“And I could write it down or spread it all around, get lost and then get found and you’ll come back to me”
Elle Shivers is the creator of The Sucker, which is published by Silver Sprocket. Let us take a look at it!
As I was reading this and then when I finished it, I kept thinking, “Man, I wish this was longer.” It’s 54 pages long, and while Shivers gets a lot out of those 54 pages, this work is so close to being marvelous and it feels like its length keeps as just “pretty darned good.” Shivers is telling a cautionary environmental fable that turns into a love story, and neither quite, quite works as well as it could. 
It’s very frustrating. In the beginning, EJ, who’s a marine biologist, is asked to be part of a task force to survey a small island in the West Philippine Sea for its development potential (I’m not sure if the island is fictional – Shivers places it to the west of Palawan Island). She is asked to recommend a photographer, and she gets Dani, whom she knew in high school, on board. While diving off the coast, they discover an odd-looking squid that seems to be of a species that scientists thought was long extinct. It disrupts electromagnetic waves, so electronics don’t work very well on the island, and if the island is going to be developed, that’s an issue. Dani becomes fascinated by the squid, but EJ tells the project leader about it, and he tells the developers, and they want to drag the squid out of the water and examine it, which Dani doesn’t think is a great idea. She and EJ, who have some kind of contentious history, begin a kind of half-hearted affair, which is a bit rocky because Dani wants to save the squid while EJ knows that the developers are indomitable. If you want to know how it shakes out … well, you’ll have to read the book, won’t you? I mean, do developers ever really get stopped for environmental reasons?
It’s nice that Shivers leaves some things kind of vague, but it’s also frustrating, because the things they leave vague are somewhat crucial for the story. The romance between EJ and Dani, for instance, stems from an incident that happened in school, when Dani did something not nice to EJ, and while we know what it is, it seems odd that they get together if EJ is really not happy with what Dani did. We find out what happened after they get together, too, yet it seems like EJ can’t let it go even then. 
Dani makes the first move, and it seems like EJ is passive about it, and then when things get rough, she throws Dani under the bus pretty quickly. It’s unclear what the point of the romance is – it’s not like the schism between EJ and Dani over the squid needs the romance to show the divide between them, and if Shivers isn’t going to invest a lot into the romance, their rupture doesn’t land terribly well. Even before the romance, we get a pretty decent sense of who these two people are, so their “break” has some impact. Dani has an unusual relationship with the squid, and early on, it seems like Shivers is going to go really weird with it, but they don’t, really, and Dani’s desire to save the squid is just concern for its (she calls it “her,” but who knows) well-being and not anything romantic (even what actually happens to the squid is vague!). Both EJ and Dani are interesting if not completely fully-formed characters, EJ especially, as she seems much more conflicted about the squid. That’s a bit of a problem, too, as EJ seems to turn with the wind fairly quickly, and while it’s not the worst way to portray a character because it shows a kind of moral conflict and what we do when confronted with forces more powerful than we are and when it’s time to take a stand, that’s only hinted at, again because the book feels too short. The romance, the environmental concerns, the idea of modern capitalism destroying unique things and even scientists destroying unique things in the name of science, the idea of moving on from our past – all of that is in this book, but Shivers simply doesn’t do enough with any of them. It’s frustrating.
The book is beautiful, though – Shivers has a clean, almost stark line that throws everything into sharp relief, and when they need to use a brush for thicker lines, it’s exquisite. 
They do nice work with the characters – just EJ’s large round glasses and Dani’s wind-swept blonde hair give us hints about their personalities, and the way they interact with each other, even before the stalled affair, is very well done. The squid is terrific, too – squid are already weird-looking, and Shivers adds a few touches to it that makes it more pansexual, so we can see why Dani is drawn to it, as it’s beautiful and, well, kind of sexy. Shivers does a nice job showing how much happier Dani is under the water around the squid that she is even around EJ, and the art does a good job implying far more about the relationships in this book than the writing often does. Shivers gives us a view of an unspoiled wilderness, and even before Dani expresses her feelings about the development project and what it will make this corner of the world look like, we know it will be a disaster. The art on the book is very good, and it makes the vagueness of the story a bit more frustrating.
I’m torn about this book, because I liked it and wished it were longer, because it feels like Shivers leaves a lot to the readers’ imagination, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but there’s a fine line to walk between engaging the readers so they have to make some leaps and asking them to do too much heavy lifting, and it feels like Shivers comes down on the wrong side of that line. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m the only one reading this right here! It’s a fascinating idea that has a lot of story possibilities, many of which Shivers simply brushes up against, and it’s vexing. It’s obvious that Shivers knows how to make a good comic, and this is a pretty good one, just … vaguely unsatisfying. Sigh.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
