Y’know, Sometimes Stuff Does Suck, But Not Here
So there was beer at the Peculier last night with the usual crowd, plus Chris Hastings (newly of DFP) and by one of those odd coincidences that proves just how incestuous webcomics really are, the best friend of Liz Greenfield (also newly of DFP). “Oh,” she said, “you’re the Fleen guy.” That makes her at least the fourth person that’s referred to me that way … I’m thinking I need some business cards printed up. Anyway, Norna (sorry for not catching your last name) wanted to know why we haven’t written up Stuff Sucks yet; I told her I had intended to hold off a bit yet, wait for the story to hit a break point, but screw that. It’s damn good work and it’s time we acknowledged it. So here’s everything you need to know about Stuff Sucks:
Liz Greenfield is actually John Cusack.
Stay with me here. Check out the parallels in the cast: Daniel is a man-child, not always successful in being what his girlfriend wants him to be. Tony has a record store just to have a place to keep his collection. Aaron & Mike have the same conversation/argument over and over and over again; oh, sure, it’s different words, but it’s really the same conversation. Nicole is (was?) Daniel’s wealthy girlfriend who’s never been satisfied with the way he is. And there’s schemers in the form of Leo and Zemi, with grand plans (some of which target Daniel directly for special mind-games and life-ruining). I’m still trying to figure out where the fish fits in this model, but he does. Oh yes, he does.
And how do explain this? Faced with Nicole dumping Daniel (side effect of a cruel prank by Zemi), Tony heads to Nicole’s house for a little musical warfare á la Lloyd Dobler to try to get her to take Daniel back. But Greenfield knows that in the real world, there’s no boombox-induced awww, that’s sooooo romantic reaction. In the real world after a stunt like this there’s retaliation, escalation, and incarceration.
The loopy and appealling characters are wrapped in an open, clean-line art style that puts me in mind of a combination of Vera Brosgol, Raina Telgemeier, and Tyler Page. The writing is a prime example of show, don’t tell; even with first two dozen strips being reworked and currently unavailable, the reader has no problems dropping into the story at strip #25. Like walking into a well-written movie after the first reel, it only takes a moment to get the gist of the story because the characters are so well-developed. We might chafe at being forced to wait a week to see what happens next, but for the characters it’s all happening too fast as they try to adjust to this sometimes-sucky thing called life.
