iFanboy Upstarts: Liz Suburbia

Who says comics have to be all about superheroes? Liz Suburbia doesn’t, and neither should you. Get to know her, and you might be getting in on the ground floor of a future comics star and this week’s iFanboy Upstart.

Virginia-based cartoonist Liz Suburbia isn’t on your local comic stores racks; unless, that is, your comic store is a forward-thinking store who welcomes self-published comics and zines. Suburbia has burst on the comics zine seen with a prodigious number of zines of her work in the past three years, from her Cyanide Milkshake series to standalone zines Eat or be Meatball, The Crusher, VI, IX and XIII. Suburbia’s comics cover the gamut from auto bio comix to fictional auto bio about her and her husband, her baby self, sensational sporting tales, and even some sex. Like her comics colleague Brandon Graham she’s done her fair share of pornographic comics; Suburbia recently collected hers in a zine called Turbo Mutt. Besides all of that, she also edits the anthology zine Puppyteeth.

With all that going on,  you’d think she didn’t have room for much else, but she does; she also illustrates a webcomic called Sacred Heart which i09 descibes as a “tale of punks and murder without adult supervision.” She’s currently nineteen chapters in, and one of my favorite features a garage band auditioning guitarists which hits home for this former bassist and now iFanboy scribe.

Liz Suburbia’s influences range from the aforementioned Brandon Graham but also veer heavily into the Los Bros. Hernandez camp, and I’m not complaining. Sacred Heart has a vibe that fans of Ross Campbell’s Wet Moon series will appreciate, or anyone that loves dead people coming back to life and trying to live it as best they can.