45 Days Of CCS, #34: Iris Gudeon

Iris Gudeon's comics are delicate, deeply warm and sincere, and clever. One Horse Farm is the humor entry here, as it's a POV story where the reader is being offered a job at a farm that strangely seems to have one of many different kinds of animals. The eventual punchline is given to the reader in a manner that's deliberately awkward. Gudeon is so good at color that its absence here lessens the impact of the story, but it seems to be something of a lark anyway. 

Candy Is Changing is a beautiful, poetic comic about a piece of candy in a wrapper and the changes she must face. Here, we can see Gudeon's talent using color, adding both a sense of brightness and intensity. The comic can be seen as a metaphor for any number of things, but I especially like the wrapper initially being something that provides safety and solidity but eventually becomes constricting until it is shed. Gudeon really gets at the heart of an existential crisis of belief in that it's not only an individual change that is perceived, but one where the entire world ceases to make sense. Of course, the two are inextricably linked, but it's impossible to understand that in the moment. Gudeon uses cute character design to get at much deeper ideas. 

Cat 14 is a beautiful blend of different coloring strategies. It looks like there's crayon, colored pencil, and maybe even some watercolors in there. The different textures of the color add to the gentle richness of the storytelling. There's a Little Prince vibe to this story, as explorers Ellsworth and Danley walk around a very small planet. However, this isn't a story about loneliness but rather curiosity, intimacy, and affection. As the duo walks around a swamp looking for another example of a cat-plant species, they gently poke fun at each other, make schemes, get lost, and otherwise meander around pleasantly. Amusingly, the various cats featured in the comic are based on Gudeon's CCS classmates. There are times when Gudeon's line disappears a little in terms of keeping the characters a solid presence on the page, but this is mostly just a delight.