January 15, 2018

The first volume of As the Crow Flies, by Melanie Gillman ′12, was released by Iron Circus Comics in November 2017. Since it’s release, it has received three starred reviews! The comic, originally published online where it is still updating, is about Charlie Lamonte, a thirtee-year-old, queer, black girl spending a week of summer vacation at an all-white Christian youth backpacking camp where she learns to question the rhetoric. This volume is 250 pages and $30. They started posting the web comic in January, 2012.

Page 2 of As the Crow Flies

There are plenty of rave reviews to encourage you to buy this beautiful volume.

Publisher’s Weekly: Gillman’s brutally honest and wrenchingly beautiful story of friendship explores the simultaneous pain and joy of being young and queer.

Mahnaz Dar, School Library Journal: Scenes in which she appears on the periphery of panels or crowded by the speech bubbles of her insensitive fellow campers adroitly capture her isolation.

Caitlin Rosenberg, AV Club: Gillman’s remarkable skill at portraying the way that microaggressions and small slights can quickly escalate to create an environment that’s emotionally crushing and dangerous is something that is hard to find anywhere else.

Booklist Online: The soft, luminous scenes of the mountains and nature emphasize the enormity of Charlie’s undertaking, both spiritually and physically, and her interactions with the other people on the trip, from snickering over outdated concepts with Sydney to bringing up uncomfortable topics with adults, are nicely paced and expressive.

Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier: Gillman’s greatest strength as a storyteller is their ability to bring us so fully into Charlie’s perspective, underlining the unconscious bias and exclusionary behaviour she is forced to deal with throughout her backpacking trip.

ADVOCATE: The Best LGBT Graphic Novels of 2017!

Page 4 of As the Crow Flies

Post by Angela Boyle ′16.