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Skim (graphic novel)

2008 Graphic Novel by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ7535273
Source-derived summary

Skim is a Canadian graphic novel written by Mariko Tamaki and drawn by Jillian Tamaki. Set in 1993, in a Toronto Catholic girls high school, it is about an outsider girl called Skim.

Plot

Skim is a "not slim" sixteen-year-old Japanese-Canadian who is a student at an all-girls Catholic school. She is known as a Goth, and practices Wicca. When popular girl Katie Matthews gets dumped by her athlete boyfriend, who days later kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. With the school counsellors breathing down her neck and the popular clique (including Katie's best friend Julie Peters) forming a new club, Girls Celebrate Life (GCL), in its wake, Skim finds herself in the crosshairs, deepening her alienation. And if things cannot get more complicated, Skim starts to fall for an equally quirky teacher.

Characters

Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a.k.a. "Skim": a Wiccan, Gothic, Japanese-Canadian schoolgirl.

Katherine Farmar of The Irish Times wrote that Kim is "an unwilling outsider", "overweight, introspective, too cynical to fit in with the “normal” kids [...] but not cynical enough to maintain a veneer of cool aloofness".

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Skim (graphic novel)” as 2008 Graphic Novel by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Skim, graphic and novel.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1993—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2008. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Skim, graphic and novel providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Skim (graphic novel)”, the useful work is to connect “2008 Graphic Novel by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7535273. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1993.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Skim (graphic novel)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Skim (graphic novel) primary sources, Skim (graphic novel) archive and Skim research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Skim (graphic novel)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Skim (graphic novel)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.