45 Days Of CCS, #35: Zaria Cannon

Zaria Cannon is a second-year student who's mostly working in genre-related fiction, albeit stories that have a personal and human touch. Ignited, for example, is about a couple of kids at a superhero high school who don't have powers and are often bullied by others. Zanyah is excitable and extroverted, while the green-haired Maverick is shy and anxious. Much of this comic, done in a style that wouldn't look out of place in a weekly manga magazine, is about their debate as to the nature of powers and what they might do with them. It's a powerful philosophical question that speaks to how one's ethical behavior might change given access to powers that allow one to ignore the status quo. In dramatic fashion, Cannon answers this question at the very end, as one of the characters has to make a life-or-death choice that changes everything. One thing Cannon needs to work on is the relationship between bodies in space and body language in general; there was some stiffness in the character poses. 

The Boy Who Cried Werewolf is a clever horror comic about a boy who hates the family dog because of the attention he gets from his parents over him. Cannon cleverly flips their relationship in an interesting way to cast doubt on the boy's character, but then swerves again at the end to reveal something far more sinister happening with the dog. Combining cute character design with horror tropes was actually quite effective, especially when Cannon wanted to take the reader down a certain set of expectations. 

Countless Dreams is a 4-page dream comic that nonetheless packs a lot of punch. It starts with Cannon as an adult working in a convenience store with Sonic the Hedgehog as a co-worker. Running out of an ingredient, Cannon travels through the past and their mind to re-emerge as a child to find her father fishing. He's been dead for a while, but the dream allows her a few moments with him, and the comic in general was dedicated to his memory. It's a sweet comic that nonetheless has a coherent narrative and uses a variety of styles to convey the dream logic that runs through the story.