PERFECT EXAMPLE is John Porcellino's autobiographical account of the confusing summer spent between high school and college in nowheresville, Illinois. He paints a portrait of an awkward kid who hangs out with more awkward kids, brought together by a love for punk rock. These are kids quickly outgrowing their adolescence as they face a terribly uncertain future and the indecipherable signals of girls. There's no rosy-colored glasses here -- this is Porcellino, baggage and all, exposed on the printed page. And it's this brutal honesty that makes PERFECT EXAMPLE work.
This is very easily one of those books you can pick-up and quickly flip through and put back on the shelf. Porcellino's art has a simplicity that's not going to sell itself. But it's perfect for the narrative here -- it, too, is stripped down to its naked core. PERFECT EXAMPLE isn't about bells and whistles. It's about communicating a time of pain and confusion in a passionate, personal fashion. And, in that, it greatly succeeds.
Peter Aaron Rose is a writer, producer and technologist who lives and works in San Francisco, CA. Under the pseudonym "Peter Siegel", he recently authored Killing Demons, a graphic novel available from Engine Press and Platinum Studios.
