Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's Janes in Love is the wonderful sequel to The P.L.A.I.N. Janes, the debut volume of the Minx graphic novel imprint.
The P.L.A.I.N. Janes are an arts collective made up of high-school girls all named Jane, who stage daring, commando-style public art projects in the dead of night, transforming their tight-ass suburb into an outdoor art gallery. They're not just in it for the hell of it, either: their little suburb was the site of a terrorist scare and bombing that has everyone on edge and baying for authority.
The Janes won't take this lying down. They refuse to be terrorized, and continue making their art, even though it gets them in trouble with the authorities and their parents, and nearly drives them apart.
But the Janes aren't just serious art-guerrillas; they're also teenaged girls, and the art-shenanigans aren't doing much for their love-lives, or their friendships.
It all adds up to an utterly charming, absolutely inspiring valentine of a book, a comic-book call to arms for art as something that everyone can — and should — make.
