Lumberjanes - Stevenson, Ellis, Watters, Allen

Title: Lumberjanes Volume 1: Beware the Kitten Holy
Authors: Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, and Brooke Allen
Publisher: Boom! Box, 2015 (Paperback)
Length: 127 pages
Genre: Young Adult; Graphic Novel
Started: August 30, 2015
Finished: August 31, 2015

Summary:
From the back cover:

At Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet's Camp for Hardcore Lady-Types, things are not always what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together...and they're not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way! The mystery keeps getting bigger, and it all begins here.

Written by awesome all-star Noelle Stevenson (Nimona, Adventure Time) and brilliant newcomer Grace Ellis, and illustrated by the tremendously talented Brooke Allen (A Home for Mr. Easter).

Review:
Along with Nimona, this was another comic that came highly recommended, so of course I picked it up.

Lumberjanes takes the stereotypical image of Girl Scouts/Guides and throws it on its head, just look at the camp's name above. The craziness begins with the group of five girls getting attacked by weird three-eyed mutant foxes while being out in the woods at night following a bearwoman (cause why wouldn't they follow a bearwoman they saw outside their cabin?) and it just gets better. I really like how it's a female-centric comic (we don't see nearly enough of those as we should) where the five main leads are quite different in terms of personality: Ripley is off-the-wall silly, April appears stereotypically girly but is actually incredibly strong, Mal appears more masculine but is really sensitive, Jo is your intelligent leader-type, and Molly is a bit of everything. The group is not only diverse personality-wise, but also racially/ethnically and in their body types. The humour is great, as is the art style. It's just a really entertaining story that has some great female leads that we don't often see in North American comics.

Recommendation:
Incredibly funny and girl-centric graphic novel, go read it!

Thoughts on the cover:
I like how Stevenson's cover was chosen for this compilation even though Allen does the artwork in the book itself (they also showcase all the covers and character designs by all the creators in the back of the book).