“Once upon a time, in some liberal art college in the 2010s…Lindsey Cheng cuts her bangs”. The opening sentence of Lindsey Cheng Dates a White Boy!!! immediately reminded me of the semi-sarcastic, humorous style of Brian Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim. From Asia Miller and ShortBox Comics Fair, Lindsey Cheng Dates a White Boy!!! follows protagonist Lindsey as she navigates her freshman year in college. She’s got a band with her best friends, a very over-protective mother, and best of all, an upcoming date with indie-rocker Jason, who she hopes to impress.
Lindsey’s idea of college may not be quite aligned with her mother’s. From Mother Cheng’s point of view, there should be no partying and a lot of studying. Lindsey would much rather mooch around record shops with Jason, pretend to be interested in his choice of music, and erratically play the drums in her three-man band with her best friends. But she is torn between doing what Jason wants her to do, what her mother wants her to do, and what she wants to do. What is it that Lindsey really wants?
As we read on, we discover that Lindsey has never really had any sense of self-ownership. Her mother has always been very over-protective, so her activities have always been limited. Now that she’s in college, she equally hasn’t had a chance to discover herself, as she’s fallen for Jason, a narcissist who couldn’t be less interested in finding out more about Lindsey. It was liberating to see Lindsey come more into her own as the comic went on and discover her self-worth.
There were so many homages to Scott Pilgrim throughout, like the mirroring of Scott and Knives’ relationship, the rag-tag group of bandmates, and of course, the manga style with exaggerated movements and close-ups of facial expressions. Miller’s style of drawing works particularly well in the dramatic scenes, in which Lindsey is frantically apologising or flapping around, hundreds of words pouring from her mouth appearing as the background behind her.
An aspect I enjoyed was the presentation of the dialogue from Lindsey’s very traditional Chinese mother. While the rest of the lettering is purely in English, the bubbles containing Lindsey’s mum’s words also include a Mandarin translation! Also interesting was Miller’s choice to depict all the characters other than Lindsey, her mother, and Jason as animals. Whether this is meant to reflect Lindsey moving out of the restricted worldview of her mother and encountering the unknown, or whether it is just a stylistic choice, it works incredibly well with the manga-stylised characters.
Lindsey Cheng Dates a White Boy!!! is available to purchase for the rest of October from ShortBox Comics Fair. If Brian Lee O’Malley is your cup of tea, you must pick it up.
Asia Miller (W/A) • ShortBox Comics Fair, £12.00
Review by Lydia Turner
