Chicagoland Detective Agency: The Drained Brains Caper by Trina Robbins, illustrated by Tyker Oage

Megan Yamamura, anime lover, and writer of haiku, has just moved to Chicagoland and unfortunately for her, is now starting summer school at Stepford Preparatory Academy.  Megan knows something strange is going on on her first day: why are all the kids so...weird?  Will she be able to find out what's going on at Stepford Prep?  Or will she become one of them?

As the name of the school suggests, all the kids were being brainwashed by an evil scientist.  Megan is captured, but escapes with the help of Raf, her computer programmer friend.  The two manage to destroy the evil scientist's computer program and free all the kids.  They also find a super intelligent talking dog, which they free and take home.  The three then form the Chicagoland Detective Agency.

I've read a few graphic novels by Trina Robbins, and they're always fine.  Some better than others.  I love reading her histories of comics.  I think that is her strong point, rather than the fictional stories.

I read the first two Chicagoland stories: The Drained Brains Caper and The Maltese Mummy.  It looks like the bad guy is the same in each story.  She always escapes at the end, and will no doubt keep showing up to cause more mischief.

While neither plot nor dialogue is especially stunning, what I did like was that the fact that Megan's a girl and Raf's a boy played no part whatsoever.  Sometimes Megan needs saving, and sometimes Raf needs saving and they work together and help each other out.  They have different strengths and weakness.  So that was nice.

The art is black and white, and clearly manga influenced.  Mostly traditional panels, with a few full-paged spreads.