Review by Frank Plowright

Bill Holbrook’s syndicated newspaper strip On the Fastrack has run since 1984, focusing on the employees at data storage firm Fastrack Inc. Since her 2010 introduction Dethany Dendrobia has become the strip’s standout character, her emo style providing visual contrast and causing many people to underestimate her competence. Dethany and the Other Clique is a prequel of sorts, looking at Dethany before she joined the firm, picking up with her at high school.

The clique aspect concerns each student having to pick a group to associate with, and each group having to work toward presenting a single act play during the school year. It’s suggested Dethany opts for ‘goth’ based on her appearance, but discovers it’s a category created by loner Patricia, enabling her to read alone at lunch. Patricia never expected anyone to join, but is welcoming, and readers already familiar with Dethany’s organisational skills won’t be surprised at how rapidly she expands the clique membership and begins to outwit the prevailing social structure.

Holbrook collaborates with his daughter H.H. Glynn, her own school experiences presumably forming the basis of what Dethany goes through. Without a need to build to a punchline as in a newspaper strip Dethany emerges as a more rounded character, and while many of the supporting cast are defined by a single personality trait, Patricia transcends that. Also, to be fair, that single trait carries Bashir and his origami abilities a long way.

Like most school stories, this sets the outcasts against the school elite, here an escalating war beginning with the provocation of snide remarks. Given Holbrook’s day job, there should be an expectation of sharp humour, but Dethany and the Other Clique still impresses with the clever set-ups and visual asides, while the cartooning is impeccable and more detailed than the newspaper strip. Also clever is how one very funny, but seemingly throwaway joke comes to have considerable relevance, and the form would be to have everything leading up to the essential school play, but skimping on the play itself. Glynn and Holbrook don’t follow that rule, and the play presented is charming and funny.

Perhaps the only mistake is not separating Dethany and the Other Clique entirely from On the Fastrack as it ends with an epilogue set in the present day. Otherwise this is a very enjoyable comedy drama for young adults. Glynn and Holbrook obviously enjoyed creating it, as they followed up with The Phantom of the Swim Team.