Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook. This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. This remarkable and compelling book, filled with stunning ink and color art, will keep readers entranced for a long time.

Love, loss, adventure and discovery of new worlds are free to take center stage, not the tired girl-love-in-a-straight-world trope. This world allows Walden to present a love between two women as the norm. There is no discussion or explanation about this in the story-it just is how it is. Everyone has two mothers, and all their siblings are sisters. Even knowing ahead of time that the story is a lesbian romance, I was still surprised when I realized that Walden’s futuristic universe is filled entirely with female-identifying characters (and at least one nonbinary character). Though categorized as a young adult book, On a Sunbeam is a true work of art that deserves a place in the libraries of lovers of comics, sci-fi, romance, or literary fiction of any age. Mia and her new friends travel from place to place repairing visually fantastic architecture, but Mia hopes for a stop in a very specific destination: the forbidden part of the universe called the Staircase, where she hopes to find her lost love, Grace.Ī rich, complex and detailed story, On a Sunbeam has some extraordinary revelations. Mia is a young woman who joins a crew on a spaceship in a universe we’ve yet to discover. Her graphic novels with First Second include her autobiographical work Spinning and the sci-fi epic On a Sunbeam. Over the course of her time at CCS she published three books with the London based Avery Hill Publishing.

Originally a web comic, Walden’s sci-fi graphic novel amazes and inspires. Born in 1996, she is a graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. Award-winning cartoonist Tillie Walden’s latest book, On a Sunbeam, is a sumptuous feast for the eyes and the heart.

On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden