Like all science-fictional utopias, On a Sunbeam feels imperfect, even (to quote Ursula K. Walden’s dialogue-never talky, but never too sparse to follow-complements her characters’ body language it also brings out the feeling of ninth and tenth grade, when every impediment seems like an apocalypse, and every kind word like an angel’s violin. For Walden, faces and bodies are not types or dummies for action scenes but ways to convey emotion and expression, even as the backdrops-speleological, astronomical, aquatic, or forested-flourish and shine. On a Sunbeam is less like any other American comic, page by page, than it is like a film by Hayao Miyazaki. (Walden can make one pen stroke on one character’s face equal two pages of dialogue.). As with Spinning, can be hard to equal in prose the comic’s inviting, spare line work, use of black-and-white, and expressive qualities.
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