Comic reccomendations for my thesis !

[EdenInTheGardens]

Hi hi ! Soo, I'm part of a pretty specific master's program about comic making (mostly drawing and writing scenarios rather than editing), I need to do a thesis to get my diploma (I'm french so I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense to everyone, I have no idea how higher education works everywhere).

The theme of my thesis would be character relationships and how complicated/atypical it can get, nothing is too set in stone yet, but I think I'd like to focus on dialog ? To be continued !

As an example, I read Elias Ericson's Diana and Charlie (great book i recommend it), which follows the complicated friendship between two transgender teenagers and how they try to support eachother in an environnement that doesn't understand them.
I also read Marie Spénale's Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've loved you for a long time), which is about a middle aged woman who gets shipwrecked on an island, the whole story follows her monologue where she asks complicated questions about her own marriage and what it means to really love someone.

Basically, if you have any example of comics (wether they're actual books, webcomics, manga etc...) which focuses primarly on character relationships and how nuanced they get, I'm all ears !! It can be any genre.

Thank you so much for reading 

[fairyrune]

this might not be ideal for you, as it's still in the early days of being published, but -

runaway to the stars is one of my favourites. it's about three people living and working on a planet colloquially named dirtball. they're waste management workers, specifically in the recycling department, but they all have different roles; talita is an engineer, and her friends idrisah and gillie work as translators for the recycling company.

(un?)fortunately, their day-to-day is rudely interrupted by the arrival of a ship with suspicious recorded data, and an even more suspicious onboard AI named bip. and when bip arrives, they start to question their roles on dirtball, and what else life could have in store.

i've followed the development of the world and its characters for a few years now. last year the comic started getting published, and it updates 3 times a week. it's a really interesting universe and it poses great questions about cultural shifts and norms, accessibility, and prejudice. because of the multitude of species, and the sheer variety in humans now that GMO humans are commonplace, a lot of accommodation is needed - and in many places it falls short, leaving people like talita out (her species, centaurs, are not common where she lives).

it's also just very charming. jay is a fantastic artist and writer, and it's a deeply expressive and beautiful comic. i found myself tearing up already at idrisah's struggles with her family. it might be a scifi universe, but it has some very real, very relatable problems that characters must reckon with. the inciting events of rtts are character-driven in that they must make the choice to leave behind everything they know, and each character has their reasons for doing so.

[varve]

Ooh, seconded Runaway to the Stars!

I'd also like to add And Another Lovely Day, a webcomic about navigating relationships and assumptions around relationships: the two main characters are both aro-ace and everyone around them is certain they're romantically involved because they become friends, and at first they each don't know the other is aro-ace and fears the other is attracted to them...

It's also about how relationships change when people grow in different directions, communication, and perceptions of (im)maturity.

[rolypolyphonic]

Would be remiss of me not to recommend Homestuck, even if just for being one of the ur-examples of webcomics alone.

While I personally don't find the relationships as developed as most do (in large part because the cast is huge and so any given pair or group would always fight for screentime), I can say that the characters are quite unique and that leads to fascinating relationship dynamics.

And if you're specifically looking for 'atypical' relationships, the Trolls having their own 'quadrant' relationship system (and to a lesser degree the Leprechauns, though in the webcomic this was only exposited upon but not really directly a part of the narrative) is a highly fitting example.

[Bede]

Pinky & Pepper Forever is about a toxic sapphic relationship between two art students. It has themes of Catholic guilt, co-dependency, the desire for one's art to be taken seriously, and complex relationships to kink.

[EdenInTheGardens]

@fairyrune

Ohhh yeah I've seen some comic snippets float around on Tumblr I'm pretty sure ! It seems very fun I'll definitely check it out thank you ! plus I do love scifi :]
It's nice to see a main character that looks so obviously alien and isn't too humanoid, I think the chara-designs in general here are pretty creative !
I will emotionally prepare myself to read it with a bunch of tissues then 


@varve

I like the angle of the story as a "non romcom" I think that's fun ! Only checked out the first episode so far but I think it's nice when comic characters are fans of...comics, I like how sometimes the medium will reference itself
I think it's gonna be a good example if I want to talk about heteronormativity and/or amatonormativity ! Thank you a lot !

@rolypolyphonic

God I remember reading it like, right before Covid hit, I also have a lot of very contradictory feelings towards it and the way it uses its characters, I agree that it feels like there is too many characters fighting for screentime, I think it's somewhat of a double edged sword, because the sheer volume of possible relationships and dynamics (with ships but also regarding the quadrants) absolutely kept Homestuck's fandom alive in some way, but I feel like it also made for some pretty shallow characters sometimes.
 I'll keep it in a pocket somewhere because it's such a huuuge comic to explain even putting it down to its basics, if I do a part about non-human characters and non-human emotions I think the quadrant system will at least get a mention ! Thank you !

@Bede

I CAN'T BELIEVE I DIDN'T THINK OF IT, like that sort of story is right in my alley but it didn't cross my mind even once, thank you for reminding me !!