45 Days Of CCS, #38: Fern Pellerin

Fern Pellerin has a sharply refined if familiar style of cartooning. Creation Myth is a visually compelling and fluid version of a very common story: the trans journey of discovery. Pellerin used a somewhat cliched visual metaphor in the stage of development of a butterfly, but it's so beautifully executed and succinct (9 pages) that it worked fine. Pellerin's page composition is elegant and filled with decorative flourishes that enhance the narrative. This comic was part of a larger anthology whose theme was gender and transition, and Pellerin understood that it was important to get to the point. 

Heave Away is a lesbian seaside fantasy romance that similarly does well in establishing a setting, thanks to the frequent use of open-page layouts and dramatic composition. Pellerin's somewhat limited character design impedes the story, and you can see the limitations of their cartooning in the way they depict action and movement as well. There are other problems, like wonky proportions, but Pellerin's ambitions as a storyteller were on display. The future setting but provincial characters certainly had their charms, and what Pellerin did best here was establish a sense of place. The story felt too long and not long enough all at once, as parts of it dragged early on but the world as a whole felt like needed more time to bake. This is pretty much straightforward YA fiction, but given Pellerin's talents, I'd be curious to see what direction they'll go in next.