“Treasured Garbage,” a début graphic novel by Kayla E., a ebook designer turned cartoonist, delivers an unflinching take a look at the writer’s coming-of-age in a rural fundamentalist neighborhood in Texas. “Li’l Kayla,” who divides her time between her estranged mother and father, grapples together with her identification and sexuality.

Composed of comedian strips, paper dolls, activity-and-game pages, comic-book ads, and extra, “Treasured Garbage” is disarming and disturbing. The clear strains and first colours, grounded in mid-twentieth-century industrial artwork, evoke Chris Ware and Ivan Brunetti. The connection is as a lot within the content material—utilizing humor to discover the pathos of a delicate baby rising up in a merciless and detached world—as it’s within the type. Brunetti praises Kayla E.’s work as “a triumph of pure resilience―a psychic thick, darkish syrup of private ache, humiliation, and struggling. And it’ll make you snigger inappropriately (and guiltily), which is the best reward I can provide.” Kayla E. makes use of her medium to placing impact: her wry portrait reveals a contemporary eye, directly weak and undaunted.

Within the excerpt beneath, wide-eyed Li’l Kayla wanders by way of her world, making an attempt to make sense of the dysfunction round her and blaming herself for the chaos she encounters.

—By Françoise Mouly & Genevieve Bormes

That is drawn from “Treasured Garbage.”