Astrid Johnson, just shy of 17, is coasting through life in a suburban English town when the imaginary friends of her childhood abruptly return. If that's not enough, she's being pursued by a decidedly unworldly trio ... and someone slipped a micky into her drink at a party.

But Astrid isn't your ordinary teenage girl. It turns out she's a changeling, one of the fey, and her lineage back inFaerie includes some pretty heavy hitters.

Suburban Glamour, written and illustrated by Jamie McKelvie, doesn't break a lot of new ground. This sort of story has been told and retold, particularly over in DC Comics' Vertigo line. But there is always room for more, if well done, and this tale deserves marks for its solid presentation. McKelvie's art is very clean and appealing, if a little stiff. His story, which focuses on a young girl's feelings of alienation and self-discovery, will probably appeal more to young female readers than anyone else. The action is slight, the inevitable conflict with the faerie world is brief and anticlimactic, and there isn't a whole lot of exposition here in regards to the fey world and its people.

All in all, the story comes up short. It's an idea that might have flourished with more development, but Suburban Glamour feels to me like a half-told tale.