I’ve said before that I love when we’re all surprisingly in sync with our monthly reads, and wow is everyone in sync this month – except for me! Below is mostly one comic that seems to have taken WWAC’s casual reading by storm, plus two very conceptually and aesthetically different recommendations. I think it’s a very funny way to kick off 2025’s WWACommendations, and lead us into a winter break. If you bank on checking out what’s coming up in WWACommendations, first, please tell me because that’s very cool, and second, know that we’re taking a month off from recs to hibernate. In the meantime, you can emotionally process some big things, read about rival serial killers, or check out different perspectives of a car crash.
Alenka Figa: I got to spend a sweet, slow day reading Processing: 100 Comics That Got Me Through It by Tara Booth, while snuggling my old-man cat. The title is a perfect descriptor for what to expect in the book’s pages. It’s a hefty collection but a quick read, as Booth’s comics are succinct and often wordless. Occasionally there are big, gorgeous two-page spreads showing flowers, plants and other natural scenes. Booth’s brightly painted comics are mostly reflections on her struggles with mental health, addiction and loneliness. The later comics in Processing more frequently use language to discuss social anxiety, depression, and disordered eating, but the earlier, more visually-focused pieces really drew me in. The combination of intensely expressive color and intense facial expressions let Booth process a lot just through images, and the journey of reading that she creates is cathartic. There is no simple, “ah, and then she got through it!” moment. Instead, there are lots of points of release or relief, but Booth’s healing is clearly ongoing — and that’s OK, that’s just how it is. Processing is an emotional and beautiful experience.
Kathryn Hemmann: On the complete opposite end of the tonal spectrum, I’d like to recommend Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, the debut graphic novel of film producer Patrick Horvath. Beneath the Trees is a grisly murder mystery set in Woodbrook, an idyllic small town filled with friendly neighbors. Woodbrook is located close to a city that’s large and anonymous enough to allow local business owner Sam Strong to murder and butcher her victims as she pleases. When a copycat killer starts targeting people in town, however, it’s up to Sam to stop them. Horvath portrays the residents of Woodbrook as cute and furry woodland animals, and the soft watercolor art makes the blood-spattered imagery all the more striking. Although the concept may seem twee, Beneath the Trees takes its themes seriously while feeling equally at home in the realms of cozy nostalgia, grotesque horror, and cutting social commentary. The quiet introspection of Processing is a lovely form of catharsis, but the joyful murder of Beneath the Trees is just as valid.
Emily Lauer: I ALSO just read Beneath the Trees, Where Nobody Sees! I agree with Kathryn that it is extremely fun. It’s the story of a small town serial killer who has to act decisively to keep her community (and her cover) safe from a rival psychopath. Readers, it’s gory. Cartoonist Patrick Horvath uses a sweet watercolor style, and all the characters have overlarge animal heads on rounded, anthropomorphized bodies. Sometimes there’s viscera.
In one way, it’s like Richard Scarry’s Busy Town books have gotten a terrifying new plot line. But given the subject matter, it’s also a clever and nuanced commentary on the way we are all animals. Beneath the Trees was on my radar when it came out from IDW earlier this year, and I was particularly excited to read it because Kate Beaton included it in her end-of-year recommendations. I read this one on a plane, and hoped fervently that none of the children in nearby rows would look too closely at the pictures.
Masha Zhdanova: You’re not gonna believe this but I ALSO just read Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees! I saw it at my local comic shop (shout-out to Final Boss Comics in Lawrenceville, New Jersey! Best LCS in the state!) and the staff said I should get it and I was like okay I trust you and they were right, it was great. I don’t have anything else to add about it though. I think Emily and Kathryn got it all. Lovely watercolor artwork, delightfully gory story.
Also from Final Boss Comics, I got Ice Cream Man: Decompression in a Wreck and was blown away. The two-issue standalone story explores both sides of a car crash through the sequential narrative device of “decompression”, stretching out the 5-second crash into two full issues. And at the very end, a character’s short story is published that shows a world where the crash goes very differently. It’s a fascinating meta exploration of storytelling and how it can be done.
