2023 EDIT:
Reread: I deduce and report that I'm not into 'Goldie Vance' in, well, anything, anymore. To me the first volume reads as being very short and shallow. The mystery story is not well developed, there are holes and easy-ways-out, and plot points and characters - even villains - are forgotten about or glossed over at the end.
I now find Goldie to be a highly obnoxious, reckless, selfish, thoughtless, irresponsible and criminal hero - she actually almost gets people killed here, and she doesn't care. Some of the other characters are not much better. They range from being morally grey to just pathetic.
But, on the positive side, the art is great and colourful, and the comic is easy and breezy enough that it can be a starting point for getting people into the comics medium. It has good sapphic representation, too.
It's a shame 'Goldie Vance' didn't entertain me or keep my attention enough for me to keep it.
Read my review of 'Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit', which in hindsight further explains my thoughts on Goldie herself, and the series as a whole.
Final Score: 3/5
Original (and very dated) Review:
I came across 'Goldie Vance' from a list of comics with LBGTQ content, online (where else?). Because it's about a girl sleuth, it is so often compared to 'Nancy Drew' and 'Veronica Mars'. Well, I've never consumed anything Nancy-related in my life, and I seriously dislike 'Veronica Mars', so for a while I thought I'd skip 'Goldie Vance', since it didn't seem to be offering anything new or exciting, apart from the diversity of the cast. But curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I added the first volume to my Christmas list.
I'm happy I did. 'Goldie Vance', for the first several pages, isn't special. But as the plot progresses and the main character gets to interact with more people outside the hotel she lives and works in, I was suckered in.
Basically 'Goldie Vance', set in Florida in the 1960s, is about the titular biracial teenage girl, who is a valet at a hotel called Crossed Palms Resort, where her divorced dad also works. She aspires to be a detective and is always searching for clues about the latest case, partnering with Walter, the hotel's in-house detective, whom she gets on his tired case (bad pun, I know. I couldn't help it, sorry).
The comic is colourful, vibrant, nostalgic and a *ahem* tiny bit ridiculous, reminiscent of classic cartoons such as those of Hanna-Barbera (Scooby Doo, indeed), only much better drawn. The mystery of this first volume is decent and well-planned - nothing major but it's clear there are bigger adventures to come. There is over-the-top action and comedy (Mars colonization ends up here somehow), with a nice heart pulsing all the way. A great love of cars and driving is present - it is the sixties - as well as of nostalgia, cartoons and sleuthing.
The characters stand out just as well. Goldie is smart, witty, nimble, fast in every sense - in thinking, driving and acting, and adorable. You would really like to be her friend; she's a little sister figure who can hold her own. Goldie also has melancholic, self-doubting moments when solving a case, and she makes mistakes, for she is human. It's obvious she likes girls, too, so 'Goldie Vance' wasn't on that LBGTQ list for nothing, even if it isn't quite explicit (yet).
Plus she has a catchphrase: "Oh, flash!" Sweet.
Then there's her receptionist friend Cheryl who dreams of becoming an astronaut; Walter, a pretty useless and ineffectual detective even though, unlike Goldie, he is a professional; Sugar Maple, Goldie's ex-friend and rival, and the daughter of Crossed Palms's head manager, and who resembles Penelope Pitstop; Goldie's mum who works as a live mermaid at a club; Diane, the cool, beautiful record shop retailer and the girl sleuth's crush; and a load of others who are as colourful and memorable, including the bit-part ones like Skunk the skeevy, dealing racing car driver. The diversity of the cast is magnificent.
I can see 'Goldie Vance' being a Saturday morning cartoon. It is marketed as young adult, but its content isn't so "mature", nothing that kids can't handle, anyway. However, like many sleuth stories it does contain instances of the good guys committing dubious, borderline criminal acts, such as stealing and fraud, in order to solve a mystery and catch the "real" criminals. No one is perfect, though, and it is sometimes true that desperate times call for desperate measures.
'Goldie Vance' - Oh, flash! I just love its nostalgic appeal. Light but not too light, it's a fun little comic for all ages. If I didn't like the detective genre before, aside from a few Agatha Christie stories, I could do now with the spunky Goldie.
I am genuinely interested in reading more about her adventures, and seeing these characters again.
Final Score: 4/5
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