Jinx: Little Miss Steps

Jinx

by J. Torres, Rick Burchett (Illustrator), Terry Austin (Illustrator)

Spring in high school brings a whole new set of challenges for feisty freshman Jinx—more tests, new sports, and anticipation for summer. But more frightening to Jinx than anything else is the dreaded school dance... and to make matters worse, this one is girls' choice! That means Jinx's friends Charley and Greg are competing to be her date, as if the very thought of dancing wasn't awkward enough. And on the home front, Jinx is faced with even more changes when her usually distant mom suddenly wants to be BFFs. 

As Jinx deals with questions of female identity and growing up, and as rules and relationships become more complicated, one thing remains the Jinx means bad luck to anyone who gets in the way of getting her way! A story told with great wit, humor, heart, and style—you'll fall in love with the realistic and uplifting story of  Little Miss Steps . An original graphic novel.

Genres: Graphic Novels

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 23, 2013

About the author

Comic book writer whose credits include the Eisner Award nominated Alison Dare, the YALSA listed Days Like This and Lola: A Ghost Story, as well as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Love as a Foreign Language and Teen Titans Go, which garnered him a Shuster Award.

Reviews

[Paul Riches · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jinx 2: Still Growing Up

When last we left off, our plucky heroine Lil Jinx was all grown up. Almost!

And that is what makes this great story all the more great!

Lil Jinx, as noted the last time we met her, is an Archie character who has been bouncing around for decades. Created by Joe Edwards, she was a precocious little child who mixed sports and wackiness and quirky bunch of friends in what was essentially a gag strip. But with the sweeping changes and modernizations of the Archie line over the last few years, Jinx’s turn finally came up, with previews of the new her being showcased in Life With Archie magazine.

So now she is fourteen and still arguing with her dad, all in a real, not ideal, world.

With this volume, subtitled Little Miss Steps, we pick up some months later and our spunky teen is facing a triple threat to her sanity. Baseball tryouts are coming up, the first high school dance is looming, and a constantly delayed meeting with her mother is causing aggravation. If it wasn’t for her friends and her trusty texting ability, would she survive the problems she faces?

To compound all this, the secret of why her mother has been MIA from the old strip is neatly retconned away, providing much drama and angst for Jinx. All of my amateur guesses proved wrong, and even my gentle prying when I interviewed writer J Torres at FanExpo could not produce any clues. Now we have the crux of so many future storylines, thrusting Jinx even more into our world.

Bringing this amazing tale to us is aforementioned writer, Canadian J Torres, who does an admirable job making Jinx and her cadre all pop off the page at us. Artist Rick Burchett brings a very distinctive look and feel to these emotional adventures, powering so many feelings into each face and body language. Combined these two are unbeatable. While Jinx volumes are released digitally first, then in a printed trade shortly thereafter, so much of Jinx demands to come out more often. Yearly for these doses are not enough.

Part of this, ahem, request of mine is not solely because I want to see way more adventures of Jinx and her crew, and fill in the alluded to backstories of so many of them, but because of all the wonderful plot threads just awaiting further development. The big glaring one now is the continuing saga of Jinx’s relationship with her mother. But from the first volume, we still have that darn thimble issue to deal with. And what about Jinx’s uncanny ability to tick off every so-called authority figure around her? Will she eventually prove they are all the idiots we know them to be? Or will the infernal bad tempered twits take the wily Jinx and succeed in “normalizing” her.

I hope not. Jinx is an unique and amazing person. She is fun to be around, has great friends, and loves life to the fullest. And she has great taste in reading material and ringtone. It is so Jinx!

[Suzannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I edited/designed this book, so I would have to be pretty bad at my job if I wasn't proud of the end product. And I am! Excellent writing from J. Torres and art from Rick Burchett, Terry Austin & John Workman have really made the Jinx series something that I am unbelievably excited to be a part of.

Also, it's a good read.

[Ashleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important questions: why was this so short? I require more.

[Pinky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely more complex than volume one. Jinx deals with more gender stereotypes and what it means to be a girl, a woman, a female. Does being sporty mean anything other than you're good at sports?

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Public library copy.

This one got passed around to 3/4 of my household and we all enjoyed the book as much as the previous volume by the same talent/creators.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy Jinx's attitude. She knows that girls can do just as much as boys and she goes out of her way to prove it. But she has the name Jinx for a reason. The storyline with her mom is short, but awesome. I want to find more of these to continue the series.

[Holly Letson · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

I've enjoyed Jinx's teenage adventures. They are quite enjoyable. But, she sure didn't take her mother's "coming out" very well at all.

[Reading with Cats · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars