FANTAGRAPHICS AT 50! When I interviewed creator Raquelle Jac about Bimbo Agitprop earlier this month at Broken Frontier I described it as one of my books of the year. This is graphic memoir with the most distinctive of voices – defiant, unflinching and one that, in Jac’s words, “wields art like a knife.” Like last year’s Precious Rubbish from Kayla E., also from Fantagraphics, it’s the kind of autobiographical debut work that is simply unforgettable in its delivery. One of those projects from an emerging voice that feels so assured in its storytelling that you can’t help but sit up and take notice of what its author has to say.
There’s something alluringly sprawling and scattershot about Jac’s approach to autobio comics in these pages. Bimbo Agitprop is a book where memories meander down their own paths with frequent digressionary sideturns, and a refusal to adhere to rigid narrative structure that feels entirely appropriate in the circumstances. Jac looks to reclaim her own story in these pages as she gives an account of growing up in post-Millennial Texas, her fractured relationship with her abusive and paranoid mother, and how religion became an oppressive part of that childhood.
It’s certainly a difficult and often uncomfortable read but those same properties are exactly why we become so invested in the world of the young Raquelle. The cruelty she experiences is recreated with a brutal candour and a willingness to share every last lingering detail that is perhaps rooted in a wider sociological shift in the period being recaptured on the page. Bouncing between the homes of her mother, and her similarly toxic father and his bullying and manipulative new wife, there’s a sense of overwhelming, unrelenting and inescapable grimness to these early years. For example, an extended ‘Cinderella’ anecdotal story about her stepmother and a dress for prom is absolutely devastating in its ominous build-up to an inevitable end.
Visually, each page is crammed with furious detail. There are obvious underground comix influences – Jac has pointed to both Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Pheobe Gloeckner as inspirations – but it’s a retro indie vibe that manages to feel strangely contemporary, too, given its aesthetic. While rooted in a stark reality there’s also an element of caricature to Jac’s art and characters, sometimes to the point of bordering on the grotesque, that suitably reflects the subject matter.
Like all the best graphic memoir Bimbo Agitprop is such an immersive read because while the specificity of what is depicted is Jac’s story alone there’s still a universality to those coming-of-age elements – first sexual encounters, experimenting with alcohol and drugs, acting out, and generally all the “stupid shit” (as she puts it) that teenagers get up to. The book finishes on a rallying call to activism and it’s here that it finds if not a resolution then certainly a way to funnel the events of the previous 300-plus pages into something to grab hold of and move forward with. With its unfiltered honesty, bleak humour, and visceral approach to storytelling Bimbo Agitprop is one of 2026’s most impressive debuts from an emerging talent we should all be keeping close tabs on.
Raquelle Jac (W/A) • Fantagraphics Books, $34.99
Review by Andy Oliver
Fantagraphics at 50 Month runs through August at Broken Frontier. You can see articles as they’re published in one tagged list here.
