Blue Monday (comics)

Infobox comic book title
title = Blue Monday


imagesize=200
caption = Cover of Blue Monday:The Kids Are Alright TPB
schedule = Monthly
format =
limited =Y
publisher=Oni Press
date = 2000
issues = 15
past_current_color = background:#c0c0c0
main_char_team = Bleu L. Finnegan, Clover Connelly, Alan Walsh, Victor Gomez, Erin O'Neill
writers = Chynna Clugston
artists = Chynna Clugston
creators = Chynna Clugston
subcat=Oni Press
sort=PAGENAME

"Blue Monday" is a slice of life comic book title by Chynna Clugston. It is published by Oni Press in the form of one-shots and several miniseries, which have also been collected into trade paperbacks. The first four-issue miniseries, "Blue Monday: The Kids Are Alright" was published in 2000.

"Blue Monday" tells the adventures of Bleu L. Finnegan, an everyday teenager and Adam Ant fan, and her friends Clover, Erin, Victor, Alan and Monkeyboy (Chris), attending Jefferson high school in California during the early 1990s.

In creating the comic, Clugston borrowed heavily from the style and visual cues of Japanese manga. However, the comic has a distinctly American feel, plot, and characters, entirely unlike a shōjo manga. One example of this influence is that the main character (Bleu) has blue hair, a common trait in both manga and anime. However, she's the only character with this trait, and other characters consider her strange for her hair coloring.

Overview and plot arcs

The series is notable for its extremely raunchy form of humor, combined with a sympathetic view of the main characters. It is fair to say that nothing is off-limits. For example, the first storyline follows the following revenge pattern:

* At high school, Alan and Victor run into Bleu and Clover, giving them cookies they swiped from a home economics class.
* As it turns out, the cookies were meant for a fundraiser for children with Down's Syndrome, and a teacher catches the girls and punishes them.
* Realizing that the guys purposely turned over the cookies to avoid trouble, the girls respond by vandalizing Alan's house with toilet paper and condoms filled with whipped cream.
* Pretending they didn't know who was responsible, the guys trick the girls' parents into forcing them to help clean up the mess. Afterwards, when the girls go for hamburgers at a local diner, the guys put pubic hair in the burgers, then flip the girls off as they realize this.
* In retaliation, the girls sneak into Alan's room and steal his extremely large collection of pornography. After removing posters of naked women from his walls, they substitute pictures of naked men.
* Not to be outdone, Victor hatches a plan to "kidnap" one of Bleu's stuffed animals- an Oscar The Grouch doll.
* The entire storyline culminates in a "standoff" scene, where the guys tie up Bleu's stuffed animal and scribble Satanic symbols around it, while the girls hold Alan's favorite porn magazine up to a lighter.

Other notable storylines include: the guys filming Bleu naked while she takes a bath; masturbation; Alan trying to get Bleu to go out with him; and a murder mystery dinner gone haywire after three different attendees independently spike the punch. Many of the plotlines overlap.

Also central to the characters' lives are holidays. At Bleu's favorite holiday, Halloween, they gather to tell ghost stories that are humorous versions of "Return of the Living Dead", "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and "Dark Shadows". Valentine's Day marks the "anniversary" of the initial meeting between all six of the main characters. On St. Patrick's Day, practically every guy in the school follows Clover around while singing annoying Irish love ballads. On April Fools Day, Victor reverts to his goth style for one day, unintentionally charming many of the female students with his angst and poems copied from Lord Byron (Victor's birthday falls on April Fools' Day as well). Christmas gets covered when Clugston does a story where her characters meet Paul Dini's Jingle Belle.

Although the characters tend to be antagonistic (and, sometimes, downright abusive) towards each other, they are all extremely close friends, and the comic gradually reveals strong romantic attractions underneath their adolescent hi-jinks. (Indeed, the series has been described as "Archie on crack.") Victor and Clover both have feelings for each other, but with few exceptions, are either unable or unwilling to express them. Alan, formerly an indiscriminate "ladies' man," completely changed his act after he first met Bleu, although it's unclear if Bleu returns those feelings on even an unconscious level.

Main characters

*Bleu L. Finnegan - As "Blue Monday"'s main character, Bleu is the girl with all the problems. Bleu is a fan of Adam Ant, Buster Keaton, Paul Weller, and Blur, among many others, and is obsessed with mod culture. She's almost a teenage mirror of her creator.
*Clover Connelly - Born in Ireland, Clover moved to the United States in ninth grade with her whole family and made friends with Bleu at a Valentine's day dance. She's aggressive, dresses in a punk manner, and will not hesitate to beat sense into guys who need it (which at times include every single boy at the high school). When she gets frustrated, she often resorts to speaking in Gaelic.
*Alan Walsh - A foul-mouthed, perverted character, Alan's most distinguishing trait is his inability to say or hear a phrase without making a sexual innuendo out of it. He has a trademark parka he is almost always seen wearing, with a giant The Kinks patch on the back. Despite his surly attitude, he has a genuine crush on Bleu - after their first meeting, he even began adopting features of mod culture (including said Kinks patch). However, his only date with her ended in a total disaster, partly after Victor and Erin sabotaged it.
*Victor Gomez - Alan's best friend. He pretends he's just as suave with the ladies as Alan sometimes is, but acts extremely indecisive and dopey. He often acts as the group's clown at the expense of expressing his real feelings. He usually dresses in a rude boy manner, and invariably has a cigarette dangling from his lips in an attempt to act sophisticated. He is known to dress like Robert Smith when depressed, and formerly lived a quasi-goth lifestyle.
*Erin O'Neill - The third girl in the group, Erin is outright mean sometimes. She occasionally tries setting up different people, but usually for her own benefit. She's thought to be very slutty and scheming. In particular, she's attracted to Alan, but he blows her off on numerous occasions. In response, she constantly tries to get between Alan and Bleu.
*Monkeyboy (Chris) - Younger than all the other characters, Monkeyboy is the group's lackey, and the others have been known to abandon him. He works at a diner and aspires to be a chef. His bangs always cover his eyes; in one story, the guys joke that when they tried to slick his hair back, they found he had no eyes.

Other character

*Donovan Bishop - Mr. Bishop is a history teacher, a permanent substitute for a teacher recovering from surgery. Bleu has a crush on him, as he is her ideal man, from watching Buster Keaton silent films to driving a "beauty of a Falcon." Bleu's friends call her Lolita for her attraction to him.
*Rissa Meade - The daughter of the high school's assistant principal, Rissa is apparently friends with Bleu and Monkeyboy, but is not considered part of the group. She is somewhat overweight, but extremely friendly. Because of her father's job, she often arranges certain events, such as a guy-on-girl soccer game which, due to the evocation of "hooligan rules," ends up with the men's team being beaten up.
*"Mr. Labellephant" - The high school principal, who tends to be extremely clueless about everything. He often ends up punishing Bleu and Clover for things they haven't done.

In some of the stand-alone stories, Clugston also includes characters from her other comic series.

In addition, the comic includes some characters who may or may not be imaginary.

*Seamus - Seamus is a mischievous pooka in the form of an otter. He is known for drinking beer and for having bad flatulence. While only Bleu can see him (Clover apparently pretends she can't see him), everyone is able to smell him. Bleu constantly blames him for doing things she can't imagine herself doing; during her date with Alan, when he thinks she's playing "footsies" with him under the table, she blames it on Seamus.
*Floating Jesus Head(s) - A strange apparition that only Bleu can see. During a visit to a local cemetery, Bleu accidentally knocked the carved head of Jesus off a tombstone, and from then on, believed she was somehow cursed, as a spectral form of the head stalked her. She and her friends finally returned to the cemetery to fix it, only to find that someone had beat them to it. Nonetheless, they returned the head; the result was a two-headed Jesus. From that point on, at certain times, Bleu is haunted by an image of two Jesus-heads.

Collected editions

* Blue Monday Vol. 1: The Kids Are Alright (ISBN 1-929998-07-4)
**Chapter 1: "There's No Other Way"
**Chapter 2: "Substitute"
**Chapter 3: "Try This for Sighs"
**The Short Stories
* Blue Monday Vol. 2: Absolute Beginners (ISBN 1-929998-17-1)
**Chapter 1: "Something About You"
**Chapter 2: "Favorite Shirts"
**Chapter 3: "To Sir, With Love"
**Chapter 4: "Hands Off, She's Mine"
* Blue Monday Vol. 3: Inbetween Days (ISBN 1-929998-66-X)
**"Dead Man's Party"
**"Blue Belles"
**"Lovecats"
**"Nobody's Fool," "Everything's Gone Green" pt. 1, "Everybody Plays the Fool" pt. 2
* Blue Monday Vol. 4: Painted Moon (ISBN 1-932664-11-4)
**Chapter 1: "How Soon is Now?"
**Chapter 2: "Pictures of Lily"
**Chapter 3: "Blues Before and After"
**Chapter 4: "I Confess"

The chronology of the collected editions is different than the numbering. Timewise, the volumes come in the order: one, two, four, three. As several stories make reference to past events, this order can become confusing. In an add-on comic in volume four, Clugston addresses this issue.

ee also

*Music of Ireland

External links

* [http://www.onipress.com/display.php?type=se&id=4 Official Oni Press "Blue Monday" page]