45 Days Of CCS, #36: Maia Foster O'Neal

Maia Foster O'Neal's business card reads "Comics, Crafts, & Feelings," and their comics certainly are an example of truth in advertising. There's Sparklemaia's Little Zine Of One Pot Vegan Soup Recipes, which is exactly what it sounds like. Little is a four-page comic that's mostly an excuse to try some expressive color as Maia comforts a younger version of themselves. 

Cracks is a variation on one of the most common subjects I see these days from young cartoonists: the trans journey of self-discovery. In Maia's case, there's a little more nuance because even though top surgery was an extremely important step in her gender-affirming care, she noted that "there's no simple answer." In a nicely illustrated sequence, focusing on specific labels was the equivalent of mistaking the map for the territory. The rest of the comic is straightforward and familiar, but the use of an open-page layout, expressive cartooning, and gentle approach to their dysphoria made this a pleasant and engaging read. 

Harebells was Maia's first-year final project, and it fits into their ambition to work in middle-grade publishing. It's a story about two quarreling sisters and their mother who uses folk tales to help soothe sore feelings. It's a gentle story that touches on gender identity, as well as figuring out new roles in a family when circumstances change. Visually, it's a slightly more personal and idiosyncratic approach than the typical Scholastic/First Second playbook, especially with a nuanced use of color that allows Maia's line to still shine. 

Maia's most interesting comic by far was Entangled. It's a clever two-track narrative and a visual tour-de-force that eschews the more cutesy aspects of their cartooning in favor of something far more visceral. The narrative is about how the human body is comprised of "bacteria, viruses, archaea, and fungi" and goes on to describe how fungi are hard to kill, adaptable, and can even hijack nervous systems. The open page layout is framed by branching, distorting images of roots and fungi that are hidden to us but ever-present. It's implied that the main character we see has been hijacked, changing their behavior (once again, there's not only dysphoria, but the kind of bullying that leads to isolation) in a way that is not necessarily negative, but integral to survival. Maia is generally pretty blunt with their storytelling, especially in terms of doing a lot of telling along with showing, but this mini shows that this doesn't need to be the case.