Edward Scissorhands is, for many of us, a classic. We loved it, during our goth phase, our angst-ridden middle school years. It’s the movie that started our crush on Johnny Depp, the movie that made us decide to try out black nail polish and lipstick. Or it’s the movie that really understood our poor tortured hormone-ridden teen souls, the movie that finally articulated what it was like to be the social outcast we imagined ourselves to be. It holds an important place in our collective psyche, campy charm and all. As we’ve grown, we’ve become more and more aware of the ludicrousness of the story, the exaggerated stylized aesthetic. But it’s still there, in our hearts, a vital memory.
WRITTEN BY: Kate Leth
ART BY: Drew Rausch
PUBLISHER: IDW Publishing
PRICE: $2.99
RELEASE: October 22, 2014
Reviewed By: Katy Rex
Kate Leth, Drew Rausch, and the creative team on IDW’s “Edward Scissorhands” must know what our mall goth phase was all about. They too stomped around in New Rocks and bled Manic Panic. This comic doesn’t go back and try to re-create the movie. That would be ineffective and almost disrespectful of the original. Instead, it picks up a few years after the movie left off:
“At the end of the beloved film, we see Kim relating the story of Edward Scissorhands to her young granddaughter. Now a teenager, Megs begins to wonder about the stories she heard as a child, despite her mother’s wishes. The years and loss have not been kind to Edward, who is more reclusive than ever, and beginning to find some strange and unusual things in the shadowy halls of his castle on the hill…”
The art is a mix between Jhonen Vasquez (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Invader Zim) and Adventure Time. It’s a playful nod toward the dark and spooky, but light and fun and engaging at the same time. The writing captures Edward’s childlike wonder and crippling depression, and the “new” character, Megs, is the epitome of teen, groaning and moaning because mornings exist and doubting everything her mother says.
As amazing as all of that is, the cherry on top of this teen-angst sundae is the aptly-named Clippings section in the back, where the creators interact with us, the readers, as we share our awful stories of high school selves. Including pictures. Eyeliner pictures. It’s as great as it sounds, I promise. Bonus: teenage picture of Kieron Gillen (Phonogram, The Wicked + The Divine) and his long hair and bass guitar.
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Katy Rex writes comics analysis at endoftheuniversecomics.com, comicsbulletin.com, and bloody-disgusting.com. She also writes scholarly articles for various academic journals. She really likes butt jokes, dinosaurs, and killing psychos and midgets in Borderlands 2. She has a great sense of humor if you’re not an asshole.