I’ve been seeing advertisements for Lizzy for some time; to be honest, the animated advertisements on Project Wonderful did little to attract me to the comic (I found the animation to be distracting, especially if I was viewing a site with Project Wonderful ads at work or other places where I don’t necessarily want people viewing my computer monitor; this is especially true for ads that skirt the edge of being work-safe). Finally I decided on a whim to click the link (partly because I like the cartoonist of the site I was visiting and felt that clicking an ad would be an easy way of showing loyalty) and found myself drawn into a bizarre world of cyberpunk fantasies and insanity.

Lizzy stands out from its brethren through its use of Flash animation. While other comics have experimented with HTML coding (like Damonk’s surreal comic Framed!!! did eight years ago) or shifting beyond the fourth wall (the most recent updates at Footloose are a prime example), there are few Flash comics out there. Fortunately for those readers on dial-up or with a slow DSL connection, the comics are included in a non-flash format. Naturally, a lot of the impact is lost with the JPEG comic; readers are also forced to travel through the Flash pages to reach non-Flash content, but the pages load considerably faster than the Flash content.

The main character of Lizzy is a young lady (named, naturally enough, Lizzy) who is looking forward to moving away from her home to New Urbia City, a megalopolis that can be viewed via telescope due to the vagaries of the world Remco “ChainiaC” Ketting dreamed up of. From the very start, when three teens drug Lizzy so to “have their way” with Lizzy, the comic proves to be for the less squeamish out there. (Needless to say, this comic is Not Safe For Work or for children.) Lizzy does escape being raped thanks to some not-benign rescuers who are apparently experimenting on the girl without her knowledge. From there, things take a decidedly bizarre turn with a combination of hallucinations and dreams that not only promise to puzzle readers, but leave Lizzy’s own experimenters scratching their heads as well.

If I were feeling charitable, I’d describe Lizzy as a deconstruction of the Cyberpunk genre. I’m going to be more honest; Lizzy often feels like it skirts the edge of a bad drug trip. There are several scenes where I’m unsure if the main character is hallucinating, displaced in time, or being made to see things. Her finding a band of misfits to join up with and befriend would smack of Mary Suedom if Lizzy weren’t so refreshingly flawed. (As an aside, I must applaud ChainiaC for his design of Lizzy; she’s short, plump, and fairly plain-looking. That alone would help this comic stand out from so many of its brethren.)

While the story in Lizzy feels slapdash at times and tends toward the confusing more often than not, ChainiaC deserves full kudos for his artwork. While the backgrounds tend to be somewhat minimalistic more often than not, his work on character designs is phenomenal. Each character shown has proven to be fairly unique in body-type, posture, and even to some extent facial features, rather than carbon copies only identifiable through hair and clothes. While the comic is admittedly better read in Flash, there’s enough to the story and characters that both formats are enjoyable.