A Review of ‘Minus’ Shows a Great Start but Dull Finish

Author: Lisa Naffziger / Iron Circus Comics In the opening chapter of Naffziger’s Minus, there is an intimate sense of familiarity. I’m a little more than a decade apart from the days when my family was taking me to college, but watching Beck’s in the passenger seat of a car travel across the plain planes of Illinois as her father takes her to her first year of college, it elicited a particular sympathetic response. An understanding of a young teen ready to leave the shelter of home and family in an attempt to start fresh. A kinship with Beck carrying a stuffed cat named Minus, the novel’s namesake, around as a reminder of simpler times during the weird transition. The shared panic when Beck finds herself alone in a gas station after hearing gunshots and her dad is no where to be found.

Minus is a graphic novel told in six chapters about Beck that follows her in the aftermath of a seemingly random shooting, as she attempts to navigate a world she is not familiar with (being home-schooled and from a small town that is widely different from the bustling city of Chicago) and figure out what happened to her father. Beck’s crash course to the wider world unfolds in a steady set of stages that transform the typical coming-of-age transitional story into a coming-of-age thriller. Beck’s hesitant moves throughout the world feel realistic and easily replicated, which is to say, I could very conceivably see a teen with a similar background to Beck respond in a very similar manner, and …