FREE SCI-FI COMICS: On A Sunbeam
"'I'll get it back. I promise. I'll get your powers back."
Ninth-grader Mia leaves school and joins the crew of the Aktis, a reconstruction ship that restores old buildings in space. It's a small crew: Charlotte and her wife Alma plus two other children; Alma' s neice Jules and Elliot.
The galaxy is full of settlements, not all of them planets. Houses, temples and schools also inhabit space as huge self-contained buildings. Spacecraft are shaped like fish (specifically, koi carp), the interiors resembling those of 20th century houses. There are also trains that can take you to other planets...
Mia learns that Elliot is from a settlement called The Staircase in a distant part of the galaxy, a moon with a valuable ecosystem that was colonised many years ago and is off limits to outsiders.
Elliot is not the first person Mia has met from The Staircase, it is also the home of her long-lost girlfriend Grace. A year earlier Grace returned home, leaving her relationship with Mia hanging, with no hope of closure.
Can Elliot find a way for Mia to reconnect with her lost love? Having accepted Mia as part of their family, the crew of the Aktis soon set course for the most dangerous place in the galaxy...
On A Sunbeam by writer/artist Tillie Walden is a love story, a mystery and a hallucinatory science fiction yarn set in a dream-like universe. In Mia's school day flashbacks we see the girls walking through the halls and attending classes, with starry backdrops as the constant view out of the windows. Architecture and clothing are contemporary; this is a straightforward transplantation of the world we know here on Earth out into space.
One other thing: there are no males. Anywhere. Elliot is non-binary; everyone else is female.
Walden's images are fluid and semi-abstract but her characters are proportionally on point and have an easy naturalism. Atmospheric scenes are depicted with long shot vistas and a subtly shifting palette of soft colours.
The story charts the dramatic course of our heroine's relationship: two girls starting a new school, both misfits drawn together by their mutual awkwardness. Mia is easily distracted and not very academic. Grace is a shy loner who spends hours writing and excels in her studies. Together they brave the tribulations of detention, bullying and finding a place in life.
When Grace's three elder sisters arrive at the school to take her home, Mia is left with a hole ripped out of her. The Aktis plunges into the unforgiving landscape of The Staircase, where more than one mystery will be unearthed.
This is a quest to reclaim that which was lost, to make things whole again; a prize worth fighting for.
But will uncovering the truth bring that sense of completeness if the answer to the question is not the one you hope to hear?
Zak Webber
Zak Webber
Twitter - @sfcomicartist / Instagram - @sfcomicartist
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