![]() ![]() ![]() After decades of every coming out story resulting in crisis, more books and films now imagine happier coming out experiences but this is the first time that I have encountered a queer romance at which no character bats an eye. ![]() Characters casually refer to each other’s “moms,” and those moms express unabated excitement when their daughters find their first girlfriends. The fact that the absence of male-identified characters escaped me until I was a third of the way into Walden’s absorbing comic is a testament to how deftly she realizes this social landscape. However, imagining a world that is entirely gender-neutral or female is as much a part of the speculative thought experiment behind On a Sunbeam’s fictional universe as are its fish-shaped spaceships, extraterrestrial storms, and hoverboards. The romances, betrayals, and narratives of personal growth at the heart of her story are set against the backdrop of space exploration and interplanetary conflict. ![]() Walden’s stunningly-illustrated tale, adapted from a webcomic of the same name, is a captivating piece of science fiction. It took until page 179 of Tillie Walden’s new graphic novel, On a Sunbeam, for me to realize I was reading a story in which every character was female or nonbinary. ![]()
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