My Hot Date is the Ignatz award-winning (2016, Outstanding Story) short comic telling the true story of author Noah Van Sciver’s first date as a 14 year old kid growing up in the suburbs of Arizona. The artwork is amazingly colorful and fun, and the dialogue and look help to capture the feelings and attitude of the time both in society and in a young boys life.
Anyone coming of age in the late nineties will be familiar with the songs, films and styles referenced by the author to create a real sense of what it was like growing up in suburban America in the nascent days of online dating.
The events building up to the first meeting of someone you have only conversed with online ring emotionally true, and the art does a wonderful sense of conveying Van Sciver’s emotional state. Van Sciver is very open with how uncool he felt on the inside while trying to convey the urban tough guy image so popular among a certain subset of suburban youth of the 90’s. Being the same age as the author, I truly related to his tales of wanting to fit in, act “street” and find love in the time of AOL Instant Messenger, including sharing almost the exact same experience of using my home printer to print out an image of a certain Spice Girl.