Akvile Magicdust’s offbeat comic taps into the daily struggles of young adult life

Illustrator Akvile Magicdust (AKA Akvile Miseviciute) lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania and has been creating a weekly comic for Vice called Lucy the confused girl. Drawn weekly, the comic is about “an emotional girl named Lucy and her friends alien and tiger. They live in a van together and always get into trouble”.

Akvile’s protagonist is sassy, honest and sarcastic, and it’s refreshing to see a character so deadpan. Throughout the two to three-page comics, Lucy deals with familiar issues and feelings, like trying to get over a “jerk”, not being able to relax on holiday and feeling abandoned by her friends. What keeps these themes fresh is the environments the illustrator places Lucy and her friends in, for instance “horsing around in a junkyard” or at “an anti-alien discrimination protest”.

The illustrator describes her work as “converting emotions to colours”, and a pleasing palette of pastel blues and peaches subtly shifts with the mood of her characters. Her simply drawn characters convey a range of expressions despite the minimal detail. It’s this style in combination with her short, sharp copy, that really defines the strong tone of voice portrayed throughout.