THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2025! I am often asked exactly what I am looking for when I select artists for our Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ programme every year. That is a difficult question to answer because the reasons range from the obvious to a nebulous kind of instinctive reaction to someone’s work. One quality, though, that does always impress me is an artist’s ability to adapt their style for the differing needs of a particular story. Whether that be for reasons of genre, theme or approach.
Cara Brown, of this year’s BF Six, is one such individual. Something she has proved in everything from manga-inspired horror to the realism of the autobiographical Everything’s Fine. Star! is another example of this versatility. But a trigger warning before we go further that it contains themes of sexual abuse. As Brown said when I interviewed her earlier this year at Broken Frontier: “Star! is a comic that touches on some very dark subjects that need to be explored with care. I wrote this comic after delving into the dark sides of the worldwide music industry. As a musician myself, it sort of became a hypothetical from my own perspective, thinking about the situation as one of my biggest fears, whilst acknowledging its prevalence within the industry.”
Star! jumps backwards and forwards in time as we observe a successful young female singer pre-performance having to deal with the demons of the past coming back to haunt her. It’s a story that explores through flashback the predatory nature of elements of the music industry and the toll their behaviour takes on those affected. What is notable here is that Brown explores these issues without looking to give us easy plot resolutions; acknowledging and underlining the prevalence of industry abuse without trivialising it with easy conclusions where everything is neatly tied up.
Colour is used with contrasting shades to show the vibrancy of stardom and the darkness of the days that came before. This is powerful, and obviously in places deeply difficult, material to get through. Brown is skilled at using not just the expressiveness of her character work but also her lettering as a tool to show the overwhelming intensity of the moment, especially in one key scene. The most disturbing sequences of abuse are presented with panels sitting across a larger double-page spread, hinting and informing of events without the need to explicitly show them.
As mentioned, this is work that has an emotional intensity that not everyone may be able to experience for themselves. But it’s also an extremely important piece of comics that does not shy away from the realities of abuse and misogyny, especially in the entertainment business.
Cara Brown (W/A) • Self-published
Review by Andy Oliver
You can find Cara Brown’s linktr.ee here.
Cara Brown will be at Table C19a in the Redshirt Hall at Thought Bubble.
Thought Bubble 2025 runs from November 1oth-16th with the convention weekend taking place on the 15th-16th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2025 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster by Ng Yin Shian
