Skateboarding is alive and kickflipping in Image Comic’s Grommets. New kid in school Rick desperately wants to move back to San Francisco. His father urges him to try and make friends and to forget all of this skateboarding nonsense that he has recently become interested in. Life becomes hell for Rick after his dad drops him off and peels out in front of the whole school. After a day of getting picked on, Rick decides to approach the older skateboard kids and asks to join them at a skatepark. He gets the okay from his mom, but when he turns around, the skateboard kids have ditched him.
Rick is momentarily disappointed until he meets Brian, another kid his age with a skateboard. He tells him that he can hitch a ride with him in his grandfather’s car to the skate park. The two kids nerd out over the band Rush and what type of skateboards they ride, becoming instant friends. Brian brags that Powell Skateboards owner Stacy Peralta wants to sign him to a contract. Brian tells Rick he is the Skateboard King of Sacramento, but heavy is the supposed crown.
Written by Deadly Class scribe Rick Remender and comedian Brian Posehn, Grommets takes place in the mid-eighties, a time when society glossed over things that were not acceptable by today’s standards. Rick and Brian’s bullies use nothing but gay jokes and slurs to take them down. Even Rick jumps into Brian’s grandpa’s truck without knowing either of their names. Grommets doesn’t exactly condone any of these actions, but it doesn’t shy away from them.
The writing is very influenced by the extreme sports movies of the 1980s, but also adds the heart of John Hughes films. Movies like Thrashin’ and Gleaming the Cube highlight the sport of skateboarding, but their stories were always a little thin. Remender and Posehn’s first issue looks like they want to fix that. Brett Parson and Moreno Dinisio’s art gives the feeling you’re reading an Archie book from the other side of the tracks, with a sometimes gruesome result, especially that last panel.
Creative Team: Rick Remender and Brian Posehn (writers), Moreno Dinisio (artist), Brett Parson (cover artist)
Publisher: Image Comics
Click here to purchase.
