Serenity is an OEL Manga written by Buzz Dixon (yes, that Buzz Dixon) and drawn by Min Kwon, at least until the artist change. It depicts the adventures of a teenager named Serenity Harper who, underneath her scrappy and obnoxious exterior, is a girl who only wants to be loved and accepted. After transferring to a new school, she draws the notice of the school's Christian prayer club, who decides to help her find her place whether she wants it or not. The manga chronicles Serenity's ensuing dilemmas as she tries to find peace and meaning in her life through Christianity.
The manga ran for ten volumes and concluded in 2008. however, Dixon did occasionally post dialog comics featuring the cast on his blog and isn't entirely done with their stories.
The characters include:
- Serenity, the main character, who comes from a broken home and troubled past. While the manga doesn't show her doing these things, she has used drugs and has participated in premarital sex in the past.
- Derek, de facto leader of the prayer group and Kimberly's boyfriend.
- Kimberly, Derek's girlfriend. Often harbors negative thoughts about Serenity and has tried to outdo her once or twice since Serenity began to try and draw Derek's attention towards her. Lives with a strict pastor father who also heads the prayer club, so you know where this is headed.
- Sally, the youngest member of the group. Her mom is disabled and it's shown that she prays to God to help her mom heal. Constantly makes dreadful jokes.
- Lori, who is often Serenity's go-to girl for the deeper religious questions.
- Tim, the big guy. He is passionate about making movies and also serves as the DJ during a rave the characters attend. It is mentioned once that he stays busy so he has an excuse not to date and be lonely, and the plot point is never resolved.
- Eddie, the kid who kinda blends into the background. Serenity forces him to take her to the movies at one point in an attempt to make Derek jealous. It doesn't work.
The manga has gained some notoriety on 4chan, where it was hated by Anonymous for portraying the prayer group as a bunch of creeps who claim to love Serenity but not like her, for giving Serenity a massive stroke of bad luck as if God Himself is out to get her, and for overall lazy artwork and writing. Normal 4chan reactions, to be sure... until Christians also reported in to denounce the comic's backwards message. Nowadays, 4chan's /co/ board hosts a yearly re-reading of the series.
Suffice it to say, Serenity's Christian subject matter is ripe for debate.
Absolutely no relation to Joss Whedon's Firefly film of the same name.
Serenity contains examples of:
- Author Appeal: There are WAY too many close shots of Serenity's bare feet for this to be anything else.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: The ugliest characters in the comic are Serenity's mother (who was a hippie in her youth and may or may not be Pagan), and Mrs. Baxter, the Hollywood Atheist, while the more "attractive" characters are all either Christian, or Serenity.
- Beware the Nice Ones: After she's egged on by Serenity, Sally proves that she is a fuckin' swear master when she wants to be. She explains she learned it from her drill sergeant uncle.
- Be Yourself: In volume ten, Serenity learns that changing for the better is one thing, and changing who you are is another.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The entire Prayer Club really but special mentions go to Kimberly, who keeps an eye out for Serenity at all times; and Sally, the youngest member of the group who specializes in bad puns and blackmail.
- Brutal Honesty: Lori's telling Serenity that her group "loves her but does not like her" directly wasn't a really good idea.
- Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs: Serenity's breakfast food of choice is the weirdly unsubtle "Brightly Colored Sugar Junk", which looks a lot like Fruity Pebbles. Like most things she used to enjoy, Serenity gets rid of it in Volume 10.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Serenity drops a ton of these in the first volume.
- Covert Pervert: Eddie. Lori to a lesser degree, seen when she hears Serenity talking about an urge she's been suppressing ever since she got her leg broken and her mind immediately goes to the gutter.
- Cue the Flying Pigs: In volume ten, when Serenity volunteers to lead the prayer, we see a Super-Deformed devil seeing snow.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: In volume 9 Eddie confesses to Serenity that his babysitter raped him when he was eleven; specifically, that she "thought it would be 'cute' if she initiated [him]", which gave him an unhealthy fascination with sex in a G-rated version of Promiscuity After Rape. The line is delivered with a look of absolute horror and leaves no doubt to the fact that it's traumatized Eddie completely. Serenity's response is to say that "EVERY guy is obsessed with sex!" and the subject is never brought up again.
- Egg Sitting: One time, Serenity and her class are made to do an egg sitting assignment, with Serenity herself going solo. The story never gets to spend time on the assignment, given Serenity vehemently denies ever doing so, but things take a turn for the dark when she has to care for a real baby she discovered abandoned in a dumpster.
- Flipping the Bird: "Whoops! Can't show that in a Christian manga!"
- Good Costume Switch: After deciding to devote her life entirely to God, Serenity dyes her hair a normal brown and starts wearing a long, conservative dress. Ultimately subverted when it is hammered home that the changes that caused her to adopt this outfit were in some ways as bad for her as her old lifestyle. She switches back to her old costume style in the end, but keeps God and her changes for the better.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Invoked for the neighborhood "Harvest House", as one of the recurring attractions every year is a clinic with a woman dying of an abortion. In-series, while Serenity's mother does imply that she would be fine if her daughter carried the term to pregnancy or not, the story portrays her decision to keep Serenity as one of her few redeeming points.
- Haunted House: One of the dialog comics has the cast try to come up with ideas for their neighborhood's yearly Harvest House, which is a comparatively sanitized Haunted House filled with mundanger rather than monsters and demons. In previous years, they had segments where kids were mourning the loss of their parents, a prostitute finding out she has AIDS, and the tragic aftermath of an abortion gone wrong. Needless to say, none of the kids are thrilled to do so and only Kimberly objects to changing the concept, if only because it's the only thing the adults will let them do.
- Hollywood Atheist: Ms. Baxter, one of Serenity's teachers, is so obviously a strawman for the stubborn atheist that she should wear a neon sign.
- Innocent Innuendo: In volume six, after Serenity finally gets her cast removed from her leg, she finally gives in to her urges (rape face and all)... to scratch that itch in her leg!
- It Makes Sense in Context: The Purity Test chapters are mostly comprehensible, but outside of a few select questions the cast only refers to each thing they have/haven't done by its corresponding number. This makes things like Serenity and her mother's argument hard to follow (For future reference: if you would like to know what they're talking about, see here
). - Kick the Dog: Mr. Grandy admits in the last volume that he's glad that Serenity was brainwashed because "somebody had to do it". To be fair, that's how Ms. Baxter put it (no surprise here), and Mr. Grandy had no idea how empty Serenity was feeling with all that radical change she was doing to herself.
- Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Whether she likes it or not, Serenity ends up picking up some of the habits of her friends, and even finds religion. It's also inverted—officially, Serenity's presence in their lives is supposed to get them thinking about the world beyond what they've been brought up to know in their Christian communities, and they loosen up a lot while with her.
- Love Triangle: The big one in this series is Serenity/Derek/Kimberly. Derek and Kimberly are already going out, but Serenity is smitten with him and Kimberly clearly acknowledges her as a romantic rival. Derek knows all too well both of their feelings, but decides to stay with Kimberly and work things out with her.
- Omake: From volumes seven to ten, the second halves are fan films that Tim made with his friends.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Even after the prayer club becomes friends with Serenity, they never cease reminding her of how bad she used to be. Granted, good friends can make fun of each other in a friendly way, but judging by how the prayer club used to treat her...
- Parents as People: Serenity's mother gets more focus than any of the other parents in this series. She may be an overworked, weed-smoking and sometimes overbearing mother, but she genuinely does care for Serenity and doesn't know how to help her or if she should help her. Over the course of the manga she and her daughter come to some sort of understanding.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Sally, whose bad puns are often the subject of Kimberly's ire or get her into trouble with her friends.
- Police Are Useless: After a police officer visits Serenity's house, Serenity's mom promptly freaks, rushes to the bathroom, and starts flushing things down the toilet. Despite this suspicious behavior, the officer never tries to find out what Serenity's mom is doing. And judging by what the manga shows us about her mother, she was probably flushing drugs.
- Real Is Brown: Serenity's makeover in volume 10. It didn't last long, fortunately.
- Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: Before finding faith, Serenity's life consisted of going out, taking drugs, and getting into trouble. She's also a huge fan of punk and rock groups, and very pointedly throws out all her merchandise when she wants to turn over a new leaf in Volume 10. Even when she's convinced to keep some of her eccentricities, she doesn't turn back to rock.
- Shout-Out:
- During a story featuring Eddie, he places the prayer group girls in fantasies that team them up with characters like Inuyasha and James Bond. In the same chapter, Eddie also imagines Serenity dressed as Harley Quinn.
- In the fan film of volume seven, Serenity gets to be a Red Shirt. This is even lampshaded.
- In the fan film of volume eight, three kids are dressed like Bart Simpson, Milhouse and Charlie Brown.
- Shy Blue-Haired Girl: Serenity is definitely shy and smart enough to find questions and holes in things the other characters can't or wont even explain, but her aggressiveness sometimes subverts this.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Serenity starts the story as a crude, trouble-making delinquent who hides her loneliness by pushing others away. By getting roped into the Prayer Circle, she's become more mindful of her own actions and makes real efforts to reach out to others. By Volume 10, however, she's become too mindful of her own actions and takes her personality the complete opposite way.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Serenity really knows her fashion.
- We Want Our Jerk Back!: In Volume 10. Not only do Serenity's two closest friends want her to return to being herself, but the readers, too. She does return.
