Li’l Kayla Endures It All

“Precious Rubbish,” a début graphic novel by Kayla E., a book designer turned cartoonist, delivers an unflinching look at the author’s coming-of-age in a rural fundamentalist community in Texas. “Li’l Kayla,” who divides her time between her estranged parents, grapples with her identity and sexuality.

Composed of comic strips, paper dolls, activity-and-game pages, comic-book advertisements, and more, “Precious Rubbish” is disarming and disturbing. The clean lines and primary colors, grounded in mid-twentieth-century commercial art, evoke Chris Ware and Ivan Brunetti. The connection is as much in the content—using humor to explore the pathos of a sensitive child growing up in a cruel and indifferent world—as it is in the form. Brunetti praises Kayla E.’s work as “a triumph of pure resilience―a psychic thick, dark syrup of personal pain, humiliation, and suffering. And it will make you laugh inappropriately (and guiltily), which is the highest praise I can give.” Kayla E. uses her medium to striking effect: her wry portrait reveals a fresh eye, at once vulnerable and undaunted.

In the excerpt below, wide-eyed Li’l Kayla wanders through her world, trying to make sense of the dysfunction around her and blaming herself for the chaos she encounters.

—By Françoise Mouly & Genevieve Bormes

This is drawn from “Precious Rubbish.”