Cathy Malkasian

Cathy Malkasian is my favorite living cartoonist. In fact, I like her work more than many of the dead ones I admire. Cathy has a brand new book, named EARTHA that is going to be available in the next month. She has a very unique and sincere way of making comics. I think this is because she isn't limited by the restraints that most cartoonists accept and self-impose.

Her drawings exhibit the lovely subtleties and dynamics more frequently found in fine art lithography than in comic books. Her background in animation and film direction informs her work with a verve and sophistication that is visually stunning. While her storytelling skills are of a caliber with the best writers of fairy tales.

I think that this is what she is actually creating, the absolutely serious realities of our time presented within the context of a simultaneously blithe and anxious fairy tale. It is dazzling stuff.

Her three previous graphic novels (Percy Gloom, Temperance, Wake Up, Percy Gloom!) all knocked me out. I am so looking forward to reading  EARTHA and you should be too. EARTHA ships directly from the publisher Fantagraphics March 15th. It will be available on Amazon in digital form on March 29th and in hardcover on April 4th.

If you're interested in comics as an art form, created by someone who is original and making singular work of a stand out from the crowd quality, you have to read this book.