Hanna is Not a Boy's Name by Tessa Stone

Freshman year I was introduced to Hanna is Not aBoy’s Name; the quirky characters, supernatural setting, and unique use of shaped panels and typography made it incredibly appealing, and it quickly garnered a fandom among my friends during our first year.  Tessa Stone’s art was surprisingly quick to evolve during her time working on Hanna, and you can see her getting a better feel for her characters as we get into chapter two (for instance, the facial structure of each character becomes less boxy and more individually refined, and her line work becomes less chunky).  Reading HiNaBN is like looking at the gorgeous lovechild between graphic design and illustration, and makes it all the more compelling with the way it’s been intertwined with the story.

Which leads to another thing I love about HiNaBN: the characters.  Each character feels fully fleshed out - even those with barely any page time have a feeling of some sort of history behind them, and despite the large cast, no one character feels overshadowed by the other (nor does the character roster feel stuffed).

Unfortunately it’s been almost two years since the comic last updated, but I still have hopes that one day Tessa will come back and pick up the series again (or at least answer the unresolved questions put forth in the comic and through her extraillustrations of the characters).  Maybe.  Not likely, especially since it sounds like she’s picked up some work at Oni Press, but a fan can hope.

We get to one of the characters I'm most interested and it stopped.  Well, guess that's how things role sometimes.