Comic Book Review - Not My Bag by Sina Grace

I was about halfway through my first reread of Not My Bag (written and drawn by Sina Grace) before I realized that it was about me.

Well, okay, not specifically me. That would have beeen creepy, and in more than one way ("He knows about the clown suit and the trained ferrets?!"). It is, however, a pretty accurate portrayal of what every artist goes through when they have to work a "real job", and any artist who has will get an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu if he reads this book.

Not My Bag opens after the narrator (Grace or an artist who just happens to have written some of Grace's books) crashes his car and has to get some fast money to make the insurance payments. Luckily, he finds a job selling upscale women's clothes in a department store. He's the only man in his department, his co-workers aren't much better than caricatures (one leathery saleswoman even has a Skrull chin) and he has a lot to learn.

Now, if Horatio Alger had written Not My Bag, the narrator would, through hard work and dedication, work his way up in the store until he became head of a retail empire. This isn't Horatio Alger, though, so instead we get to see the narrator, though hard work, exhaustion and miscommunication, get fed up with his job and eventually quit.

However, this really isn't a tragedy, even in this job market. The narrator has aspirations of becoming a comic book artist and writer, so is it really so bad that he lost a sales job in a department store? He pretty much sums up the entire story about halfway through: "Why was I trying so hard in a profession I technically wasn't going to stick around for?"

Grace has some experience in retail, and he must have drawn heavily on it to write Not My Bag. His story may not be autobiographical, but it does have a wealth of detail that could have come only from direct experience. Seriously, if you want a primer on retail fashion, you could do worse.

I found Not My Bag initially to be a tough read, and I suspect anyone with little experience in retail or fashion will have the same experience. I'm more comfortable with comics where the primary mode of communication is BANG, BIFF and POW. Get me outside of that, into fashion arcana and office politics, and I flop and flounder like a cod on the deck of a fishing boat.

Once I figured it, though, it all clicked into place. Not My Bag isn't about fashion, or who's getting played or backstabbed by who. Those are just the outward symptoms of the narrator's real problem: an artist working a non-artistic job.

He reacts to his job in almost exactly the same way I react to mine. It’s all there. His indignant superiority to his co-workers. His absolute certainty that he’s destined for bigger and better things. His initial puppy-like enthusiasm. His creeping demoralization. His lack of energy after work. His unfulfilled promises to draw on the weekends. His boss Frankie playing his ego and superiority complex to work him like a dog. 

Hell, Grace even put in the panic attacks. You artists out there know the panic attacks I’m talking about, the ones that hit when you realize you’re doing nothing but getting old.

I can even understand why the narrator held on to his job, horrible as it was. He pays off his car insurance by the end of the story, but has no other jobs or gigs lined up when he quits. That's the insidious hook of any job: it doesn't give you the energy to look for a better one. The narrator's problems are compounded by an almost crippling clothes addiction, which leaves him with a closetful of clothes he can't wear and no savings.


Quitting a job under those conditions is either brave or stupid, or a little bit of both. I couldn't help but admire the narrator's courage at flipping his employer the finger, but I also felt my gut sink as he left his last day of paid work.

I've gone through all of this, even quit a poisonous job once. It's unpleasant to read about, but also strangely comforting to know that someone else has gone through what I have and survived.

It doesn't help that Grace is haunted by the "ghosts" of former boyfriends. They're not the real, hungry dead kind of ghost, but they might as well be. In fact, he crashed his car because he got distracted thinking about one of them, forcing him to seek a "real" job at the department store to pay his bills. These ghosts, like his job, keep him from opening up to his current boyfriend, and it's telling that they only disappear once he quits his job.

As I may have mentioned here and here, I like stories with a psychological hook. This is no different, and when I got to that panel where he finally dispelled the ghosts of his past and could completely open up to his boyfriend, it felt good.

Felt mighty good, indeed.

To sum up, Not My Bag, though a little dense on the retail detail, is a good summary of what it's like to be an artist in this or any other job market. If you're an artist, you'll want to read it to know that you're not alone, and if you know an artist, you'll want to read it to know what he's going through.

Not My Bag is available for $10 at Grace's online shop.