Eisner award-nominated artist and writer Ariela Kristantina returns with her new YA epic adventure, The Girl Who Draws on Whales. This is the first graphic novel that she has both written and illustrated. Comixology plans to release the digital version on October 8, 2024. It will be available in print from Dark Horse March 2025.
Here’s the official synopsis:
The Girl Who Draws on Whales is set in a post-apocalyptic world, several centuries after “The Great Flood.” Siblings Wangi and her younger brother Banyu live in a sea-village. Wangi has a special bond with the Great Whales that visit the sea-village and they allow her to draw on their backs. Sometimes they return with new drawings on them. Wangi believes that there are other sea-villages or island settlements scattered around their oceanic world and that they are sending her messages but none of the elders listen to her.
One day, a new whale arrives in the village alone, wounded, and dying—this whale has a drawing on her back that doesn’t look like the previous drawings. Motivated by this mystery, Wangi vows to investigate. Although forbidden by her parents and the village elders, Wangi—along with a stowaway, who happens to be her younger brother Banyu—embarks on a wondrous sea journey to investigate where the drawings are coming from—only to find much more than they were expecting.
