It's better than it probably sounds, largely due to the author writing a slow-burn plot with natural situations coupled with a David Lynchian atmosphere. Moreover, while most of the multiracial cast belongs to the goth/punk/emo/scenester subculture (with some characters also gay or bisexual), none of them are portrayed as stereotypically as they are in other media. This even extends to the author's particular art style, which readily acknowledges the varied body types different kinds of women inherit or grow into.
Storywise, it initially centers on the daily pitfalls of Cleo Lovedrop, a local resident and college student in Wet Moon and her friends Trilby Bernarde, Mara Zuzanny and Audrey Richter. As the series progresses, Cleo enters a relationship with dorm neighbor Myrtle Turenne while the focus shifts around the cast, like the growing relationship between Trilby and her new boyfriend Martin, Mara's encounters with fellow dorm resident Natalie Ringtree, Audrey's romance and body-image problems and several other small, odd glimpses of minor characters in off-key situations. Elements of horror and paranormal mystery have begun to creep into the plot very gradually, possibly regarding Fern, a hairless, one-armed and perpetually closed-eyed heiress living in her parent's old estate near the town swamps. There's also an FBI agent with a pet monkey walking around. Not to mention an amateur crimefighter. Yeah...
As of now, six paperback volumes have been released through Oni Press, all of which can be bought here
or at your local comic book shop. For more information about Sophie Campbell, stop by her Web page or check out her DeviantArt account.
Provides examples of:
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: When Cleo bring Myrtle to her house her dad decides to entertain them with some of Cleo's "childhood poop stories".
- Martin meets Trilby's parents they are waiting outside of Trilby's apartment. They need a ride back to there house because Trilby's mom crashed the car...again.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Natalie, apparently.
- Anti-Climax: Much tension comes from Myrtle's violent behavior, culminating in her committing several attacks and an investigation from Agent David Wolfe, who believes she's a serial killer. She's not, and turns herself in after stabbing Trilby. Wolfe's investigation leads nowhere.
- Anorgasmia: Mara writes in one of her blogs that she masturbates a lot, but she has never had an orgasm.
- Anyone Can Die: Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease let Trilby be alright...
- Strongly averted: while several characters are attacked by a knife-wielding assailant, no one dies in any volume.
- Art Evolution: Sophie Campbell's art noticeably changes in several subtle ways between volumes, which she goes into detail about on a DeviantArt journal entry.
- Art Shift: When Trilby shows her parody "Nightdemon" comic book to Cleo, the art is more stylized than the look of the artist.
- Author Appeal: Large women, dyed hair, wide hips, full lips, strong muscles, shaved heads, piercings, tattoos, nerdettes, etc.
- Awesome McCoolname: Malady Mayapple, Zia Morlãn, Fall Swanhilde. Lampshaded by the cast when they realize the FBI agent's name is David Wolfe.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Trilby openly warns Martin about Cleo, going so far as to claim the present Cleo to be the "Anti-Cleo" compared to how she was in High School.
- Understandable, considering Cleo One-Hit KOs an annoying concert-goer twice her size in Volume 3.
- Bigger Is Better in Bed: Trilby claims this about her boyfriend, Martin.
- Butch Lesbian: Beth, a girl who Audrey begins seeing.
- Can't Hold Her Liquor:
- At her birthday party, Fern drinks a single can of beer, which causes her to vomit.
- At a club, Trilby has "a couple of drinks" which cause her to act drunk, become extremely sleepy,
come onto Cleo aggressively and have a bad hangover and little memory of the incident the following day. Possibly played with; as she was obtaining these drinks by flirting with men at the club (she's technically under the drinking age and can't buy them herself) and wasn't exactly being cautious, the implication, as nasty as it is, could very well be that one of her drinks was spiked.
- Carrying a Cake: Malady likes to carry pies around in her bookbag. We do not know why.
- Fall's little brother and sister once deliberately threw an entire cake at Audrey for shits and giggles.
- Cast Full of Gay
- Cat Fight: When Kinzoku catches Beth having lunch with Audrey, what ensues is more of a Cat Brawl.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Cleo is prone to these. As she's anxious most of the time, this makes her more or less a chain-smoker.
- Continuity Nod:
- In book three, page 171-3, Brody from Water Baby makes an appearance.
- And in book five Louisa makes an appearance as one of the members of the baseball team.
- Conjoined Twins: Natalie's sisters Nissa and Nora are conjoined at the head.
- Deep South: The setting of Wet Moon.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Natalie, after Mara starts visiting her.
- Trilby occasionally walks down the street barefoot, and doesn't bother to take shoes when she and Cleo visit the beach.
- Subverted with Cleo, who's disgusted when she has to walk across town barefoot.
- Domestic Abuse:
- Natalie confides in Mara that she and her mother had to run away from her father.
- Beth is physically and emotionally abusive to Audrey.
- Myrtle is emotionally abusive to Cleo.
- Dumb Blonde:Fall doesn't know when to shut her mouth when she's upset.
- Embarrassing Tattoo: Trilby gets the Borg symbol tattooed on her shoulder, despite the fact that she doesn't want people to know she's a Trekkie.
- Mara has a tattoo on her butt she's self-conscious about. Natalie is the first to see in when Mara does a nude photo shoot for her.
- Everybody Smokes: Zigzagged. Many characters smoke, but not all. Cleo smokes all the time, Mara and several other characters smoke on occasion, Trilby's an ex-smoker, and Myrtle hates smoking.
- Fan Art: Included in the back of several of the graphic novel's volumes.
- Full-Boar Action: One's spotted in the swamps during Volume 4.
- Funny Background Event
- Genki Girl: Trilby is a particularly snarky example and we love her for it.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Natalie gets a nasty one from the top of cheek diagonally down to her lower lip.
- A few of the girls are also cutters, including Myrtle and Zia.
- Goth: A rare example of the subculture being portrayed realistically, as much of the cast also dabble in Emo, Punk and Scene trends and influences, much like today's younger Goths.
- Groin Attack: Trilby playfully gives Martin one.
- Irony: Trilby's daily runs lead her into the path of Myrtle, who stabs her in an attempted murder. However, it's likely her dedication to fitness is what kept her healthy enough to survive.
- Harmful to Minors: Audrey is not pleased to find out that the twenty-something Slicer is sleeping with the fifteen-year-old Fall.
- Jerkass: The guy Cleo punched out during the Bella Morte concert, for good reason. Later makes a comeback at the comic book convention, chewing out Cleo and shoving her on the ground.
- Kudzu Plot: As the story progresses it begins to involve a possible serial killer, psychic activity, relationship struggles, and a masked vigilante. Almost none of these plotlines are resolved or explained.
- Lean and Mean: People assume this about Natalie. In reality, she's only evil sometimes.
- Love Triangle:
- The unconfident Audrey ends up attracting Kinzoku, a skinny Asian chick, and Beth, a muscular Butch Lesbian, much to Audrey's frustration.
- After a while, Mara starts pulling Cleo away from Myrtle.
- Modesty Towel: Natalie walks around with these twice in the series. Malady even tells her that she should wear something like it for a dress.
- Mind Screw: A disturbing amount of unexplained scenes, like Cleo's cat being led underneath her dorm floor by another cat, half the panels Fall appears in, and whatever the upside-down Fern-thing was that Cleo saw.
- No Communities Were Harmed: The town of Wet Moon itself is based on Savannah, Georgia, with many of the backgrounds containing clearly recognizable local landmarks and buildings.
- Not Wearing Tights: Unknown is Wet Moon's local crimefighter, but dresses in a ski mask and urban clothing.
- Pair the Spares: Egregiously used in the last volume; almost everyone in the cast ends up in a relationship with someone unexpected, from the established (Cleo and Mara), to characters who showed no previous romantic or sexual attraction ( Penny and Fern), to characters who barely interacted the entire series ( Glen and Martin are shown leaving on a road trip together, even though Martin has only shown interest in female characters previously).
- Parody: A fellow art student named Mark loves to regale chicks with his drawings of demons, and even drew up a typical 90s Antihero named Nightdemon. Trilby got in on the action and drew a "homage" Nightdemon comic that featured the titular demon turning his hand into a drill...OF JUSTICE!
- Poster-Gallery Bedroom: All the girls have them, and act as a menagerie of background Shout Outs.
- Psycho Lesbian: Myrtle is heading this way, if she's not already there.
- Red Herring: Unknown appears and seems poised to enter the plot in a big way, but never prevents any of the tragedies that strike the main cast.
- Riddle for the Ages: We never do find out who's hiding behind Unknown's mask.
- Romantic False Lead: Quite a few fans fell for the Trilby/Cleo ship after Trilby hits on Cleo while she is drunk. However, Trilby starts to fall for Martin, and Cleo begins a relationship with Myrtle and later on Mara.
- Scars Are Forever: Certain scenes allude to Natalie having a harder time recovering from her attack than she lets on.
- School Yard Bully All Grown Up: Cleo, believe it or not. She used to get sent to the principal's office fairly regularly in high school.
- Secret Identity: Nobody knows who Wet Moon's new vigilante Unknown is.
- Serial Killer: Myrtle Turenne has interesting late night activities.
- Subverted when she turns out not to have killed anyone. Agent Wolfe never finds the killer he was looking for.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Trilby is seen naked, near-naked or topless often in the series, and also is VERY sexually active with Martin. She also wears a skimpy Darkstalkers costume to a comic con.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Trilby attends a concert topless.
- Shout-Out: More than could possibly be listed here. There's all the posters of real-life bands, movies and TV shows littering the girls' rooms, the names of various Wet Moon businesses (House of Usher, Lo Pan's, Everyday Is Halloween), the time when Trilby forced Martin to watch The Chronicles of Riddick films, or when Trilby and Cleo went to a convention cosplaying as Felicia and Morrigan from Darkstalkers.
- The author also peppered the character portraits in Volumes 1-3 with lyrics to Bella Morte songs.
- The author also peppered the character portraits in Volumes 1-3 with lyrics to Bella Morte
- The Slacker: Slicer, made all the worse by him shacking up with the underage, white trash Fall.
- Sleeps in the Nude: Trilby, sometimes.
- Snark Knight: Natalie Ringtree.
- Special Guest:
- Cleo and her friends attend a concert by Bella Morte, a real life Industrial Goth band in Volume 3.
- Trilby gets to meet real-life indie comics artist Becky Cloonan when she attends a local comic-con.
- Straight Man: Trilby's supportive and accepting boyfriend Martin.
- Super Hero: Unknown, who stops muggers and serial killers.
- Tell Me About My Father: Subverted. So many people have asked Trilby about her missing parents that she doesn't care about them anymore.
- Tomboy: Trilby enjoys stereotypically male activities such as sports and drinking, has sex for fun, doesn't care about the misogyny in superhero comics, is tough, direct, devoid of body shame, and has a sophomoric sense of humor.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot
- Weight Woe: Cleo, despite the fact that she isn't the most overweight of the cast, but rather because of how much she whines about her weight, prompting Trilby to tease her in retaliation.
- Wham Episode: Volume 5, which immediately kicks off with Natalie getting her face carved open by Myrtle, then goes on to Cleo and Myrtle's first big argument, Trilby opening up about being raised as an orphan, Cleo seeing a monstrous version of Fern appear in her room, and ends on a happy note when Myrtle ambushes and stabs Trilby repeatedly in the gut.
- Wrong Side of the Tracks: Fall Swanhilde is noticeably more white trash than the rest of the cast, and it shows in where she lives.
