2008

I thought the storyline was really well told, and illuminated a corner of the world I know nothing about. I can't believe how long it was (over 200 pages!) and how little time they had to put it together. Very impressive, all things considered.
posted by librarylis at 12:26 AM on May 12, 2008