WWACommendations: Mimosa, Unhealthy, The Moth Keeper and More

Reviews Roundtables Comics
Alenka Figa
WWACommendations title banner by Nola Pfau

Well hello there! I thought, since I used March’s WWACommendations to get emotional about my own birthday, I’d use April’s intro to reveal that I am writing this on my cat’s birthday! [Editor’s note: happy extra belated!] She is 11 today, and according to various aspects of a random horoscope meant for humans she’s confident to the point of arrogance, possesses a sharp temper and doesn’t like to compromise — all accurate! In honor of my sweet, sassy baby please let a cat bully you into doing exactly what they want. I hope they want you to hang out and pet them while you read comics on the couch, because my cat is generally pretty into that, and we’ve got a bunch of incredible recommendations for you to read next to a cat! Perfect, amazing, five stars to us all.

Nova, my cat, wearing a little party hat.
This is Nova. She is actually in a very affectionate mood, she just has resting bitch face.

Alenka Figa: I somehow managed to read two comics that hit two big spheres of my life: my work as a teen librarian and the reality of how queer friend groups are changing now that we’re all in our thirties. Let’s start with the latter — Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni!

I got Mimosa along with a slew of other library books when all my holds showed up at once, took one look at the big, hunky hardcover and thought, “Well, this will take me a while.” Then I promptly read it in one night. Mimosa is about a group of friends struggling to stay close now that they’re no longer in their dirty twenties. Elise is finally working at her dream job but she’s horny, lonely, and has a thing for her hot boss. Jo is still cobbling together funds from multiple jobs to survive, but her heart really lies at the rock camp for queer kids where she gets to work over summer. Chris is largely parenting solo after a brutal divorce, and feels lost both in the dating scene and amongst all their childless friends. Alex, somehow, is fine, which is suspicious and kind of infuriating to his friends — what’s that all about?!

Reading pre-release promos for Mimosa made it clear that this was a rare story about older queers, but what I wasn’t ready for — and what really got me right in the gut — was how much disconnect these friends experience. You are not the same person in your thirties that you were in your twenties. Your life is not the same, and sometimes that means the friends who were there for you through thick and thin don’t know how to be there for you anymore. It’s rough, but it’s very real, and it was a part of the story that I didn’t know I needed.

My other big rec for April is Heart of the City by Steenz! I had read a bunch of Steenz’s strips when they first took over Heart but had fallen off reading because I sometimes struggle to keep up with ongoing comics. (It’s a problem, I’m aware!!) Steenz & Heart are getting a fresh moment in the spotlight as Dilbert & Scott Adams’ racist legacy leave the Washington Post, so I picked it back up. At work I mostly see eighth graders whereas Heart and her friends are in sixth, so they’re a bit socioemotionally behind my teens. However, I was surprised by everything that resonated! Running an after school space often means being a fly on the wall, and I frequently see interactions amongst my teens where the gaps in their experiences crop up. Reading Heart kind of simulates that experience, as Steenz takes care to address differences in race and class amongst the friends in a very real but lighthearted way. In a particularly memorable arc, Heart attends a party at Charlotte’s house and initially reels at being called the “white friend.” She has to confront the fact that she’s had the privilege to not think about her race until now, and of course she faces this in the most Heart-like way: by declaring that she’s going to be the best white friend!

It wasn’t just the familiarity of Heart or even the sweetness of it that had me binge-reading until I was caught up. Heart exists in a world where there was no pandemic, and I live in a world where my teens are experiencing all kinds of pandemic trauma and aftershocks from sheltering-in-place. The world of Heart is very real, but it also feels like a fantasy where all that trauma didn’t happen, and the joy of that is very addicting. Anyone will enjoy reading Heart of the City, but I especially recommend it if you work with tweens and young teens.

Carrie McClain: I’m currently doing a fun reread of indie and self-pubbed comics created and published before the pandemic. Unhealthy by Sarah Winifred Searle and Abby Howard, published in 2019 in both print and digital formats, is my latest reread. The work contains two comic essays “from people who’ve always been told their bodies don’t look healthy enough, and have mentally and physically damaged themselves in the pursuit of looking healthier”. Ignatz-nominated cartoonist and former WWAC writer Sarah Winifred Searle walks readers through her complicated relationship with food and how she struggles with bringing kindness to herself and her body. The first pages are searing: they detail that when they stress enough they develop tiny blisters on their hands and fingertips. The blisters make the touch recognition on her tablet used to make comics unavailable for her. They’re forced to use a password.

She’s used to her body rejecting her. She’s used to the sabotage she’s done to her body with certain food and the years of anxieties that have come with it. The comic essay further elaborates on ways they’ve worked on being gentle to themself and being supported by those they loves. Titled Healing is a Process, Searle’s comic is a quiet endeavor of pacing herself with food, working on creating a new relationship with it, and seeing herself in the media she consumes, like manga. Bodies are miraculous creations that don’t always work right and the author remains steadfast in learning how theirs is worth the many battles they finds themself fighting. Abby Howard’s comic, titled A Punishment, is a bit more humorous in tone yet it still delivers a powerful retelling of the author’s struggles with food.

A huge element in Howard’s comic is elaborating on the conditional, fragile relationship she remembers others having to her and her body. It is a jarring, disappointing realization for her to realize in her adult life that people around her, including people she loved, valued thinness above all else including mental health and her actual bodily health. Some of the most impactful pages in my most recent read-throughs are near the end where the author struggles with enjoying little things and fights against the intrusive thoughts that seek to overwhelm her. A Punishment best illustrates the binding and harmful ways public perception can warp our own views of ourselves and how at the end of the day, for her at least–it is a battle that is waged and fought daily. Realizing that she has a healthy body that will never be the perfect size for others means she still has a right to exist and be happy. Both comics relay that It’s an ongoing battle for both women, but both want to share with people what it truly is to be “unhealthy” and the power that they have in reclaiming their bodies.

Kathryn Hemman: I want to second Carrie’s recommendation! I’ve read Unhealthy several times over the past few years, and it’s been an incredible source of solidarity and support. What I appreciate about Searle and Howard’s comics is that, while they’re grounded in specific personal experiences, they’re also inclusive, accessible, and relatable to people of all genders and all body types. I wholeheartedly agree with everything Carrie wrote about how powerful and special this book is.

Carrie: My other big rec for April is Oshi no Ko, which fellow WWAC contributor Masha mentioned in the January WWACcommendations. This manga’s premise is one that I feel is so unique, it can only come from the realm of manga: A male OB-GYN is reincarnated as one of the children of his fave idol who becomes a teen mother, in secret. There’s murder, a search for revenge and…when I tell you this story goes THERE, it goes THERE! You have to read it to experience why I am internally screaming with each new set of chapters I read. Oshi no Ko is a daring look at the darkness of the entertainment industry and of childhoods lost. The anime adaptation is airing sometime this month and I am for sure adding that to my very stacked watch list but will choose to remain invested in the masterful manga version of course.

Emily Lauer: The Moth Keeper by Kay O’Neill came out on March 7! I love the Tea Dragon books so I was excited to learn about this new story and world, and, as expected, The Moth Keeper is a gentle, quiet and calm story as we’ve come to expect from O’Neill’s other work. The art is lush and the world it takes place in is inventive, the characters likeable and smiling. It tells the story of a fantasy desert village where the villagers live in harmony with the land, taking care of each other and learning about their place in the magical ecosystem. It emphasizes the tenet I first saw articulated by Robin Wall Kimmerer: all flourishing is mutual. In this village, Anya has recently become apprenticed to the Moth Keeper, who cares for the moon moths. It’s a solitary path, but an important one for their people. The book has a sweet mild romance between Anya and her friend Estell, but mostly it is about Anya figuring out how to support her community in a way that is good for her, and about her community stepping up to support her as well. As with O’Neill’s other books, the pervasive ambiance of kindness flows through the many wordless panels just as much as it is conveyed through the characters’ dialogue. Extremely pretty.

Masha Zhdanova: Animanga Twitter was talking about josei manga last week and someone mentioned 10 Dance by Inouesatoh, which intrigued me after reading a bunch of different dance AU fanfic over the course of two days (I was in a mood.) 10 Dance is about a guy who’s really good at standard ballroom dancing and a guy who’s really good at Latin dancing teaching each other their respective dance styles to compete in the titular 10 dance, a competition where each pair has to dance five standard dances and five Latin dances. And it’s gorgeous— the delicate line work and paneling reminds me of Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s work, and the dance sequences are dynamic and lively. The romantic and sexual tension between the leads builds so slowly and naturally, I’m practically pining for them to get together! There’s also some really interesting gender dynamics at play, since ballroom dancing is such a gendered activity. Each dance is a story between a Man and a Woman as played by the lead and the follow, so when one of the male leads takes on the role of the follow, they’re also playing with gender and expectations in an interesting way.

It’s not a perfect series— the characters’ attitudes towards homosexuality are very, uh, early 2000s at best (even though this appears to have launched in 2012?), and the internalized homo- and biphobia can be grating to modern sensibilities for sure. It reminded me of that one post that’s like, “and you’ve had sex how many times? Hmm, that’s not technically a bromance.” You can only make out with your dance partner so many times before your claims of not being attracted to men start to seem suspect. Everyone in this series is at least kind of weird about gay people as a concept and I’m not sure why. I’m willing to look past that for the stuff I do like, but I can understand if someone else would be put off by it. The art is good, and the romance is slow but burning. I’m enjoying it!

Kathryn: The newest volume in Fangamer’s Legends of Localization series was just released in March! This book is all about Undertale, and series author Clyde Mandelin provides expert insight both as a veteran translator and as an official consultant for the game’s localization and release in Japan.

Mandelin chronicles the brilliant work of Keiko Fukuichi, who also authored the official Japanese translations of fan-favorite indie games like Hades and Return of the Obra Dinn as a member of the localization company 8-4. Even more than in the previous two books in the series, this volume is committed to introducing the field of localization while explaining how cultural translation functions alongside linguistic translation. It’s a truism that a good joke shouldn’t have to be explained, but I was fascinated by Mandelin’s walkthrough of how Fukuichi broke down jokes and reconstructed them into lines that make sense to a Japanese audience. Even if you have no knowledge of Japanese, the third volume of Legends of Localization is a masterclass on the craft of writing catchy dialog.

I also appreciate the layout of the book. Every page is filled with full-color screencaps and illustrations, all of which are amusingly annotated. As much love and care as Mandelin devotes to language, he’s equally skilled at visual presentation. Legends of Localization: Undertale blurs the line between prose nonfiction and comics, and I’d happily recommend it to anyone interested in the art that goes into text boxes and speech bubbles.

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Alenka Figa

Alenka Figa

Alenka is a queer librarian and intense cat parent. When not librarian-ing they spend their days reading zines and indie comics and listening to D&D podcasts. Find them on Bluesky @uprightgarfield.
figaalen@gmail.com
Alenka Figa

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