Plain Jane and the Mermaid | Review

Plain Jane and the Mermaid
Writer/artist: Vera Brosgol
First Second; $22.99
Publisher’s rating: Ages 10-14

Vera Brosgol, the cartoonist responsible for Anya’s Ghost and Be Prepared, returns with Plain Jane and the Mermaid, a new graphic novel that explores the importance of one’s looks, while also being a winning undersea adventure.

The titular Jane lacks good looks. This means she also lacks suitors. And that becomes an existential problem for Jane when her parents are suddenly killed in an accident and she finds herself with just a week to find a husband or forfeit the house and fortune she might otherwise inherit, because at the indeterminate but long ago setting of the book, women can’t own property.

The mermaid who shares the other half of the title with Jane, Loreley, has good looks and, in fact, is almost beautiful beyond compare, attractive enough to lure sailors to their doom. But there’s a cost to her undying beauty. To keep it, she must regularly hunt and eat attractive human beings, making her something of a monster on the inside.

And Peter, the unhappy son of a local fisherman, also has good looks, which makes him attractive to both Jane and the mermaid.

For Jane, he provides her a chance to escape destitution, as she proposes to him (“I know I’m probably not what you want,” she tells him. “I’m not pretty. And you are. You really, really are. But we both have problems, and this would solve them.”)

And for Loreley, he seems a perfect specimen for her next husband…and next meal.

The mermaid happens to strike just as Jane has proposed to Peter in the swamp and accidentally insulted him after he agreed to marry her. Using her song and her beauty, Loreley lures Peter to the edge of the water, grabs him and plunges in with him captive.

No one in town believes Jane’s story of Peter being abducted by a mermaid, save a single mysterious old woman who invites her into her shop labeled “Cronery” and outfits her with the magical items Jane will need to breathe underwater, walk along the floor of the sea without floating back up, and be warm enough to survive the depths. The old lady also gives Jane a time limit to save Peter: Three days.

Thus begins Jane’s journey to rescue her maybe kinda sorta betrothed from the most dangerous place in the ocean, the dreaded mermaid village. Along the way she’ll encounter a diminutive water demon (who looks a bit like a SpongeBob character), a talking seal, undead seaweed-headed skeletons, a village of undersea people and a monstrous giant fish, all before coming face to face with Loreley and her sisters.

In addition to being an accomplished graphic novelist and children’s picture book creator, Brosgol spent a decade as a storyboard artist for animation, and the experience shines through in her work. Plain Jane and the Mermaid unfolds with the lifelike sense of motion and the assured pace of a fine animated film.

In both her character design and her world-building, Brosgol has created an engaging story that a reader can inhabit as well as experience.

Does Jane ultimately save Peter and return him to the safety of the surface world? Does she end up losing her home and means of caring for herself? The answer to those questions would be unwelcome spoilers…but also somewhat beside the point. The deeper, truer conflicts of the story revolve around various characters learning that one’s looks—either having them or being desired solely for them—aren’t actually the most important things in the world.

That’s not a lesson one often sees in the animated fairy tales of handsome princes and beautiful princesses we all grow up with, but Plain Jane and The Mermaid offers a strong corrective, and it does so without sacrificing a bit of the magical adventure that makes those movies so charming in the first place.

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