Jillian Tamaki’s web comic ‘SuperMutant Magic Academy’ is a wonderful series about a school for mutant kids with superpowers who spend their time doing what kids do, challenging authority, going through the pains of puberty and trying to figure out who they are and where their place in life is.
Known more for her illustrations and the award winning graphic novel ‘Skim’, which she wrote in conjunction with her cousin, Tamaki draws her inspiration from classic comic strips such as Archie comics, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side and For Better or For Worse. And while none of her influences come from the superhero genre all of them humorously explore the everyday and our existential concerns about life, the universe and everything. Which is what this comic is fundamentally about.
What’s fantastic about this series is that as a web comic Tamaki has the freedom to introduce a wide range of characters and ideas in a diary format without compromising the premise of the story, her web comic slowly building over time with one or two pages going up every week. Here’s what she has to say about the series:
SuperMutant Magic Academy is a webcomic that I started in 2010 on a whim. I had been asked to contribute a comic to Marvel’s Strange Tales II anthology and, despite having no real knowledge of the superhero genre, had a lot of fun. The comic started, and has largely remained, as a fun outlet that exists apart from the typical work that I do– mostly highly polished illustration for clients. SMMA has been a place where I have complete freedom and can play with the comic form in a casual way. (There is nothing casual about making a graphic novel-length book. I’ve done one graphic novel, SKIM, and am currently working on another one, Awago Beach Babies.)
I was delighted to read on her website the ‘SuperMutant Magic Academy’ won an Ignatz for best webcomic at SPX 2012, received an honourable mention in The Best American Comics 2012 anthology, appeared on the long-list for Slate’s first Cartoonist Studio Prize and will be published by the excellent comic publishing company Drawn & Quarterly in Spring 2015.