St. Catherine
cartoonist: Anna Meyer
Publisher: The first second – 23rd Street
Publication date: April 2025
Publications of this month St. Catherine go through Anna Meyer This is a relatively big thing in the graphic novel circle, as the new book marks the comic brilliance of famous kids and YA comic publishers, the first second. Now, you can prove that the first second has long published graphic novels of adults, like In the sun, Laura Dean keeps breaking up with meAnd others, this is a teenage character, but works with adult narratives and themes (knowing nothing about the books they publish Box brown). But with St. Catherine, The publisher has become an official of the brand and in the coming months it has at least four other adult readers released versions, including a comic star, Jesse Lonergan.
So, I’m here St. Catherine Somewhat curious, I wonder how it compares to the first releases of the past. St. Catherine It is also Meyer’s first graphic novel, and I’m not familiar with his works. All of this is saying I had a while back on the calendar and I was really looking forward to it. I ended up enjoying it.
St. Catherine It is one of the stories of New York City where people in their 20s interact, share formative experiences and ride subways, often becoming who they should have been, although it contrasts sharply with the (usually) Midwest route. It’s a familiar setting and setting that has some comfort, some direct sense of direction for readers, knowing exactly where to start when they enter the book.
From there, the book enters what it is special to say. St. Catherine This is a story mainly about the Catholic inner gui. The protagonist of the book comes from such a religious family that her mother calls her every Sunday to make sure she is going to church. She is, she is going to church. In this narrative, our incitement incident is her decision to skip her boyfriend’s teasing.
From there, our protagonist (named Katherine) begins to be haunted by a demon, represented on the page in a cute and versatile blob format. To convey the existence of the demon, the book uses comic-specific visual techniques. With heavy and flooded ink, the demons both plagued Catherine and the page. This is a bit similar to last year’s excellent book, Jellyfishso. However Jellyfish Pages scattered with swelling and spotted jellyfish to convey a mysterious and deteriorating medical condition, Catherine says This is done to convey the narrator’s sense of hiding over the church, some other things she hides and other things she grows up, and away from the strict religious family she grew up in.
All of this is great. It’s a fun devilish way to make the book come and go between Catherine and her tormentor. The devil comes in St. Catherine It’s not that scary (although it would hope you think it is) because it’s fun and it makes the book stand out.
Meyer’s comics are also clean and great, and it reminds me of some of the lines from Tillie Walden, although the bottom layer is much farther and less experimental. In my opinion, the most impressive scene – the Spotted Demon – she envisions a dream sequence of interaction with her patron saint, the actual St. Catherine. These original sequences seem to be taken from stained glass panes, which gives the book a wonderful visual feel.
Overall, I really like it St. Catherine. This is one of those graphic novels with distinct characters and a distinct narrative sense of purpose, without getting you out of plot mistakes. I read it very quickly in both environments, so I was immersed in the story and figured out what was going on. There are some bits that are somewhat predictable here – mostly arcs around mother-daughter relationships – but I don’t think they really hurt experience, if anything. What makes this book really interesting is the wonderful and good twist that I won’t ruin here.
If you like the first second book as much as I do, you will almost certainly like this book. It has the same story sense as the book often does, wonderful artwork and poignant themes, but now our main characters have grown.
Saint Catherine is available on April 29
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