Curate of Curiosities

Here's Volume 1: "How Much?!"

The description:

Great! Tamara's mom has finally found a new boyfriend! One problem: the man in question is joined by a charming little seven and a half year old girl named Yoli. And who's gonna have to get stuck with this little one while our neo-couple fusses over each other like crazy? Tamara, of course! But Yoli's unexpected arrival is going to turn everything upside down. Because, of course, she's resourceful, rebellious, devilishly cute... and just plain clever! She knows far more about love than her sister... Oh yes, one little thing, Yoli isn't exactly the same color as her Barbie. When your dad is named Chico and was born in Rio de Janeiro, that's just the way things are.

The first of this volume introduces us to the creators. Zidrou's the one in the Hawaiian shirt, and Darasse is the artist.

Zidrou: Making a successful comic isn't hard. What you need is a bombshell heroine!

A bombshell heroine? More like a cannonball, the way she ends up looking. Nothing like clowning on your main character while you're drawing her, huh? Oh, and did I mention that she can talk, even though she's just a drawing?

Then he gets another idea: give our heroine an affliction that weighs her down...

Zidrou: Or rather, where she weighs herself!

Classy.

Now, Zidrou goes on to suggest giving her the gift of tenderness, but Darasse is having none of it. "Tenderness? No, let's make her an abrasive cunt instead! That's what was hip with the kids these days, right?"

Hmph. Off to a roaring start, are we?

Now, the comic starts for real.

The first thing we see is a "keep out" sign on the door. It has "Military domain" written on it, how melodramatic.

And this is Tamara. Get a very good look, everyone.

As you would expect from a comic like this, she's immediately interrupted by her mom opening the door. And it looks like she's brought herself a new beau, to boot.

Mom: This is Chico! I've told you a lot about him.
Tamara: "A lot" is putting it nicely!

What's more, Chico's brought his daughter with him. Meet Yoli, our deuteragonist.

She'll be living with them from here on out, so guess where she'll be sleeping. In the kitchen? On the balcony?

That's right, in Tamara's bedroom. Now I'm sure that the two of them will have no trouble getting along together... Haha, I'm just kidding, the very first thing she does is ruin her poster.

That night, she asks for a bedtime story, and her new big sister is happy to oblige, if only to shut her up.

Here's how the story goes. Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a king and queen who just had a baby. All the fairies in the land came to visit the newborn. Yes, I know this is ripping off Sleeping Beauty, but you see, she's trying to put the little brat to sleep, so cut her some slack.

Unfortunately, one of the fairies was terribly ill, and couldn't come. Who was that fairy, you may ask?

The thin fairy, of course!

This should be the part where she goes to bed, but she has her own addition to the story: Suddenly another fairy pops in and gives the baby the most precious gift of all, the gift of kindness.

Kindness? Really? You've known her for a few hours at best, during which she's done nothing but try to push you away whle your parents have been busy making out in the hallway! If you call that kindness, then I don't know what to tell you.

And that's the start of the album. Just the start, you see, there's still 40 pages left to go. Obviously, I won't be discussing everything that happens in this volume, just the important things.

First, the two main things that you need to know about our heroine.

One, she's really, really, really self conscious about her weight, just in case you couldn't already tell from the cover. Or the very first page. Or the bedtime story. In fact, I counted, and about one third of the pages in this album alone have a fat joke somewhere.

Here you have her weighing herself:

Scale: 83 kilograms!
*click*

That is a gun. She just pointed a gun at her bathroom scale. You know, if it wasn't for this or the Best Of ebook, I would have probably written this comic off right then and there.

Naturally, she's willing to follow any crazy weight-loss scheme she can get her hands on. Like "fridge therapy," for instance--just sit in front of an open fridge without eating anything inside.

It's about as effective as it sounds.

But no matter what she tries, in the end, she's always, always, back to shoveling paprika chips down her throat.

And two, she's boy-crazy to the extreme! So much so, that not even Cupid can keep up with her!

And then you have her new little sister. I honestly believe that this little one is a big part of the reason that this comic has never received, and likely will never receive, an English translation.

Let's have a look at what she gets up to in this album alone. Keep in mind that she's seven years old.

She brings Tintin's bastard child to their apartment, which is pretty tame, all things considered.

Then, she gets a belly button piercing, and suggests to Tamara that she get one, because it apparently does something to boys that I am very unwilling to repeat here.

And then, she manages to turn something as innocent as playing with dolls into some kind of Poké-swingers party.

You know what the really weird thing is though? The blurb suggests that they'll be using her to discuss race relations, but this never happens. "Not the same color as her Barbie" when she doesn't even play with them!

We do, however, get to see her making out with a statue.

The second half of this album introduces us to Wagner, the school bully. He is the very embodiment of the phrase "talk shit, get hit." Most of his appearances in this volume play out as follows: he mocks Tamara's weight, and gets immediately clobbered.

Though he does eventually get one over on her. What's that, you just got an invitation to a hip party? Too bad! Instead you get the address to a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere.

Alright, last page, just the two of them in the bath together.

"Say, what happens when someone you love a whole lot dies?"

Well, that got dark all of a sudden.

Tamara: "You see, life is just like this bath. It's warm, fragrant, and there's bubbles everywhere..."
(She gets up from the bath)
"But when someone you love dies..."

(You know how in some cartoons, when someone's in the bath, they'll have suds covering their bits? This comic does something like that, but it doesn't cover everything...)

Like I said before, fun for the whole family.

And that was Volume 1. It was pretty run-of-the-mill for the most part, but it was far from the unending cringe parade that I expected. Of course, this is only the start of a comic that has ran for nearly twenty years, so it's safe to say...that we ain't seen nothing yet.