This was such a cute story with great illustrations. I really love Zero's character. This volume centered around a well done love story that wasn't too sappy and had just the right amount of awesome.

I also really liked the set up of disrupted timelines. At times it was confusing, but the overall effect was brilliant. Sometimes there was flashbacks within flashback,s which were a little hard to follow, but this was compensated for by having different artists illustrate the flashback scenes. This has a very beautiful effect as each flashback was separated by its own distinct style.

Very well put together piece of work. ( )

http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/algae-2010-03.html#hopeless ( )

I was flipping through this to see if it was a good graphic novel for a display about music. And then I started reading it. And then I couldn't put it down.

Hopeless Savages is about an unusual family. Mom and dad are both infamous punk rock musicians and youngest daughter Skank Zero Hopeless-Savage has her own band as well. A TV network like VH1 is in the process of filming a Behind-the-Music-like show about the family and it has everyone on their last nerve.

This volume centers around 16-year old Zero and her suprisingly sweet romance with an MIT-bound gamer geek boy named Ginger. So I'm kind of a sucker for a nice, non-crappy, non-traditional romance. Sue me.

They "meet cute" at age 7 outside a comic book store after some older kids harass Ginger and throw his glasses in the dumpster. Zero, who was shopping with her family, sends her older siblings after the thugs, roots through the garbage to find his glasses, and walks him home. This part was heart-meltingly adorable. Ginger, of course, is in love with her from this point on but is completely off her radar until high school.

There is another very sweet subplot involving Zero's gay older brother Twitch and his beloved Henry, who are apart while Henry studies at Julliard.

All in all, this was a very good comic with attractive art and an engaging plot. Zero is a cute and spunky heroine with her punky style and creative vocabulary, and everyone gets more or less what they want in the end. I'm glad I read this and will be reading the other volumes in this series soon. ( )

Skank Zero's high school punk rock love story. ( )

Volume 2 of the Hopeless Savages series finds Dirk Hopeless, Nikki Savage, and their darling children reunited after a foiled kidnapping attempt, but now facing an even greater challenger: a "Behind the Music" style video special that intrudes upon everyone's lives, placing them under the type of microscope that only TV can provide. While the first Hopeless Savages book focused mostly on the relationship between the children in the family, this one focused more on intergenerational conflict, especially the relationship between Zero and her mother, Nikki. The conflict between the two of them stems from something that most parents must encounter at some point - reconciling how they spent their youth with the youth that they hope for for their children.
Despite that, one of the nicest things about this comic, however, is the love relationships that are shown between the Hopeless-Savage kids and their respective love interests. We see Zero fall in love for the first time, and Arsenal relates a story of the one man he's ever loved that is absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful. ( )