Everyone is Tulip – Graphic Novel Review

Becca has a typical aspiring actor life – she leaves her small town for LA, works as a waitress to pay the bills and responds to every casting call ad she can find on the internet, even the really shady ones. After years of struggle, she finally meets an avant-garde creator who turns her into an overnight viral sensation called Tulip. What next?  

Created by Dave Baker, Nicole Goux (Illustrations) and Ellie Hall (Illustrations), ‘Everyone is Tulip’ is a slightly nihilistic tale of internet fame, art, faux artists and the naivety of the human mind. Becca the protagonist doesn’t have much going for her except her pretty face. She meets the pretentious Stanley, who likes to call himself ‘Paradox’ and speaks in dramatic quotes. All Becca must do for Stanley’s production is read one line repeatedly in different elaborate costumes. The bizarre videos catch the internet’s attention and lead to a lot of buzz, memes, fan pages and even conspiracy theories. How Becca deals with this newfound fame and tries to turn it into something more lasting forms the crux of the story.

The artwork is fantastic in this graphic novel, the panels are colorfully expressive and glossy. The story is quite intriguing, it’s a satire on how stardom works in the age of social media trolls. Once upon a time, only a select few critics could tear apart a performer’s sense of self with their scathing commentary in newspapers articles, but with the internet, everybody can punch someone’s self-esteem with a quick nasty comment. Despite being warned not to look at the comment section, Becca cannot help but get influenced by what people write about her.

To give viewers a sense of where Becca comes from, there are some brief flashbacks into her past, these throwbacks just pop up without warning and could’ve been confusing if the artists hadn’t chosen to draw them in different colors. So, all the flashback pages are drenched in light purple tones. That said, two characters were very similar in their designs, Becca’s flatmate Eve and her stylist who isn’t even given a name, despite appearing in a quite a few pages. So it gets a little confusing as to why they give the stylist a sub-plot and pretty much forget about her in the end. Overall, ‘Everyone is Tulip’ was a gripping read, even though none of the characters are likable.

It’s a 3 on 5 from me.