I was already a fan of C A Strike’s work, having reviewed their lovely minicomic Meryl for Broken Frontier’s upcoming Thought Bubble coverage in November (stay tuned!), so was delighted when I saw that they were one of the illustrators producing a comic for this year ShortBox Digital Comics Fair. Customer Service Eternity, Strike’s offering for this year’s fair, is a slice-of-life comedy, allowing the reader to traverse through the various highs (few), lows (many) and hijinks (always!) that ensue in the life of a customer service employee.
As the title suggests, a nine-to-five job which is non-stop, face-to-face customer service can make the day really drag. Admittedly, there are the occasional very pleasant customers, with whom you can exchange pleasantries, or even chat about shared hobbies. But for the most part, the memorable interactions are largely the negative and/or weird ones, which is what Strike focuses on in their hilarious vignettes.
We’re initially introduced to Serina and Bex, two ladies working in a cafe, whose strengths include ‘alienating customers’ and weaknesses, ‘customer service’ and ‘doing tasks’. I can relate. It’s rare that a comic genuinely makes me laugh out loud, but the escapades of the two workers and the small victories against the customers that bring them joy genuinely had me guffawing. Petty schemes like precariously placing a jug near the edge of the counter in the hopes that a customer will knock it over and be embarrassed, or purposefully acting dramatically invested in a customer’s whining bring a much-needed dose of drama to their mundane day.
Whether it’s making menial tasks last longer (for lack of anything better to do), like rolling up and chucking away empty sugar packets one by one, having nicknames for certain notorious customers (do we all know a ‘warm change guy’?), or contemplating quitting and going to live in the countryside at least once per day, Strike has absolutely captured the essence of someone working in the public sector, even becoming more serious at times to subtly comment on the innate snobbery of people assuming customer service employees have no real life goals.
As always, Strike’s art is gorgeous, with a very flower-power, hippie, ’60s fashion era-feel to the illustrations, particularly the bursts of colour and the mosaic-style backgrounds. The shop layouts are so detailed and colourful, with the lack of traditional formatting allowing Strike to base the organising of the page purely on the emotions and feelings of the characters, sometimes erupting over the panel lines, or becoming more psychedelic. I loved how we got to experience different variations of customer service, as, after a while spent at one shop, we follow a customer outside, up the high street, and to the next, where a whole new cast of characters deal with the joys of customer service in a supermarket, vape shop, and more.
Hilarious, deadpan and mischievous, Customer Service Eternity is well worth picking up from ShortBox Comics Fair this year.
C A Strike (W/A) • ShortBox Comics Fair, £8.00.
Review by Lydia Turner
