Motor Girl

Somewhere in the California desert, Samantha — “Sam” to her friends — runs a dusty auto junkyard, sifts through scrap metal for a living, and chatters happily with her enormous, invisible best friend: Mike, a gorilla only she can see. Sam is a veteran dealing with the scars of war, and Mike is the coping mechanism she doesn’t quite understand. Then a UFO crashes nearby, and suddenly the imaginary gorilla seems a lot less weird than what’s actually happening.

The story

Motor Girl is Terry Moore’s warmest, funniest book — a deliberate tonal pivot from the unrelenting darkness of Rachel Rising. But under the laughs it’s a story with real weight: Sam’s PTSD, her grief, and her reluctant heroism when government agents come knocking about the saucer in the sand. As the cover-up tightens, Sam discovers Mike may be more than a figment, the aliens may be more than a joke, and a burnt-out veteran might be exactly the person the world needs when everything goes sideways.

Moore balances slapstick gorilla gags with genuinely moving meditation on trauma, friendship, and moving forward after the worst has already happened. It’s the kind of book that makes you laugh out loud on one page and tear up on the next.

Publication history

Written, drawn, and lettered by Moore and published through his Abstract Studio imprint, Motor Girl ran 10 issues from November 2016 to November 2017, collected into two volumes — Real Life and No Man Left Behind — and a single omnibus edition the following year. Sam later returns as Katchoo and Francine’s bodyguard in the Terryverse crossover Five Years, and Moore told CBR that everything he draws is “all one thing, all one world” — a shared universe that began with Strangers in Paradise.

Perfect for fans of Ghostbusters’ odd-couple charm, the heartfelt weirdness of Gravity Falls, and comedy that sneaks up on you with real emotion.