It's
graduation week, and Emma is having to move forward whether she wants
to or not. There are crushes to confess, sexuality to sort out, and a
few (or maybe more than a few) last drinks to down with her best friend
Joey. In her debut graphic novel, The Floundering Time,
Katy Weselcouch tells a story of a time of life when if feels like
you're simultaneously standing in place and being pushed into the world.
Weselcouch
based her story partially on her experiences studying abroad in Paris
and attending Smith College, a private liberal-arts school for women in
Northampton, MA. "I set it around graduation, which felt like a really
unique time for all of us," said Weselcouch. "My last days at Smith
had a simultaneous intensity and stillness that I wanted to capture,
like you are in between your life happening."
In the vein of Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For and Ariel Schrag's Potential and Likewise, The Floundering Time
offers an exploration of love and sexuality without treating them as
"issues." Emma harbors a long standing crush on her transgender friend
Elliott, while Joey goes through a seemingly unending supply of stoic
bad girls as they avoid the looming questions of their "futures."
Weselcouch cites the setting of the story as key to this tone.
"I
wanted to tell a story about people of variant genders and sexualities
where that wasn't the focal point of the story, where they were kind
of just doing their thing, not constantly having to address the
challenges of that," she said. "It's set at a women's college, because
it's a place that exists in a sort of bubble, isolated from the 'real
world.' It feels like a summer camp and sorority mixed together, then
filled with a lot of really bad-ass girls."
The Floundering Time is
a 160-page black-and-white graphic novel, to be released in May 2011.
Its ISBN is 978-1-59362-211-4 and it is priced at $12.95. It will be
available at bookstores, comics stores, Amazon.com, and through the
publisher's own website at www.slgcomic.com. Digital editions for iOS and Android devices will be available from Comixology, Panelfly and iVerse.
Check out a preview of The Floundering Time here on our website. Preorders available from Amazon.com or at your local comic book store. |
