Ugh! What was her name?!

You know how that actress that plays Lindsay in Freaks and Geeks looks familiar? So you google, “who does linda cardellini look like.” The first hit? Ellen Page of Juno.  Bingo.

Published by First Second (thus meeting the challenge), Same Difference by Derek Kirk Kim takes us back to a time before iphones and instant gratification.

It’s the spring of 2000. Simon and Nancy are hanging out in Oakland, eating pho, and reminiscing about high school. Nancy reveals she’s been corresponding with a stranger named Ben who’s been sending obsessive love letters to the former occupant of her apartment. After receiving a more elaborate care package from Ben, Nancy convinces Simon they should go find this guy who happens to live in Simon’s home town. 

Simon’s reluctance proves prescient when he’s hailed as a long-lost buddy by former classmates who made fun of him in high school and runs into a girl who he treated badly. Despite these setbacks, they actually end up finding Ben. The consequences of coming clean to him, however, remain a little cloudy.

Although a few of the visual gags are a little over the top (i.e. “I felt like such a dick”), most of them cleverly reveal the self-absorption of our young adult selves.  References to Bill Nye, M.U.S.C.L.E , and Dead Poet’s Society evoke the early 90s. Simon also reveals what it was like to grow up in a Korean-American household: “What’re you talking about? Every Korean kid grows up eating raw ramen! It’s our Ritz!”

And in that time before iphones, Simon’s exuberance is palpable when he triumphantly remembers the name of the girl from Weird Science he was trying to think of 42 pages earlier.