Sugar Glider

A long time ago... well about a month and a half ago anyway, I attended an event called the Canny Comic Con, in Newcastle city library. I could wax lyrical about what a great day it was, but others more eloquent than I have already done that, and they didn't wait over a month to do it, so I'll just say I had a fantastic time and move right along to the purpose of this post.

It's a somewhat embarrassing confession, for someone who claims to be a comics fan, but I've never actually bought, or read, anything from the UK indie/small press scene. It's down in large part to the fact that, aside from 2000AD, and more recently Clint and Strip, buying individual comics at all has simply not been my thing; I'm a trade paperback man, all the way. That came to a definitive end at the con though, when I walked away considerably lighter in the wallet and somewhat laden down with some new titles to try; one of which I shall now waffle about for a while.


Written by Daniel Clifford, with art from Gary Bainbridge, Sugar Glider is set in and around the city of Newcastle, and even someone like myself; who visits the city only semi-regularly and pretty much keeps his head down on the trudge between the 3 or 4 shops he visits (I'd only just discovered the above mentioned library's existence a week or so before the con was announced, and it's not exactly a small building); was able to recognise a few landmarks in the art which, sad though it may be to admit, did add a certain frisson to the reading experience; akin to seeing your home town on the telly, I suppose.

The story is that of Susie Sullivan (Clifford is obviously a Falcon Crest aficionado), a young girl struggling to figure out her place in life while all around her seem so sure of themselves; and have some pretty set ideas about her, too. In an attempt to escape the boredom and rigidity of the life her family is so keen for her to live, she adopts the identity of Sugar Glider, and becomes Newcastle's very own vigilante protector.

I'm not a big fan of superhero comics in general but Sugar Glider won me over instantly, and not just because of the 'home town' novelty. Susie is an engaging and endearing lead, not least because her own insecurities match so closely my own at her age; minus the sporting career of course, because let's not get carried away; and the supporting cast on the domestic front are all instantly recognisable to anyone who's ever, well, had a family. What teenager hasn't chafed at the confines of babysitting duty? Whose Mother didn't routinely stamp up the stairs with the familiar "I'll kill her/him" refrain, spilling from their lips? And what teenager hasn't had that one friend, who could so easily become that little bit more?

These characters and Susie's relationships with them, so effectively and economically presented to us by Clifford, are what make the comic come alive. Susie isn't distanced from her charges by wealth or status, like your Batmans, or the lack of same like Spider-Man, or by pure dint of biology like Superman or your X-laddies; she is, in a very real sense, one of them.

It will be very interesting to see where the 'soap opera' aspect of the series goes in future issues. The comic certainly wastes no time playing with it, giving us a moment at the end of #1 that I suspect most series would have teased and withheld for months or even years, resulting in a very different 'staus quo' for #2 than we might have been expecting.

Family life aside though, what of the heroics? One of the 'back of my mind' worries about buying single issues was always the threat of long breaks between releases; something compounded in the case of small press comics by the fact that these people obviously have day jobs to be dealing with; and so the possibilty of losing the thread of the tale, but the format they've chosen for these issues is the 'case of the week with a bit of world building in the background' model and it works really well, neatly sidestepping that problem by giving us a complete tale in each issue.

Tales which, costumes aside, are as rooted in the day to day as the soap opera elements. The 'villains' are as out of their depth as Susie is, pushed to their actions by their dissatisfaction with their lives and the world around them. There's no Doctor Octopus or Viktor Von Doom here, nor even a Kingpin or a Lex Luthor; just ordinary people forced to extremes. There are hints in #1, and much bigger hints in #2, that this may change in future stories, but for now it's refreshing.

I've talked a lot about the story so far, because frankly I always feel a bit out of my depth when I discuss art in comics. I am very much the embodiment of the old 'I know what I like' cliche, but seem to be totally incapable of putting into words just why I like something.

So, I hope Gary Bainbridge can forgive my apparently giving his contributions short shrift, because I can assure you that his work is as much a part of why I loved these issues as Clifford's story was. It's not the cleanest art, and it has a very cartoonish style which I think normally would have put me off (if pushed on my art preferences, I usually offer up 'I like realistic stuff better' as a half hearted response), but in this instance it works brilliantly. For me, anyway.


So, engaging characters you want to spend time with, exciting adventure stories you can actually enjoy without waiting months for the ending, and really nice artwork (even if I can't tell you why it's nice). All in all, I can't recommend this title enough. You can find out more about it here and if you're so inclined, you can buy it here. You can thank me later.