With the growth in technology increasing our abilities to communicate with other expanding our ideas on television, music and art, the comic form has taken on a newtwist. The online forum offers opportunities to new and underground artists allowing them to get their work out there seen by a worldwide audience. Appealing to most, the comic book industry is still somewhat of a guy’s game, which begs the question: where are the women at? Well, no worries, it didn’t take long to locate a great find – Liz Greenfield’s Stuff Sucks.
Originally from Amsterdam, Liz Greenfield grew up in a musical family, traveling with bands and cultivating her own sense of imagination. In an interview with this author and Greenfield, Liz says: “I generally kept a travel journal while touring around with bands. This quickly resulted in myriad imaginary worlds peopled by countless characters, based on my youthful, naive perceptions of grown-up behavior (between ages 6-12). And believe me, musicians are exceptional characters.”
Raised by parents who were musicians, Liz did take on various instruments but, in the end (and with no pressure to pursue a musical career from her family), Liz found comics. She worked on a couple of other online comics that are no longer in publication and is now out on her own, Stuff Sucks is a solo effort.
The Comic:
The story of Stuff Sucks revolves around the main character Daniel. Daniel is the everyman, that guy that everyone knows from high school but no one really keeps in touch with. He mainly spends his time working at a local record store when he isn’t fielding guilt trips from his mother via her weekly telephone call. Finally ready to commit to his long-time girlfriend things don’t turn out like he had planned. Daniel’s boss, Tony, is the official music know-it-all record store owner. Eccentric in his ways, Tony falls for the wrong woman and keeps the store in such disarray that he is the only one to be able to find anything in it and that’s the way he likes it.
Then there’s Zemi, the woman of Tony’s dreams, bad luck follows Daniel the moment she enters the store. You can’t say that she has a heart of gold so much as she is a thief with con-artist goals but no follow-through or ambition to back it up and her sites are locked on Daniel. After their first encounter, Zemi walks out of the record shop toting a couple of stolen items and Daniel’s day begins to take a downward spiral.
Other characters are, Daniel’s friends Aaron and Mike, Aaron is the trendy cool metrosexual friend who loyally tolerates Mike the loveable Neanderthal with a one-track mind and a baseball cap that tells you exactly what’s on his mind. The girlfriend Nicole who lives off of daddy’s cash and exudes the frustration of being with a man who won’t commit and a second man who is lacking any real emotion. Zemi’s partner Leo the hot tempered bad boy who serves as her mentor in the fine art of the con. Imogen the young and naïve girl living under a rock but is earnest in her efforts to learn about music, recruiting Tony to teach her music and the world outside. And finally we have Blinky, Daniel’s pet fish, the silent on-looker of the comic. Emotionless and expressionless Blink says nothing yet his lack of expression that allows the reader to infer any possible opinions.
The Style:
Veering away from the content, the look of this comic is very soft and simplistic. The lines are thick but the overall coloring is muted. Heavy on the grays, Stuff Sucks is accented with pinks, oranges or greens which add a unique and unassuming feel for the story. The art doesn’t compete with the storyline but weaves itself in silently. The storyline has the tone of the television show “Friends” or the book “High Fidelity”, full of interesting characters that may or may not know what they want and may or may not want to go after whatever that is. Her musical history’s influence shows up nicely as well. With all of that in mind, the reader ends up with fun read, characters that are so realistic it’s easy to get invested in what happens to them and a desire to know what will happen next.
Read more about Liz Greenfield and the latest issue of Stuff Sucks
