No Rules Tonight Review

I've said before that I'm here for comics that Ryan Estrada is attached to and No Rules Tonight is no exception. It isn't really a sequel to Banned Book Club, but given that it has the same authors -- Kim Hyun Sook and Estrada -- and another biographic story of Kim's that takes place in 1984, not long after the events of Banned Book Club, it's hard not to separate the two. But while Banned Book Club focused on the politics and trying to navigate/subvert them, No Rules Tonight focuses more on the emotional aspects of living in that type of environment and what you might do when you take advantage of the moments of freedom you are afforded.

Once again, we mainly follow Kim during her college days, particularly her time with a "Masked Folk Dance Team" when, at the end of the term, they went on an overnight hiking trip in the mountains. The organizer, however, is arrested the day before and the group is left scrambling to pull together plans at the last minute. Things are less than ideal, as they didn't really coordinate on bringing food or water, some students wore flip-flops for the hike, others negelected to bring a sleeping bag or anything. No one is seriously hurt or injured, but it's not a physically pleasant trip for most of them.

But it is a trip in which they all learn about what freedom means to each of them. "Here we are, on Christmas Eve. No parents, no teachers, hours from the nearest police station. So I ask again: what would you do with one night of freedom?" They all answer that differently ultimately, but the answers all revolve around being honest with yourself about who you are.

The emotional hooks in the story are solid, but I found some of the political messaging -- which, as I noted earlier, is not the focus here -- more interesting. The notion that their original curfew was imposed by the United States military and when the Korean military took over, they just kept it in place. "Keeping folks apart at night kept them from commiserating over their problems and discussing anti-fascist ideas... like hopes, dreams, or independence." Or that they banned the works of Marxist philosopher Bill Martin... or rather, they intended to but got him confused with children's book author Bill Martin, Jr. who wrote Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? illustrated by Eric Carle. And, funny twist... the Texas State Board of Education made the exact same mistake. In 2010.

As I said, that's not the focus of No Rules Tonight. It's definitely an interesting and engaging emotional story about Kim and her companions, all twelve of whom have their own story arcs. It certainly makes me thankful we don't live in a society like that here in the US, even though I have pretty much all the privledges I can get and likely wouldn't be cracked down on to nearly the extent that anyone in the book is. I've very much always been a proponent of being my authentic self, and being forced to act as something not that would be an awful burden.

No Rules Tonight is by Kim Hyun Sook and Ryan Estrada and was released last week. It's published by Penguin Random House and retials for $17.99 US (paperback) or $24.99 US (hardcover).

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