On a Sunbeam
by Tillie Walden
2018
On a Sunbeam is a graphic novel that started as a webcomic. My copy was a present from my sister, and I'm glad to have it on my shelf. I've read and enjoyed several of Tillie Walden's earlier works, and this definitely feels like a continuation of her growth as an artist. My personal favorite might still be The End of Summer, but a lot of that's because I like the enormous Victorian house it's set in, and the tiger-sized housecat who protects one of the kids who live there.
On a Sunbeam is set in a space opera future, when humanity is scattered across far distant planets, moons, and other habitats, and travelers cross space in ships that look like giant koi fish.
Initially, the story progresses along two tracks. In the present, Mia is a recent graduate who gets a job with a small crew of women to rehab abandoned sites so they can be turned into new housing. In flashbacks, we follow Mia in boarding school as she falls in love with her new classmate Grace. About halfway through, the flashbacks conclude as we learn how Grace and Mia got separated. In the present, having faced her memories, Mia resolves to fly across the galaxy to find Grace again, a search that fills the latter half of the novel.
The story is well-paced. Mia's friendship with her coworkers and her love with Grace both develop organically. And there's good foreshadowing about the importance of a dangerous region of space known as The Staircase. Although the two timelines mostly advance separately from each other, there's a beautiful moment relatively early on when they sync, when Mia makes a bad mistake at the construction site that reminds her of a bad mistake she made at school. Later there are more flashbacks to other characters' pasts, one-off chapters that give each person more depth in turn. The present day scenes are mostly monochrome in shades of lavender purple; the flashbacks are periwinkle blue. And in both, Walden uses color - rich blacks, maroons, oranges, yellows - to scenes with a lot of emotion or other importance. Mia's fondest memories of Grace appear as full-page panels.
In many ways, the first half of Sunbeam feels like a story that could be told in today's world, someplace where young people can make a living working freelance construction jobs. Maybe Brooklyn or Detroit. We have girls' schools. We have demand to convert old factories and churches into apartment buildings. It seems to be taking place in a period of decline, or maybe in the rebound after one, when the population is still down from an earlier high, and it's easier to repair than build something new. The second half, with space travel, and exploration in a pretty hostile planetary environment, feels more overtly science fictional.
Almost all the characters in Sunbeam are women, except Ell, who's described as being non-binary, which to me implies that there are men, just someplace else. The main groups of people we see are the all-girls' boarding school Mia and Grace attended, the small group of friends (including Ell) who do rehab work, and later a women's commune. Walden doesn't seem to be imagining a galaxy where men don't exist, just focusing on people and places that choose to live apart from them.
Just like in The End of Summer, Walden's sets and backgrounds do a lot to add interest to the story here. You could probably use a lot of the sights from the comic as inspiration for a scifi roleplaying campaign. In the first half, the abandoned sites the crew fixes up are all beautiful ruins, and they raise a lot of questions about what humans did there before and why they left. In the second half, the harsh, bizarre terrain of the alien planet Mia visits while looking for Grace are simultaneously austere and breathtaking. The sights aren't necessarily the product of a lot of rigorous scifi worldbuilding, but they have an emotional logic that fits each part of the story.
Initially, the story progresses along two tracks. In the present, Mia is a recent graduate who gets a job with a small crew of women to rehab abandoned sites so they can be turned into new housing. In flashbacks, we follow Mia in boarding school as she falls in love with her new classmate Grace. About halfway through, the flashbacks conclude as we learn how Grace and Mia got separated. In the present, having faced her memories, Mia resolves to fly across the galaxy to find Grace again, a search that fills the latter half of the novel.
The story is well-paced. Mia's friendship with her coworkers and her love with Grace both develop organically. And there's good foreshadowing about the importance of a dangerous region of space known as The Staircase. Although the two timelines mostly advance separately from each other, there's a beautiful moment relatively early on when they sync, when Mia makes a bad mistake at the construction site that reminds her of a bad mistake she made at school. Later there are more flashbacks to other characters' pasts, one-off chapters that give each person more depth in turn. The present day scenes are mostly monochrome in shades of lavender purple; the flashbacks are periwinkle blue. And in both, Walden uses color - rich blacks, maroons, oranges, yellows - to scenes with a lot of emotion or other importance. Mia's fondest memories of Grace appear as full-page panels.
In many ways, the first half of Sunbeam feels like a story that could be told in today's world, someplace where young people can make a living working freelance construction jobs. Maybe Brooklyn or Detroit. We have girls' schools. We have demand to convert old factories and churches into apartment buildings. It seems to be taking place in a period of decline, or maybe in the rebound after one, when the population is still down from an earlier high, and it's easier to repair than build something new. The second half, with space travel, and exploration in a pretty hostile planetary environment, feels more overtly science fictional.
Almost all the characters in Sunbeam are women, except Ell, who's described as being non-binary, which to me implies that there are men, just someplace else. The main groups of people we see are the all-girls' boarding school Mia and Grace attended, the small group of friends (including Ell) who do rehab work, and later a women's commune. Walden doesn't seem to be imagining a galaxy where men don't exist, just focusing on people and places that choose to live apart from them.
Just like in The End of Summer, Walden's sets and backgrounds do a lot to add interest to the story here. You could probably use a lot of the sights from the comic as inspiration for a scifi roleplaying campaign. In the first half, the abandoned sites the crew fixes up are all beautiful ruins, and they raise a lot of questions about what humans did there before and why they left. In the second half, the harsh, bizarre terrain of the alien planet Mia visits while looking for Grace are simultaneously austere and breathtaking. The sights aren't necessarily the product of a lot of rigorous scifi worldbuilding, but they have an emotional logic that fits each part of the story.
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| On a Sunbeam chapter 1 page 11 by Tillie Walden |
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| On a Sunbeam chapter 2 page 7 by Tillie Walden |
I also love the sport 'Lux' that Walden introduces us to. It's played at Mia's boarding school, and she's a big fan. It involves the players all flying around the auditorium in go-kart sized miniature fish ships, navigating a series of tunnels, and flying through a rain of confetti they call 'planets.' We don't learn the rules, but she does a good job communicating what it feels like to watch it. Later, Mia's construction friends introduce her to a board game that seems a lot like D&D. I'm always a fan of imaginary new games that show up in fiction.
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| On a Sunbeam chapter 4 page 15 by Tillie Walden |
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| On a Sunbeam chapter 7 page 6 by Tillie Walden |
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