Marcie Is Still Worried
Comic, Liz Yerby, lizyerby.com,etsy.com/shop/lizyerby, $4 USD
Liz Yerby offers apologies to Charles Schulz on the cover of Marcie Is Still Worried, and then proceeds to appropriate Marcie for Liz’s own anguished ends. You remember Marcie from Peanuts: she’s the deadpan, dark-haired, bespectacled side-kick-cum-partner to the brash, gregarious Peppermint Patty (whom Marcie always addresses as “sir”). Marcie takes leave of Patty’s company in this comic to consult with the Peanuts resident amateur psychiatrist, Lucy, on a range of identity exploration, dread, and alienation.
With full-colour backgrounds printed on card stock, Liz’s Marcie and Lucy dialogue is in black-and-white illustrations and handwritten speech bubbles. Marcie’s handwritten thoughts also float through the collaged backdrop, like the underlying all-pervasive anxiety she has yet to give voice to. One of these unspoken thoughts drifts across the zine’s cover: “Donald Trump is President. So that’s like impending doom.” So, we know right away that Marcie’s anxiety is not unfounded.
The main thread of Marcie’s therapy session is her own queer identity: “I spent a large chunk of my time dating with a mindset that queer relationships don’t count … There was so much secret dating and very few of my queer friends felt safe being out.” Lucy says, “Oh, I was a guy’s secret girlfriend in high school.” Marcie says, “No, Lucyyyy we’re talking about me.”
But as is sometimes the case in the real Peanuts, in spite of herself, Lucy ends up doling out some worthwhile advice before demanding her 5 cents. Meanwhile, Marcie’s as-of-yet unexplored thoughts continue to float by: “I’m unsure if my West Coast friends relate to this.” Then the fourth wall falls: “I am terrible at processing, and am instead just writing dumb Peanuts comics.” Whether the client here is Marcie, the author, or both, pick this up and commiserate.