By Jordan Morris and Bowen McCurdy

I’ve been listening to the Jordan, Jesse, Go! podcast on MaximumFun lately (Jordan and Jesse are very funny and a little spicy), and Jordan Morris has just released his new graphic novel Youth Group. Set among a Christian church youth group, I wasn’t at all sure this was my sort of thing, but figured it couldn’t hurt to check it out from the library.

However, Morris treats everything with astonishing nuance and empathy, particularly for a story that revolves around said youth group exorcising the demons that are haunting the world. He truly captures the teenage spirit in a way that is incredibly rare, and had me laughing out loud multiple times. McCurdy’s art is also gorgeous, which goes a long way for me in a graphic novel.

There’s been lots of comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, understandably, and while it isn’t as similar as one would think with the topic, it captures a lot of the same feeling I had when I first watched Buffy way back when: utter delight! (It was really, really nice to revisit that feeling after the subsequent stories about Joss Whedon tainted it.) Youth Group takes the usually overly grimdark genre of religious horror and makes it light and funny and caring and surprisingly inclusive. And the art matches it perfectly, bright and colorful and just fun!