45 Days Of CCS, #6: Steve Thueson

Steve Thueson's comics are in that sweet spot between comedy and straight-ahead genre stories, with a heavy helping of slacker dialogue. Whether it's fantasy comics, kids' adventure comics, or a horror spoof with his The Night Never Ends, Thueson is careful to give the reader a satisfying genre story as the foundation for his nonsense. The beauty of doing slasher-style horror is that the best examples of that genre work in a lot of character development stuff, especially early on. Creating memorable characters gives your story greater stakes for the audience, rather than a series of anonymous victims. 

Thueson establishes that a group of friends who are starting to age out of youthful shenanigans are getting together for the birthday of Kate, who is turning 30. She wants to hang out at a well-known abandoned house that is rumored to be haunted. Her childhood Brett is there, along with Kate's friend Trey, who is hilariously detached from everything going on. Also attending are a couple, Alison and Em. It's very much a modern-day quintet, with multiple queer characters, including a non-binary person in Trey. 

Trey is an incredible character, in that they embody every Gen-Z stereotype imaginable. From their ridiculous mullet to their facial tattoos to their Instagram handle (anarchocumslut69), Thueson creates a hilarious and recognizable caricature of a person who is constantly glued to their phone, speaks in mostly monosyllables, and is totally disinterested in interacting with anyone. At one point, as the group is using a Ouija board as part of Kate's birthday fun, Trey suggests going to a secret concert. Trey is just the worst, in so many ways. 

This could have led to a perfectly fine slice-of-life comic involving all of these characters. Instead, Thueson essentially shoves all of these characters into an entirely unconnected narrative involving a group of murderous cultists who are using human sacrifice in an attempt to complete some kind of satanic ceremony. What they are actually doing is completely irrelevant; they are just a plot device to kick-start a long chase scene, as the group of friends runs away on foot. Thueson cleverly removed the one thing that would have short-circuited the plot: Kate is mad that her friends are on their phones, so she grabs them and throws them in a closet. Being separated from technology forces them to try other solutions, but it also forces Kate and Brett to re-examine the last vestiges of their fading youth and how everyone is reacting to growing older. 

The climax of the story smartly brings in a dangling plot thread as a sort of deus ex machina, and it doesn't skimp on blood-splattering violence, a house in flames falling down around everyone, and over-the-top thrills that the slacker protagonists must endure. Thueson's overall character design is a little more boring in a more conventional setting than in their fantasy comics and sometimes relies too much on agitated character expressions. There's not much in the way of subtlety in their cartooning, and while it works well for the action sequences, it's not quite as interesting in the quieter character moments. That said, the book fits like a glove in Silver Sprocket's catalog, as it's pop punk in its purest form. It's definitely a cousin to Benji Nate's Hell Phone, with a tighter focus on action than character mysteries. As always, Thueson's dialogue is hilarious and sustains even the slower scenes, and they have a wonderful handle on how group dynamics work.