The Ordinary Magic Of Jillian Tamaki

• Jillian Tamaki
• A panel from This One Summer

Before she put the finishing touches on April’s sexually tinged techno-mystery comic Frontier #7, or garnered multiple awards and acclaim for 2014’s gorgeous graphic novel This One Summer, Canadian comics artist and writer Jillian Tamaki was making a home at Tumblr for a funny, mostly black-and-white comic called SuperMutant Magic Academy. For four years, Tamaki chronicled the ordinary experiences of rather extraordinary beings—a host of mutant high school students—as they endured the perpetual battles of adolescence. Late last year she announced in a post that the series would soon end with a print collection.

This One Summer‘s visual impact is immediate—awash in deep denim-blue inks and precise line work, these pages are radiant. There’s even an elegant wilt to Tamaki’s slender lettering, which gets quite a workout in a new issue of Frontier, the comic series from San Francisco publisher Youth in Decline.

Jillian Tamaki will be appearing at the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo on Sat 6/6, 11 AM, Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, cakechicago.com.