I recently finished Gene Yang & Derek Kim's three story graphic novel collection The Eternal Smile and while I thought the book was okay, and certainly beautiful to look at, it seemed to be a bit manipulative. I don't mean that in an "attempt to control your mind and take over the world" kind of way (that would be very very bad!) but it was like the authors sat down and tried to think of the best spin to put on the stories so they could get the emotional response they wanted. But they were obvious spins and for the first two stories in particular, I saw them coming a mile away.

Warning - spoilers ahead!

I'm sure the first story, "Duncan's Kingdom" was in an episode of Twilight Zone oh wait, I'm wrong - it was in Superman! I knew I read something like this somewhere. Basically you have a teen who has been horribly injured who has a fantasy life while in his coma where he is the hero. Strange things keep happening however that make Duncan think life in the kingdom is not quite right. He keeps pushing it, asking questions, etc and suddenly has to confront himself and, of course, make the choice to wake up. And of course he does because hey - Duncan is a hero and they always do the right thing!

Saw that coming a mile away.

There was also a Buffy episode with a kid in a coma who makes everyone else's nightmares come true - but he still had to wake up to confront the truth. (And Faith had a fantasy life to a certain degree while in a coma and yeah - had to confront her truth by waking up.) In other words, nothing new here and it's just to make Duncan sympathetic as his real story is so tragic.

From there you have a kinda crazy story about frogs and other woodland creatures manipulated through technology by an evil Disney character who keeps them on tv 24 hours a day in an artificial environment where they are have human-like lives in a little town. One frog busts out, has a confrontation with the boss and then sees the pond he was stolen from out the window. And of course he gives up the tv world and all the glory (and fans and fame) to go live back in the pond and be a frog (the transmitter gets pulled off in the water). Frogs would rather be in the wild, in case you were wondering.

The third story, "Urgent Request" was the one I liked the best although again, it broadcasted the plot a mile away. The protagonist is a rather drab young woman with a dead end job where she is endlessly picked on by her mean boss (pretty typical cubical warfare). She engages in an email correspondence with a version of the ever famous spamming "Nigerian Prince" who, of course, needs money and Janet gives it to him. She goes one further though and tracks him down electronically - to the nearby college where he is, of course, an idiot student who most certainly is not Nigerian or a prince. She isn't angry though, as the relationship with the Nigerian Prince had given her a fantasy life she needed - in fact the only life she has. So they have a meal and Janet imagines all that could have been if he was a Nigerian Prince who had chosen her for his bride and sends the greedy student on his way and goes back to work where with her new fake-Africa influenced spine, she goes to confront her boss. The art in this story was especially good and I loved that - in fact I really liked Janet - but it was all so bloody convenient. She let her jerk boss be mean to her but took the time to track a guy committing an electronic crime and needed to spend time with his fantasy in order to be brave? Wasn't she brave (and smart) already?

Please. She's Thelma from Scooby Doo and that girl always figured out the mystery. She didn't need any kind of fantasy to get the job done and neither does Janet. Not if you're being honest to the character anyway.

The whole time I was reading this collection, I kept thinking someone was following a formula for each story and the further I read the more obvious the hoop leaping became. Each story ended exactly as I thought it would. Exactly. And I know I'm an adult but I don't think much was put past the average teenager here. Does every story have to be The Sixth Sense? No - unless you're trying to surprise me. If that's the case then you need to succeed, or don't even try. I think a lot of adults will say this book is just fine for kids but I don't think that's fair. Kids read Superman too, you know. They'll see this one coming a mile away.